Framing Bias: Media in the Distribution of Power
2007/03/01 by Robert M. Entman · 1,744 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Democracy #Epistemology #Framing (construction) #Framing effect #History #Ideology #Journalism #Law #Media Influence and Politics #Media Studies and Communication #Media bias #Media studies #Phenomenon #Political science #Politics #Priming (agriculture) #Psychology #Social Media and Politics #Social psychology #Sociology
paper · doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2006.00336.x
published in Journal of Communication 57(1), 163-173 (Oxford University Press)
openalex publication_date 2007/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Abstract
This article proposes integrating the insights generated by framing, priming, and agenda-setting research through a systematic effort to conceptualize and understand their larger implications for political power and democracy. The organizing concept is bias, that curiously undertheorized staple of public discourse about the media. After showing how agenda setting, framing and priming fit together as tools of power, the article connects them to explicit definitions of news slant and the related but distinct phenomenon of bias. The article suggests improved measures of slant and bias. Properly defined and measured, slant and bias provide insight into how the media influence the distribution of power: who gets what, when, and how. Content analysis should be informed by explicit theory linking patterns of framing in the media text to predictable priming and agenda-setting effects on audiences. When unmoored by such underlying theory, measures and conclusions of media bias are suspect.
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