There are a few keys to understanding about how social problems can be ‘framed.’ Ask yourself–this works best for thinking about a large, modern society–who has access to mass media to try to frame a problem, and how do they try to frame it? Then, if you want to know who’s doing the ‘framing,’ think about who benefits from the social problem. This doesn’t always work, but for many social problems (e.g., the financial crisis, global warming), it does. Why has the oil and gas industry spent hundreds of millions to sow doubt about the role of industrial societies in climate change? Why did the tobacco industry attempt to inject uncertainty into the science showing a strong link between smoking and lung and heart diseases? Why does the processed food industry emphasize the importance of ‘personal choice’ and ‘freedom’ instead of the sugars, fats, salt, and chemicals that lace and flavor so many of its products, or how they’re produced?

Further, think about the concept of ‘framing.’ If you were going to ‘frame’ a picture and put it on your wall, say of your high school reunion, you pretty much have whatever space is inside the frame to tell the story. If the date who stood you up on prom night can be photoshopped out of it, you can take that person out of the frame. Maybe you’d also like to remove that unpleasant assistant principal who now is a part-time security guard at a payday loan kiosk.

So groups with money and power and influence, especially when they can gain access to the mainstream commercial media, can use those advantages to get more messages out to the public more often, and ‘spin’ or ‘frame’ the messages in ways that leave some parts out (other legitimate points of view, perhaps, from people without the means or knowledge to be heard?), while emphasizing others (their own?).

Not all framing is self-serving, but when there is money at stake, beware, and the more money, the higher the stakes. Also, just to re-emphasize, to understand who is attempting to frame an issue in a certain way, think about who has access to the media. You and me? Maybe you got lucky and you have a million Instagram followers. Or not. Who has a huge advertising budget? Who can hire ‘experts’ and work to get them on the evening news? Who can attract news coverage by associating themselves with celebrities? Who can scare, and possibly distract, the public? The Bush/Cheney Administration, after the attacks of 9/11, used color-coded ‘terror alerts‘ that heightened people’s fear of a ‘war on terror.’ President Trump uses his twitter account to try to set the tone for news for the day. He is also quite adept at changing the subject when the coverage is unflattering. Back to 9/11 and fear, which could be used to justify increased spending on ‘defense’ (more framing …) and ‘national security,’ or even to take the public’s mind off some other story a White House would prefer not to address. News media organizations, especially television, are also obviously important actors in how social problems are presented to the public. Information doesn’t just ‘pass through’–they make decisions about what to cover, what not to cover, how to cover it, where to put it, and how long to cover it, and often those decisions have as much to do with what will keep people watching/reading as they do with what seems from a journalism point of view to be most important.

Poverty–This is a classic problem where blame gets pointed in different directions, depending on your own philosophy and who you’re listening to. Poor people are often characterized as lazy and unmotivated, undeserving of public assistance, people who made ‘bad choices’ and should suffer the consequences–the individual explanation of poverty–that it is a problem of individuals. This is often how commercial news media portray poverty–rarely do they discuss the successes of welfare in keeping people out of poverty–much more often it is the story of the exception, the individual who abused the system. Ronald Reagan used a story about the ‘welfare queen’ in the 1980s to stifle debate on poverty and make it appear that many people on welfare were abusing the system (there was no ‘welfare queen,’ by the way–Reagan made the story up–this from public media). The other ‘framing’ you will see is more structural, and supported by an examination of people’s socioeconomic chances. The table below suggests something else going on, a lack of opportunity to those less well-off, a low risk of the Kardashians or Jenners of the world ever falling from privilege. If you think about who advertisers are trying to reach on television, though–mostly affluent audiences with money to spend on luxury goods–it stands to reason that the structural ‘framing’ may not be so good for ratings or advertising revenue, might instead make people feel guilty or angry, and push for different kinds of policies that would raise taxes, for instance.

Divorce–This one is a little trickier here, and there are valid cases to be made that higher divorce rates have actually made many peoples’ lives better (for instance, in households where abuse and domestic violence were occurring). But if you think about divorce and how it’s framed by the media, there is clearly still a stigma attached. In most movies, the hero, if he (and it’s usually a he …) has no spouse, is widowed, not divorced. Divorced women are less likely widowed, more likely portrayed either as bitter or sexualized. There is still a stigma attached to divorce, though it is changing, and in fact, only half the families in the US now are of the stereotypical two parent-heterosexual 2.2 children variety. Nevertheless, divorce is usually framed as an individual problem–couples that for whatever reason no longer get along. But as mentioned previously there are structural issues at work as well. Where divorce is a little trickier is because there isn’t a clear set of beneficiaries who profit from a certain framing of the problem of divorce. Or is there?

The financial crisis–The financial industry pours millions into political campaigns, and into lobbying of politicians seeking policies favorable to their interests–policies that either increase their income potential, or decrease chances of reducing income (e.g., stricter regulation). After the bailouts from both Bush/Cheney and Obama, the Government had a vested interest in making sure all of those trillions were seen as wise uses of public monies. The financial services industry also spends billions on advertising, and we know that wealthier groups are more likely to watch and read the news. Financial News Networks may suffer from ‘source filtering’ because so much of their advertising comes from the financial services industry, they’re hesitant to do anything that might harm investment, which would harm their own bottom line.

The (in)famous rant by Rick Santelli on CNBC was a clever suggestion that the problem was with irresponsible borrowers who had tried to buy more house than they could afford. He says let them lose their homes and let someone come in and purchase them (at bargain prices, mind you), hold onto them, and resell them for a profit later (methinks Rick’s childhood never involved a foreclosure or eviction). He also blames the government for bailing out borrowers (the vast majority of the bailout funds went to the banks, and were used to provide loans to the automotive industry, for instance). He doesn’t mention why there was such an epidemic of high-risk lending. Neither would he mention the much higher proportion of profits gleaned by the financial industry relative to other industries in the last couple of decades.

Politicians (many of whom were benefiting themselves through campaign donations or investments or positions they secured after leaving public office in the financial industry) sought to avoid regulation that might put a damper on this financial ‘innovation.’ Chairman of the Federal Reserve–the US Central Bank–Alan Greenspan, along with the most influential economists in the Administration (Clinton, Bush, and later Obama), such as Lawrence Summers, Robert Rubin, Glenn Hubbard (all landed on their feet, thank you), all insisted that government regulation was not necessary, and would stifle investment and wealth generation. Those who were questioning lending and investment practices, the blurring of the lines between commercial and investment banks, and the heavy ‘leveraging’ (meaning banks were lending much more than they could cover), regulators like Brooksley Born, people actually risking their necks to warn the regulators and the financial industry, saw their careers plateau or worse. In the financial industry, even a hint of bad news can sour stock trading, which can have a cascading effect, and this rarely if ever changes, so don’t expect that economist on the news to recommend you take your money out of the bank and stuff it under your mattress.