Who Frames the Question?

Framing

Before an argument begins, the terms in which it is conducted have often been settled — and whoever settles them has frequently won. This is the phenomenon known as framing: the selection of particular words, metaphors and points of comparison that make some conclusions seem natural and others almost unthinkable.
Consider the difference between “tax relief” and “tax cuts”. The first frames taxation as an affliction from which citizens need to be relieved; anyone who opposes it appears to favour suffering. The second is more neutral, though not entirely so. Similarly, a policy that “saves 200 jobs out of 600” and one that “loses 400 jobs out of 600” describe exactly the same outcome, yet studies of decision-making have repeatedly shown that people respond to them differently.
Metaphor is among the most powerful framing devices. Crime described as a “virus” invites prevention and treatment; crime described as a “beast” invites capture and punishment. Neither metaphor is false; each tacitly presupposes a different theory of where crime comes from.
To resist framing is not to escape it — every description selects. It is rather to notice the frame, to ask what it includes and excludes, and, where necessary, to propose another.