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This study examines meta-coverage in Campaign 2000, defined as (a) .... and behaviors of the news media in campaign events and outcomes and (b) news.
ARTICLE 10.1177/0002764202238489 AMERICAN Esser, D’Angelo BEHA / CAMPAIGN VIORAL SCIENTIST 2000 META-COVERAGE

Framing the Press and the Publicity Process A Content Analysis of Meta-Coverage in Campaign 2000 Network News

FRANK ESSER University of Mainz

PAUL D’ANGELO State University of New York–Albany

This study examines meta-coverage in Campaign 2000, defined as (a) coverage of the behaviors, products, and performance of the news media and (b) coverage of candidates’ use of paid media, communication personnel, and other forms of strategic communication. Using a new model of press framing, a content analysis was conducted on 284 stories aired from September 4 to November 6 on ABC and NBC evening news programs. Results show that 55 stories contained enough press designators and 75 stories contained enough publicity designators to qualify for framing analysis. A small percentage (12%) contained overlapping press and publicity designators, resulting in 116 stories that qualified for framing analysis. Results showed 11 script structures corresponding to three frames called conduit, strategy, and accountability, which contained different degrees of cynicism. A frame-by-topic matrix indicated that press and publicity frames occurred most frequently in stories about politics and processes.

Like Jimmy Carter, McCain invented a new route to stardom. In 1976, Carter turned the Iowa caucuses, until then obscure events, into a launching pad. McCain’s version of Iowa: the media. He’s worked the precincts of the press corps like an Irish pol in Southie on St. Patrick’s Day, offering his near obsessive candor and availability to reporters reared in an era of antagonism between the media and the politicians. —Fineman (2000, p. 25)

News coverage of the “McCain mutiny” (Alter, 2000) during the early primary phase of the 2000 presidential campaign was on one level about Senator McCain’s ideological and political challenge to the GOP front-runner, Governor George W. Bush. The subplot, however, was that journalists and the news media actively participated in the unfolding events (D’Angelo, 2000). Across the spectrum of print and electronic news formats—in hard news, features, panel discussions, sidebar stories, political and media analysis, commentaries, and AMERICAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST, Vol. 46 No. 5, January 2003 617-641 DOI: 10.1177/0002764202238489 © 2003 Sage Publications

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editorials— for a short time, the news media gave considerable attention to the consequences of its “perilously intoxicating level of access” (Alter, 2000, p. 30) to Senator McCain. Howard Fineman of Newsweek quoted a Bush adviser who “groused” that easy access to Senator McCain influenced journalists to cover his campaign too favorably. Reporters “sold out for a box of doughnuts and a bus ride” (Fineman, 2000, p. 25), complained the source. This incident provides a point of departure for an investigation of Campaign 2000 election news that “turns the spotlight inward” (Johnson & Boudreau, 1996) toward the behaviors, roles, and standards of the news media and toward the presence and role of the mass media in candidates’ appearances and publicity efforts. Content analyses of print and broadcast coverage of previous presidential campaigns have used various terms to refer to this kind of coverage, including self-referential or process news (Kerbel, 1998), meta-communication (Esser, Reinemann, & Fan, 2001), media narcissism (Lichter, Noyes, & Kaid, 1999), coverage of coverage (Gitlin, 1991; Stebenne, 1993), stories about the media (Johnson & Boudreau, 1996), media process news (Kerbel, Apee, & Ross, 2000), media stories (Stempel & Windhauser, 1991), and press selfcoverage (D’Angelo, 1999). These and other studies (see Buchanan, 1991; Tankard & Sumpter, 1994) differ in how they conceptualize and measure this kind of news. As a result, it is difficult to determine if the apparent increase in its amount over the past few election cycles is real or an artifact of different systems of measurement and different sampling decisions (see Johnson & Boudreau, 1996). Nevertheless, political communication researchers have seized on the notion that structural changes in American elections since the early 1970s have catalyzed a shift in campaign reporting. Stemming from the proposed reforms of the McGovern-Fraser Commission, these changes democratized the nomination process but severely weakened the role of political parties (Crotty & Jacobson, 1980; Lengle, 1980; Marshall, 1980; Polsby, 1983), resulting in a shift from party-centered to candidate-centered elections (Agranoff, 1976; Arterton, 1984; Wattenberg, 1994). Candidate-centered campaigns are conducted via the “new mediator” (Davis, 1992) of the news media and are characterized by ever-evolving rules of engagement between candidates and the press corps called media politics (Arterton, 1984; Blumler, 1990; Blumler & Gurevitch, 1981; Nimmo & Savage, 1976; Patterson, 1980, 1993). Candidates rely on professional consultants who aid them in campaigning for the news media and through other communications channels (e.g., television ads) and media formats (e.g., appearances on television talk shows) (Johnson-Cartree & Copeland, 1997; Sabato, 1981). The press, among other things, tells stories whose themes richly reflect the media politics environment in which the press corps works. Some of these stories simply describe an aspect of media politics (e.g., Candidate x appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show today). Other times, stories about media politics are analytical and proactively critical of candidates’ media tactics (e.g., Candidate x appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show today as part of an effort

