The science of framing ideas

Tags: Communication, Marketing, Tyranny of too much

The New York Times magazine had a terrific feature article on George Lakoff's work on "framing" ideas for the Democrats in response to the highly effective communication campaigns Republicans have used successfully for years. Blackfriars is a huge fan of Lakoff's work; we too believe that people's brains are influenced heavily by stories and anecdotes that may influence listeners more than logical and rational arguments.

Lest anyone disagree that the Republicans have been highly effective at communicating their message, the article points out a significant difference in how the parties communicate:

''I can describe, and I've always been able to describe, what Republicans stand for in eight words, and the eight words are lower taxes, less government, strong defense and family values,'' Dorgan, who runs the Democratic Policy Committee in the Senate, told me recently. ''We Democrats, if you ask us about one piece of that, we can meander for 5 or 10 minutes in order to describe who we are and what we stand for. And frankly, it just doesn't compete very well. I'm not talking about the policies. I'm talking about the language.''

Blackfriars believes that what you say cannot be extracted from how you say it. And while this article does its best to note that framing is nothing more than a tool (we would agree), we believe it is a powerful tool in today's world of the tyranny of too much.

But we do have to agree with the writer of the article that Lakoff missed the boat in his response to the Republican eight words:

Consider, too, George Lakoff's own answer to the Republican mantra. He sums up the Republican message as ''strong defense, free markets, lower taxes, smaller government and family values,'' and in ''Don't Think of an Elephant!'' he proposes some Democratic alternatives: ''Stronger America, broad prosperity, better future, effective government and mutual responsibility.''

The problem here is that he's unwilling to draw a clear distinction between the two positions. One of the litmus tests we use is whether the opposing viewpoint could use the same words to describe their position. If that is the case, then your position needs more clarity. Do we think the Republicans wouldn't be for a strong America? How about broad prosperity?

We believe it would be better to draw the lines more clearly with a statement like "Security for all, fair markets, fair taxes, and protection for the less fortunate." If nothing else, it would draw the distinctions between the two parties more clearly and provide substance for a discussion of the two views. And given that the current political environment tends to discourage discussion, that would be a huge step forward.