2019/02/20 by Pascal D. König
Social Sciences · #Ambiguity #Computer science #Economics #Epistemology #Framing (construction) #Framing effect #History #Law #Philosophy #Policy Transfer and Learning #Political science #Positive economics #Public Policy and Administration Research #Public policy #Public relations #Social Policy and Reform Studies #Sociology
paper · doi:10.1080/01442872.2019.1581153
crossref issued 2019/02/20 · crossref published 2019/02/20 · crossref published-online 2019/02/20 · openalex publication_date 2019/02/20 · crossref created 2019/02/21 · openalex created_date 2019/03/02 · crossref published-print 2021/01/02 · crossref deposited 2021/04/30 · crossref indexed 2026/08/03 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
Policy research and particularly social policy analysis have increasingly drawn upon the concept of framing. A number of contributions have demonstrated its usefulness for building explanations of policy change and its consequences. However, the adoption of the concept has also been accompanied by a considerable conceptual ambiguity. It is not only understood in quite different ways, at times its use is also rather vague and far removed from a narrow definition of framing. This paper discusses different ways in which framing is adopted within the field of policy research and the conceptual and epistemological stumbling blocks that follow from them. It argues that the most problematic use occurs where framing is used to characterize policy action and even more so in combination with public opinion changes that framing allegedly brought about. Finally, some ways forward for achieving a more rigorous use of the framing concept in policy research are presented.