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to soften his image) or of the press (e.g., Sources say that journalists are too focused on the tactics of candidate X, who is appearing on the Oprah Winfrey Show). This study examines how the press and publicity are covered in the media politics environment. It has three aims, encompassing aspects of theory and method. First, it proposes a new term, meta-coverage, and argues for an analytical separation between its two dimensions: (a) news about the role, presence, and behaviors of the news media in campaign events and outcomes and (b) news about the publicity efforts of candidates that take place in media formats not traditionally allied to the mainstream press but whose strategic intent is to garner coverage in the mainstream press. Second, it builds on the content analysis approach used in several studies on meta-coverage (e.g., Johnson & Boudreau, 1996; Kerbel, 1998) in which content categories are reliably measured but deeper meanings of content are not fully theorized. This study uses framing analysis, a kind of content analysis that observes deeper meanings of content to enable valid and reliable measurement of themes called frames. Along these lines, this study extends the framing analyses of Kerbel (1997; Kerbel et al., 2000) by proposing a new model of the framing process in campaign stories that contain meta-coverage. Finally, this study demonstrates the utility of the model via a quantitative content analysis of press and publicity frames found in Campaign 2000 stories broadcast from September 4 to November 6 on ABC World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News.

DEFINING META-COVERAGE Meta-coverage is defined as coverage of media politics that explicitly describes the role in shaping campaign events and outcomes played by the news media, communications technology, public relations, and media organizations not traditionally tied to the news media (see Esser et al., 2001). There are two distinct dimensions of meta-coverage. The first dimension refers to coverage of the presence, behaviors, products, and roles of the news media, journalists, and other news personnel. Kerbel (1999) stated, “Journalists, in earlier times passive communicators of information about political figures, have increasingly emerged from the background to talk about themselves—their political observations, their experiences covering politicians, even their thoughts about how well they cover the news” (p. 83). Hallin (1992) remarked on one aspect of this trend when he documented the “shrinking sound bite” in campaign coverage, showing that news media cover less and less of candidates’ own words in network news. The second dimension refers to coverage of candidates’ publicity efforts that are explicitly conducted vis-à-vis the mass media but without mention of the presence, role, or influence of the news media per se. This dimension includes

