Framing biotech messages

messages
Context of received information establishes
how events are internally represented by the
mind
detribe@gmail.com 2019
Very good reading on this topic
• Already mentioned huge and growing gap between the scope of
scientific insight and public awareness
• Human natural attentive capacity is quite limited and mptivation is
need to drive the hard effort to understand new information
• The wide range of scientific information about a topic needs to be
prioritised and compressed to communicate essential features or
gist of the idea,
• Framing is one aspect of information compression used for
communication
• Compression or framing that relies concepts or schemes common
to both sender and receiver is essential for any practical
communication about a topic
 Context (framing) suppresses ambiguity

• In a world of imperfect information ambiguity

is common

Figure 6 Kahneman Ch 7
Context (framing) suppresses ambiguity

• In a world of imperfect information ambiguity

is common
• The human brain exploits context to rapidly
make sense of ambiguous information and
infer what is missing from the message
• Presentation context has crucial effects on
Interpretation of unfamiliar messages
 Scientific papers frame research findings

– Title
– Abstract
– Introduction
– Discussion
• Frame the findings
Headlines, Titles and Headings, Images
Provide Framing
A vaccination frame that is harmful
Moral framing of brain research
https://theconversation.com/genetically-modified-crops-shrink-farmings-pes
ticide-footprint-3004
 3 challenging situations in which careful framing can help
biotechnology communicators (after Druckman and Lupia 2017)

• Succeeding in the competition for attention in

a message saturated news environment
• With a politically polarised topics
• When communication is constrained by a
politically induced status quo bias
 Alternative frames are possible
• The Trojan Horse frame
• The cover-up of real poison frame
• Not getting at the root-cause frame
• Give a helping hand to people who are falling
on hard times frame
– Note these are all simple narratives
Positive versus negative framing
 Framing is persistent and alternative frames
tend to be mutually exclusive
• A framing suppresses doubt and uncertainty
Lessons from Public Health Studies
• Negative framing may seem to have more
impact, but
• The public may be sick of negativity, and
positive framing may cause more behaviour
change
Framing, metaphor, storyline, and analogy
overlap
• Strict Father Morality
• Nurturing Parent Morality
 Narrative plots provide framing
• Overcoming the monster (James Bond)
• From rags to riches (Superman)
• The Quest (Lord of the Rings)
 Avoid repeating damaging frames
• Don’t think of rabbit
• Do you think this is some form of game of
spys?