It is set up for failure.

To put such a cynical marketing spin on it I believe is your work, not Lakoff's.

Or do you think you really can just not think of an elephant?

media girl

Yes it is.  It is sales and marketing, with a touch of manipulative psychology thrown in.

In a perfect world, a grassroots education campaign on the real impacts of restricting women's health care choice could open the eyes of swing voters and win them to our side of the issue.  But I am cynical through and through.  That's not happening.  We have to compete in the sound bite space as well.

Perhaps "framing" as a brand name is tired.  But you know what's even more tired?  Democrats who talk like Republicans, and are then surprised when they lose, lose, lose.  If we ignore framing, we will continue to have Democrats kneecapping themselves by using terms like "pro-life" and "death tax" and "Social Security modernization."

That is what leads to Bill Ritter for Governor in Colorado, and Bill Casey for Senator in Pennsylvania in my opinion.  Framing simply says "be aware of how language works and why to avoid using Republican terminology."  We ignore it at our peril.

Angie and Bill: Colorado's bright future!

From "Don't Think of an Elephant" p. 100 in FAQ:

The notion of reframing sounds manipulative. How is framing different from spin or propaganda?

Framing is normal. Every sentence we say is framed in some way. When we say what we believe, we are using frames that we think are relatively accurate. When a conservative uses the "tax relief" frame, chances are that he or she really believes that taxation is an affliction. However, frames can be used manipulatively. The use, for example, of "Clear Skies Act" to name an act that increases air pollution is a manipulative frame. And it's used to cover up a weakness that conservatives have, namely that the public doesn't like legislation that increases air pollution, and so they give it a name that conveys the opposite frame. That's pure manipulation.

Spin is the manipulative use of a frame. Spin is used when something embarrassing has happened or has been said, and it's an attempt to put an innocent frame on it -- that is, to make the embarrassing occurrence sound normal or good.

Propaganda is another manipulative use of framing. Propaganda is an attempt to get the public to adopt a frame that is not true and is known not to be true, for the purpose of gaining or manipulating political control.

The reframing I am suggesting is neither spin nor propaganda. Progressives need to learn to communicate using frames that they really believe, frames that express what their moral views really are. I strongly recommend against any deceptive framing. I think it is not just morally reprehensible, but also impractical, because deceptive framing usually backfires sooner or later.

Page 105:

So all I have to do to reframe my issue is think up some sound bite-worthy terms and use them in place of the conservative terms?

No! Reframing is not just about words and language. Reframing is about ideas. The ideas have to be in place in people's brains before the sound bite can make any sense. For example, take the idea of "the commons" -- that is, our common inheritance, like the atmosphere or the electromagnetic spectrum (bandwidths). These are common inheritances of all humanity, and most people who discuss them in this way refer to them as "the commons." Yet the idea of a common inheritance and of using it for the public good is not yet part of the frame structure that most people use every day. For this reason you can't just make up a sound bite about the commons and have most people understand it and agree with it.

The book is 119 pages -- a relatively short read. And it's formatted to be easy to scan. If anyone reading this here has not actually read the book, I can't recommend it highly enough.

At the very least, just pick it up and glance at it in the bookstore. Flip to chapter one and just read one or two pages. Flip to p. 110.

Framing is not something to be scared about or sickened over -- it's a short and incisive explication of what's been happening in our political discourse. We ignore it at our peril.

media girl