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news stories or parts of news stories about paid media (political advertising), allotted media (televised debates), soft media (appearances on entertainment programs), communication personnel (campaign aides, media advisers), and other forms of strategic communication, political public relations, and public image management. In the broadest sense, these stories cover how consultants aid candidates in waging a meta-campaign to capture the news media’s attention and control how their policy and images messages are covered (Carey, 1976; see also Diamond & Bates, 1988; Kaid & Johnston, 1991). For example, a candidate will give reporters access to his or her debate preparation in the effort to communicate to the press that the candidate has physical stamina and mental acuity about the issues. As Ansolabehere, Behr, and Iyengar (1991) stated, “Electoral politics in the United States is, for better or worse, increasingly contingent upon the candidates’ media strategies and media treatment of [those strategies] in campaign events” (p. 109). The two dimensions of meta-coverage—press and publicity—can at times overlap within news stories. Indeed, the purpose of meta-campaigning is in many instances to influence and manipulate journalists, who in analytical and preemptively critical fashion report that the news media are the object of influence and manipulation. In an attempt to reflect this situation, the two benchmark content analyses of Kerbel (1998) and Johnson and Boudreau (1996) pursue a strategy of both eliding and differentiating press and publicity dimensions. Despite complications in coding these dimensions, both studies agree on the amount of meta-coverage relative to other types of campaign news. For example, Kerbel (1998) measured self-referential and process news relative to (a) horse race (reporter assessments of electoral competition), (b) issue (candidate positions and performance), (c) image (character and capability of candidates and their posturing and preening on the stump), and (d) nonissue events (specific occurrences that have no bearing on policy issues but are more distinctive than are simple image references). Horse race constituted the majority of coverage, 48% on CNN and 37% on ABC, although the totals are somewhat misleading due to the fact that some statements were coded as being about more than one topic (see Kerbel, 1998). In addition, Kerbel found that more coverage was devoted to issues than to the news media. Similarly, Johnson and Boudreau (1996) observed the amount of meta-coverage relative to horse race news, nonissue or campaign events, policy issue news, and a final category called general campaign news (not found in Kerbel’s typology). They too found that the majority of news was about the horse race and that more coverage was about issues than about the news media. Divergent philosophical perspectives—postmodern and liberal pluralist— frame research on meta-coverage. Norris (1997) explained that postmodern elections are characterized by extensive news management, the professionalization of political advocacy within increasingly fragmented media channels, and an epistemological stance toward mainstream news in which

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representing reality is suspect because news gathering is reflexively linked to the construction of political reality. Along these lines, Gitlin (1991), Altheide and Snow (1991), and Bennett (1992) argued that meta-coverage is an attempt on the part of campaign journalists to deconstruct manipulation of the press by candidates. The result, as Bennett stated, is “redundancy . . . and loss of context,” both of which are the “hallmarks of postmodern symbolics” (p. 26). Those who adhere to a postmodern perspective of media politics find more meta-coverage than do Kerbel (1998) and Johnson and Bourdeau (1996), who adhere to a liberal-pluralist perspective. That perspective leaves intact the prospect that the press can represent reality—but only if journalists avoid covering the press and publicity and simply convey to the electorate the substantive policy stances of each candidate (see also Patterson, 1980, 1993). For example, Kerbel found that 20% of 1992 campaign news on ABC and CNN contained metacoverage. By contrast, Bennett (1992), adhering to postmodernist assumptions, stated that almost two thirds—more than 60%—of 1988 presidential election news was “coverage of coverage” (p. 35).

IS META-COVERAGE CYNICAL? One of the most persistent questions in the literature on meta-coverage is whether it portrays media politics in a uniformly cynical way. There currently is much disagreement about this point and hence about the effects of the exposure to meta-coverage on news consumers. Kerbel (1997, 1998, 1999) champions the view that all meta-coverage cynically depicts campaign events because stories that contain it are enveloped by a “strategic haze.” Particularly troublesome to Kerbel (1999) is the implication that “there are no virtuous actors . . . because [stories] are so often told in the first person by people reporting about a system in which they play an important role” (pp. 88-89). The result, he speculates, is that exposure to meta-coverage invites individuals to attribute cynical motives to all political actors, including the press (see Cappella & Jamieson, 1997). Some observers follow Kerbel (1997, 1998, 1999) in arguing that all metacoverage is cynical and cultivates cynicism within the electorate (Entman, 1989; Jamieson, 1992; Lichter et al., 1999; Steele & Barnhurst, 1996). Other researchers are circumspect about the cynical nature and effects of meta-coverage. Johnson and Boudreau (1996) argued that “general media stories,” the most numerous category in their sample, were neutral with respect to the campaign process. They concluded, “Researchers’ fears that coverage of the media is increasing voter cynicism by portraying politicians as self-interested media manipulators and journalists as willing dupes . . . may be overstated” (p. 665). Moreover, if news is not really analyzing the media’s role in the election process but simply treating the media as part of the campaign, then “claims that the media are

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educating people about how politicians manipulate the press may also be overblown” (p. 665).

