This blog is called Framing Progress so I thought it'd make sense to explain what I mean by a frame in this context. Think of it like a window frame or a viewfinder.
Imagine you're standing on the top of a hill and before you is a beautiful view. You can see rolling hills marred only by the occasional electricity pylon. So you train your viewfinder to miss out the pylon and show only the beautiful view. Anyone who sees that picture afterwards would never even know the pylon was there.
This is what happens in politics. When George Osborne talked about cuts to the welfare bill, he said:
"... people who think it's a lifestyle choice to just sit on out-of-work benefits - that lifestyle choice is going to come to an end. The money won't be there"
It's an old Tory trick of shifting the debate around benefits to focus on those people we've all heard of or know someone who knows someone who lives the high life on benefits while the rest of us work hard. The Vicky Pollards and Frank Gallagher's of this world. But it was remarkably effective. Labour couldn't argue against it- who could? Who could possibly defend people who refuse to work? Who are lazy. Who choose to do nothing but collect money - OUR money, provided by us, the hard working tax payers. Most of us could probably rage on like this for several minutes more. I call it 'tapping into my inner Daily Mail reader.' The debate on welfare cuts was instantly not about vulnerable people having their already limited money taken away from them, it was about fraudulent people who were getting their just desserts.
The framing of the argument was pretty overt. But it did it's job - it put the opposition - in this case The Labour Party, on the back foot. Their responses appeared timid - neutered. They even said they broadly agreed with Osborne. Many Labour party supporters were aghast at this (myself included) but the trap had been set and was very difficult to side step, especially because Osborne's framing of it had already triggered some deeply held subconscious connections in most of the general public. It tapped into the images of Chavs, of characters in the TV show Shameless and of a un-articulated collective fears to not be taken advantage of. What Osborne was saying to us was, ;those people who do nothing while you're out working are stealing from you. They're taking advantage. We're not going to let that happen any more. I'll make it stop and punish them.'
Several weeks on from the CSR and the Labour party and many people have gathered themselves and created counter arguments - Most people on benefits are not doing it as a lifestyle choice, most are vulnerable and need help and the support that the welfare system is supposed to provide since it's creation. And this has gone some way to oppose Osborne's arguments with the public. BUT - and this is where the framing really comes into it's own, the framing took place WAY before the CSR. The framing began with the very description of what would be cut. The welfare bill.
What's a bill? Something that is owing. It needs to be paid. it's not a pleasant thing. It's something we generally all dislike. We dread them coming through the door. We'd all rather not have them.
Linking Welfare to a BILL - something that creates a negative and unpleasant feeling in most people, is a powerful frame. It's not the Welfare budget, allowance, funding or expenses because those terms wouldn't fit the frame.
Frames can be deliberately created (political consultants and think tanks in the USA spend lots of money doing this) or they can naturally occur because they're a reflection of how an individual or a group of people genuinely conceive subjects. Whichever is the case with Osborne isn't really important. What IS important is that we recognise what frames are being set and resist and redefine them so that the public get to see the whole landscape.
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