What kind of image we have of the world
In communication, there is a fundamental rule: how something is said and
by whom – the ‘narrative context’, or frame – determines how something
is understood. To take one example, if a sensational piece of news is
printed in a reputable newspaper, we are more inclined to believe it than if
it is reported in a tabloid.
This observation was made by Erving Goffman, who described this
form of interpretation as ‘framing’. If we look at a picture in a museum,
we know that it is art even if it looks like a stick figure drawn by a child.
This is because we have learned to recognize the frame ‘modern art’.
Another example: if we go to a restaurant, we know how to behave – how
to interact with the waiter, how to handle a knife and fork, and what to do
with the menu. We know this because we know the frame ‘restaurant’. In
his seminal work The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Goffman uses
the imagery of theatre and acting to describe human social interaction. He
believes that we each adapt our behaviour to each frame and are therefore
a different person in each situation. This means that there is no such thing
as authenticity. We are one person when we are at work, another when we
talk to our parents and quite another when we are lost in a foreign city and
have to communicate with strangers.
Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky famously showed how different
ways of phrasing frame a dilemma and affect people’s responses to a
choice. This logic is used to great effect in advertising. For example, two
yoghurts are on sale: one is ‘90% fat-free’ and the other is touted as
having a ‘10% fat content’. Although both contain equal quantities of fat,
people tend to choose the yoghurt advertised as ‘almost fat-free’, because
the frame for the yoghurt purports that it is a fat-free, healthier product.
The bottom line is: we seldom make rational choices.
There are no objective or authentic messages. Everything that is being
communicated is always framed. And if you want to decode a message, try
to understand the frame.