A FRAMING PERSPECTIVE ON META-COVERAGE Kerbel conducted two framing studies of meta-coverage (see Kerbel, 1997; Kerbel et al., 2000). Both studies are grounded on the argument that framing is a better approach than is content analysis to understand the content of selfcoverage. Framing analysis “is more far-reaching than a simple explanation of the themes or subjects of campaign stories,” stated Kerbel et al. (2000, p. 12). In fact, there is a running argument throughout the framing literature that framing analysis offers media researchers better techniques with which to (a) observe the content of messages, culminating always in the identification of the frame or frames in these messages and (b) design studies that explore the effects of these frames on outcomes spanning individual- to group-level processes (D’Angelo, 2002; Scheufele, 1999). Kerbel (1997) conducted a qualitative assessment of 1996 presidential campaign coverage from print (Newsweek and the Washington Post) and from the evening news programs on ABC, NBC, and CBS. He found that all instances of meta-coverage—presumably encompassing all utterances in the five content analysis categories from his content analysis of 1992 campaign news—are enveloped within a cynical “strategic haze.” In the second framing study, also of 1996 presidential campaign news, Kerbel et al. (2000) examined stories from ABC’s World News Tonight and a sample of stories from PBS’s NewsHour that aired from the primary phase to the general election phase. For each story, Kerbel et al. coded the amount of coverage devoted to each of 10 separate frames that were encompassed in four general classifications, called politics, personalities, ideas, and processes. Overall, Kerbel et al. found that ABC and PBS did not significantly differ in the amount of coverage devoted to the media process frame. About one in four stories from each network contained a media process frame in a primary or secondary role—a figure that matches Kerbel’s (1998) finding about the amount of self-referential utterances in 1992 campaign news. Finally, PBS shared with its commercial counterpart the orientation toward covering the campaign as a horse race and in terms of strategy. Slightly more than one half of the PBS stories contained these frames in a primary or secondary role compared with about 63% for ABC coverage. Although both of Kerbel’s framing studies (Kerbel, 1997; Kerbel et al., 2000) move research on meta-coverage into a promising new direction, it is limited because neither fully adheres to principles of framing. Specifically, Kerbel et al. (2000) do not identify a specific topic or framing devices that compose each of the 10 frames. These conceptual lapses make it reasonable to question their speculations that there is a singular, cynical frame purveyed by meta-coverage;

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Step 1: Select Sample Case Study or Omnibus Sample

Step 3: Analyze Framing Devices SYNTAX +PROPOSITIONS = SCRIPTS

Press/Publicity + [Topic] a

PRESS FRAMES

Step 4: Identify Press/Publicity Frames (Conduit, Strategy, Accountability)

Step 2: Analyze Topics and Designators

Figure 1:

The Framing Process in Campaign Meta-Coverage

a. One or more of the eight topics, adapted from Kerbel, Apee, and Ross (2000), excluding the media process topic. Topics include (a) electioneering and/or campaigning, (b) voters and/or public opinion, (c) electoral and/or political system, (d) issues and/or plans, (e) prospective and/or retrospective evaluations, (f) ideology and/or political worldviews, (g) personal character, and (h) nonissues and/ or misdemeanors.

in turn, this leaves open the question of the impact of the cynical frame on audience interpretations and attitudes about campaign politics.

A NEW MODEL OF PRESS AND PUBLICITY FRAMING Figure 1 presents a new model of the framing process in news reports that contain meta-coverage. The model is adapted from the framing model of Pan and Kosicki (1993). It shows that four steps are required to identify press and publicity frames. This section explicates these steps, culminating in the identification of three press frames and three publicity frames, called conduit, strategy, and accountability. Campaign stories with a conduit frame highlight the connectivity function of the press or of communications media. Campaign stories with a strategy frame highlight the antagonism between candidates and the news media, encompassing the news media’s consequential role and the candidates’ tactical maneuvering. Campaign stories with an accountability frame highlight journalistic standards, behavior, and norms or focus on publicity acts in the context of democracy and the public sphere. This section describes the model and presents findings from a content analysis of Campaign 2000 presidential election news. Each stage of the model gives rise to specific research questions, stated as follows: (a) What kinds of propositions and scripts are found in Campaign 2000 meta-coverage? (b) How are these propositions and scripts formative of press and publicity frames? (c) Are press and publicity frames uniformly cynical? (d) In which topics of Campaign 2000 coverage do press and publicity frames occur?

