Framing-How Your Thoughts Are Controlled!

I’m back! If you thought my blogging days were over, then you’re as wrong as I was. I’ve returned to my blogging journey for my CAP 210 class. Today I’ll be examining an example of framing within the news. Framing is the act of controlling what/how people think about something by selectively choosing what to focus on. It’s easy to say the news is the main culprit of this, however everyone does this. Conversations consist of people focusing on certain facts and choosing to leave others out. I think people give the news a hard time for framing because it seems manipulative, and it can be. In this post I’m going to highlight how two different news channels framed the same story to create two very different pictures. If you’re still confused about framing, check out the illustration below.

In May of 2020 a video of George Floyd’s arrest and death went viral, causing widespread outcry. Partially organized and inspired by Black Lives Matter(the group), amongst others, people began showing how much they care. It is here that the news diverges. Some channels and outlets decided to focus on the good. They decided to share the events as ‘widely peaceful protests’ or under similar pretenses. This wasn’t necessarily untrue, after all, it only takes one malfunctioning outlet to cause a house fire.

Other news channels focused on the figurative malfunctioning outlet and house fire. These channels used terms with negative connotations to describe the unrest, like ‘race riots’. Despite this being quite different from the story told by the afore mentioned news outlets, it’s also not necessarily untrue. Near the end of 2020, an estimated $1-2 billion dollars’ worth of insured damage had been done. After only one week(following George Floyd’s death), an estimated $500 million dollars’ worth of property damage had been done in Minneapolis-Saint Paul(where George Floyd died) area alone.

Are these versions compatible? Yes. They’re two parts of a bigger picture. Many peaceful protesters took to the streets after George Floyds death, but not all the protests/protesters were peaceful or civil. Some were violent and destructive. They were rightly labeled as rioters or looters. Neither version of story is untrue, but they are misleading, because neither story is complete.

I used Wikipedia for some dates and figures-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932022_United_States_racial_unrest