Media Framing

The article Media Framing of Matthew Shepard really opened my eyes to how media framing can determine public perception.  Media framing is the process by which an issue is portrayed in the news media.  Media frames provide boundaries around a news story and determine what is and is not newsworthy or notable.  The goal of the article was to help better understand how media frames and helps the public negotiate tragic events such as the murder of Matthew Shepard, as well as how this framing shaped public opinions. 

The article argued that the way the media framed the tragedy absolved the general population from feeling any guilt.  It allowed the prejudice and hate to continue and it prevented any real political change from happening.    

  

Before this lecture I had never thought of media framing as a tool in negotiating through tragic events.  It is a very interesting concept to me, and not one that I would have thought about if I had not read this article and attended lecture.  In the article it defines the different frames that the media can give to an event and goes on to explain that the murder of Matthew Shepard was reported on through the lens of a tragic frame.  The reporting was done in such a way that no one needed to reflect on social or political change because Henderson and Mickinney were exceptions rather than the rule; they were portrayed as evil and not at all like the “normal” American.  I think that the authors of the article bring up a good point.  If the media had framed Matthew Shepards death in a different way perhaps more change and acceptance would have come from it.  By showing Henderson and Mickinney as evil it showed the public that, once they were punished, order was restored. 

As a consumer of the news media, I trust that the media will make mistakes, but I largely assume that they are presenting me with reality or “the way it is.”  I understand that as humans we will never be fully objective and therefore the journalist that writes the articles that I read will be putting their opinions (knowingly or not) into their work.  This is something that I am fairly comfortable with.  Things start to get less comfortable for me when I read articles about how the media reported on the death of Matthew Shepard.  The idea that the framing of this death influenced public opinion and “reproduced a discursive system of prejudice that attributed to Shepard’s death” is concerning.  

I am not really sure what my opinions are about this subject, I wrote a blog about it in an attempt to get a better idea. Instead, all that I have come up with is the importance of getting your information from multiple sources.  When a tragic event happens, or any event for that matter it is incredibly important to get your information from as many different sources as possible.  Media framing happens, news stores are published based upon hype, popularity, and scandal and that is not going to change.  The best shot that we have to be informed citizens (in my opinion) is to keep watching and reading only with a critical mind and a variety of sources.