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STEPS 1 AND 2: SAMPLE, TOPICS, AND DESIGNATORS

Step 1 in Figure 1 indicates two options for sample selection. The first option, a case study approach, encourages researchers to purposively select coverage of specific events or episodes that contain meta-coverage and then analyze press framing of composite topics (e.g., media process and nonissue) within those campaign stories. In the second option, the sample is selected on a representative basis during a longer time period. This study employs the second option. It examines 284 network news stories aired between Labor Day (September 4, 2000) and the day before the election (November 6, 2000). Out of these stories, 145 were aired on ABC’s World News Tonight and 139 on NBC’s Nightly News. With an average audience share of 10.5 and 10.7 million viewers every weeknight, respectively, those were the two most-watched newscasts during Campaign 2000. All presidential campaign stories on ABC and NBC were videotaped for that time period. Given the complex nature of the coding strategy, a consensus approach was employed to assess the reliability of all variables.1 This procedure followed that of Kerbel et al. (2000). Specifically, two trained coders who worked together watched every story multiple times. Agreement was required of both, with discrepancies resolved through discussion. If despite repeated viewing, no agreement could be reached on a specific variable, that variable was not coded. A framing analysis is conducted under the principle that a topic must be specified before frames of that topic can be identified (D’Angelo, 2002). Step 2 stipulates that the press or publicity are never the sole topics in a campaign story, even if it contains enough linguistic or verbal references to the news media or to publicity to warrant the claim that the story is “about” the news media or publicity. The theoretical grounds for this stipulation lie in the relational nature of media politics (Arterton, 1984). As Blumler and Gurevitch (1981) stated, the instrumental goals of candidates and the news media are mingled to such an extent that news stories about electoral politics “may virtually be said to constitute a subtly composite entity” (p. 469). Thus, the press and publicity are always covered in conjunction with other campaign topics. The topics with which press and/or publicity topics comingle are derived from the list of 10 frames of Kerbel et al. (2000). However, the present analysis contains several conceptual and operational modifications. First, to more closely follow framing principles, what they call frames are here called topics. Second, their four classifications of 10 frames are collapsed into three classifications of eight topics in this analysis. Specifically, the following three topics are classified as politics and process: electioneering and/or campaigning, voters and/or public opinion, and electoral and/or political system. The following three topics are classified as ideas: issues and/or plans, prospective and/or retrospective evaluations, and ideology and/or political worldviews. Two topics were classified as personalities: personal character and nonissues and/or misdemeanors. The press or publicity story topic is placed alongside one or more of these

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TABLE 1:

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Campaign 2000 Stories With a Salient Number of Press and Publicity Designators Press Designatorsa

None No press or publicity designators in story 103 (36%) Peripheral presence Designators found in less than 10% of story content 126 (44%) Secondary presencec Designators found in 10% to 50% of story content 20 (7%) Primary presencec Designators found in more than 50% of story content 35 (12%) Totald 284 stories (100%)

Publicity b Designators

121 (43%)

87 (31%) 45 (16%)

30 (11%) 284 stories (100%)

a. Key words = journalists, press, news, news media, newspaper, “us,” “we,” name of newspaper or television network b. Key words = political ads, image, consultants, aides, staged appearances, television show, “scripted” messages c. Total of stories with secondary and primary presence of press designators and publicity designators = 116, 14 of which contained a secondary or primary amount of press and publicity designators. d. Percentages in column totals do not equal 100 due to rounding.

eight topics in Step 2 of Figure 1. This shows that the press and publicity metacoverage occurs within composite topic fields. The press or publicity is part of the topical structure of a campaign story when the story contains enough press or publicity designators. According to Pan and Kosicki (1993), designators are the linguistic (printed or spoken) or visual items on which journalists impose framing devices to frame a topic in a particular way. Our model stipulates that framing of the press and publicity cannot occur within a story until the press and publicity constitute enough of the story’s topical structure. The theoretical rationale for this position stems from Entman (1991), who argued that “the essence of framing is sizing—magnifying or shrinking elements of the depicted reality to make them more or less salient” (p. 9). In some cases, sheer media attention to an event, as compared with lack of attention to similar events, is illustrative of framing decisions on the part of the news media. However, Entman stated that the presence of specific words or images are the building blocks of frames, and “the analytical goal [is] to determine which of a narrative’s words or images are components of a frame and which are not” (p. 8). Following Kerbel et al. (2000), there are enough press and/ or publicity designators in a campaign story when either (or both) have a primary or secondary presence in that story. Table 1 shows that 116 out of 284 (41%) stories contained enough designators to the press and to publicity processes to warrant the claim that the press and publicity were topics in those stories. Based on an analysis of simple keywords used to distinguish press designators from publicity designators, Table 1 shows

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Ideas

Ideology/Political Worldviews

7

Prospective/Retrospective Evaluation

4

primary

22

Personality Politics & Process

Electoral/Political System

peripheral salience

13

Issues/Plans

Non-issues/Misdemeanor

secondary

61

41

31

55 2

Personal Character

13

11 7

Voters/Public Opinion

41

19

4

44

Electioneering/Campaigning

54

27

98

0

50

63

100

33

150

200

250 Number of stories

Figure 2: Topic Profile of Campaign 2000 Election Coverage on ABC World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News From September 4 Through November 6

that 55 (19%) stories have a primary or secondary presence of press designators and that 75 (27%) have a primary or secondary presence of publicity designators. Of those 130 stories, 14 contain high levels of both press and publicity designators; therefore, those 14 stories populate both columns in Table 1. As a result, 116 discrete stories qualify for framing analysis. This means that a relatively small percentage of stories (14 or 12%) contain enough press and publicity designators such that both the press and publicity coexist as topics in those stories. Correlational analysis reveals that press and publicity designators are not normally salient in the same story (Kendall’s tau-c = –.547, p < .001, n = 116 stories). In addition, because the level of analysis in Step 2 is similar to the level of analysis of Kerbel, the amount of meta-coverage in Campaign 2000 is twice as high—at least in the general election stage—as the 20% he found in CNN and ABC coverage of the 1992 campaign. Because press and publicity frames occur in campaign stories that contain a composite topic (e.g., press + nonissue), it is also important to enumerate the topic profile of each story. The topic profile of ABC and NBC news, excluding press and/or publicity topics, is shown in Figure 2.2 Given the unusually tight duel between Gore and Bush during the campaign and the strong preference for horse race aspects in the U.S. news media, it is not surprising that the dominant topic was electioneering/campaigning, which was mentioned in 68% (n = 194) of all stories and dominated 35% (n = 98) of them as the primary topic. A record number of 327 polls were published in the last 6 months polls of the campaign (Norris, 2001). That, in part, accounted for the fact that the topic of voters and/or public opinion was covered in 44% (n = 125) of the stories and given primary salience in 15% (n = 44). However, it does not appear as though poll-driven voters and/or public opinion stories squeezed out ideas stories in the 2000 election,

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a common criticism of network news (Kerbel, 1998; Patterson, 1993), for issues and/or plans were addressed in 46% (n = 133) of all network stories, with 21% (n = 61) having this as a primary topic. The topical plot thickens, however, because ideology and/or political worldviews and prospective and/or retrospective evaluations of candidates ranked lowest on the network news agenda. Not a single story gave them primary salience. Because both of these are ideas topics, the networks could be seen as slighting coverage of important facets of ideas, all of which are considered by Kerbel et al. (2000) to be the highest form of campaign news. Finally, there was mixed coverage of the two personalities topics. By the general election, the sampling period for this study, media attention to the election’s most riveting nonissues—for example, the rats spot ad and Bush’s driving under the influence arrest—had become sporadic, with only 10 (3%) stories giving them primary or secondary salience. However, personal character was covered as a primary or secondary topic in 54 (19%) stories. For example, some of these stories dealt with coverage of Gore’s character traits before and during the first two debates. STEPS 3 AND 4: ANALYZE FRAMING DEVICES AND IDENTIFY FRAMES

Figure 1 shows that after the topical structure of campaign stories is identified and a sample is selected, inquiry can proceed to Step 3, which involves the analysis of framing devices that forge press and publicity designators into frames. Framing devices are the discursive building blocks of frames. As indicated in Step 3 of the model in Figure 1, journalists first place press and publicity designators into the framing devices of syntactical structures. According to Pan and Kosicki (1993), syntactical structures are “stable patterns of the arrangement of words or phrases into sentences” (p. 59). These patterns include the headline, the lead, and the body of the story as well as patterns of quotations from sources. As framing devices, syntactical structures have important implications for framing.3 Designators that fill syntactical structures signal an interest on the part of journalists to cover processes, politics, ideas, or personalities in terms of propositions about the behaviors, roles, and standards of the news media and in terms of propositions about the presence and use of communications media in publicity processes. van Dijk (1988) noted that propositions “denote the facts” (p. 31) contained in news stories and do so in large part through the speech acts of sources, which at times include journalists. For example, sources make claims, verify or dispute the claims of others, offer complaints, and make arguments. (Recall the “grousing” adviser in the example that opens this study.) The objectivist stance of news is rooted in journalists’ use of propositions, a practice that simultaneously underscores their constitutive role in shaping events through the act of telling stories and distances them from that role (Tuchman, 1978).

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The model in Figure 1 stipulates that publicity and press propositions must be identified before larger units. (Note that the model in Figure 1 views a story’s hypothesis as an outcome of its propositions; therefore, script structures will be described after propositions.) This stipulation engages an ongoing debate about coding verbal and visual components of television news stories, emphasizing the importance of both the verbal and the visual messages conveyed (Barkin, 1989; Gamson, 1989; Graber, 1989; Tuchman, 1978). This study employs the bottom-up approach advocated by Gamson (1989) to identify press and publicity frames. Visual and verbal propositions are identified at an early stage (in Step 3) so that later, in Step 4, thematic wholes called frames can be identified.4 In the 116 stories that contained the press or publicity as a topic (see Table 1), there were 301 press propositions and 397 publicity propositions (n = 698). These propositions constitute facts about the press and publicity that are covered in conjunction with the other topics in the media politics environment of electoral campaigns. Table 2 groups those propositions into categories and enumerates the percentage of propositions within each category. More than half of the press propositions (57%) are implicative propositions, represented in Table 2 by Categories 1 to 4. The speech act in an implicative proposition does not feature a specific verbal utterance about the press; in other words, it is not a self-reflexive proposition. Rather, these verbal or visual references to the news media are meant to imply that the products and personnel of the news media are part of the unfolding nature of campaign events. The largest percentage of implicative press propositions (24%) consisted of visual shots or sequences of news reporters or media technicians shown as present at a campaign site, usually standing, waiting, working, or running equipment (Category 1). Ostensibly, the function of these implicative propositions is to show viewers that journalists were “just there” at events often staged for the cameras. In 10% of the implicative press propositions, polls were covered in a self-promoting fashion to give viewers a sense that the network had exclusive information about candidates (Category 2). Of the implicative press propositions, 19% were crosspromotions (e.g., NBC Nightly News refers to Meet the Press, the Today Show, or its own Web site) or cross-referencing of other media outlets as news sources (e.g., reports or polls from other media organizations are cited as news; Category 3). A smaller percentage (4%) of implicative press propositions featured interviews with journalists who said nothing specifically about the behaviors, standards, or presence of the news media (Category 4). Categories 5 through 9 in Table 2 refer to self-reflexive press propositions. These propositions feature speech acts in which sources, including at times journalists, state claims, make complaints, and offer speculations about the performance, presence, or standards of the news media in campaign situations. Some self-reflexive press propositions (7%) were about life inside the campaign bubble (Category 5). These included reporters or other sources talking about how it feels to cover the campaign, how they found out about stories, and how they are subjected to spin. Other self-reflexive press propositions were about the

TABLE 2:

Press and Publicity Propositions in Campaign 2000 Meta-Coveragea

Classification Press Press Press Press Press Press Press Press Press Total number of press propositions Publicity Publicity Publicity Publicity Publicity Publicity Total number of publicity propositions

Description of Propositions Visual presence of journalists at campaign events News media report their own commissioned polls Cross-promotion and cross-referencing on news programs Journalists interview journalists “Insider” views of life on the campaign trail Standards and quality of news coverage The news media as a platform and a player Candidate-news media relationship and/or interactions Influence of news management strategies on journalists Strategies and placement of ads and impacts on voters Campaign aides and political and/or media consultants as news source Preparation before, performance in, and spinning after televised presidential debates Image and event management techniques not aimed directly at news media but at media in general or at general public Candidates’ appearances in entertainment shows (daily talk or late shows) Media celebrities (actors, singers) as campaign supporters

a. Based on 116 stories that qualified for framing analysis.

Number (n)

Share (%)

72 30 58 13 21 13 61 7 26 n = 301 128 99 67

24 10 19 4 7 4 20 2 9 99 32 25 17

83 11 9 n = 397

21 3 2 100

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standards and quality of press coverage, including statements about press bias, the hostility and cynicism of reporters, and public distrust of the press because of its bias, hostility, and cynicism (Category 6). The greatest number of selfreflexive press propositions were statements about the dual role of the news media as a platform for campaign events and as a political player or actor in unfolding campaign events (20%; see Category 7). Some of these propositions dealt with how the news media dig for information, declare winners and losers, and are a platform for political debates. Other press propositions in this category dealt with how media coverage of events (particularly debates as they occurred during the sampling period of this study) influenced candidate preparations for events and public opinion of those events. Category 8 featured self-reflexive press propositions describing how well or how poorly candidates related to the news media or to members of the press. Category 9 featured self-reflexive press propositions about the effects of news management techniques on the news media, specifically that candidates or their organizations were (a) blocking access to or reprimanding the news media, (b) granting access and seeking media attention, or (c) engaging in spin control vis-à-vis the news media. Table 2 also lists the categories of publicity propositions. About one third of these propositions contain references to the role and use of political advertising (32%, Category 1). Among those are propositions from journalists about the strategic function of ads or their likely impact on voters. About one in four publicity propositions consisted of information attributed to campaign aides and political consultants (25%, Category 2). Most of these propositions are akin to implicative press propositions because they do not contain speech acts (e.g., analyses, complaints, or explanations) about the press but rather mere mentions of their role as news sources for journalists (e.g., “as campaign aides tell us”). Such propositions refer to the important role these actors play for candidates (as media advisers) and journalists (as insider sources) and also illustrate the necessity of candidates to polish their publicity efforts. Consultants as news sources hint to the intimate but hidden interactions between campaign teams and news media and illustrate the mutual interdependence as well as the composite nature of campaign news. A third group of publicity propositions addressed candidates’ extensive preparations for their appearances in televised presidential debates, including references to rehearsals, debate coaches, performances, and strategies as well as explanations, excuses, and analyses afterwards (17%, Category 3). Other publicity propositions were about image and event management (21%, Category 4), including references to how candidates control their public image, keep their campaign on message, attack opponents in televised speeches, appear on entertainment shows, or use surrogates as strategic leaks or mudslingers. These publicity strategies differ from the self-referential news management techniques previously mentioned because these image, issue, and event management strategies were not aimed directly at the news media and were not presented as such by journalists. Instead, network correspondents presented them as geared toward other types of media, supporters, opponents, or

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the public in general. Other publicity-related propositions dealt with candidate’s appearances in entertainment media (3%, Category 5) and with media celebrities as campaign supporters (2%, Category 6). Step 3 of the model in Figure 1 shows that propositions embedded in syntactical structures convey scripts about the press and publicity. Scripts are located in the closest structural position to frames. Therefore, describing scripts is tantamount to describing press and publicity frames. According to Pan and Kosicki (1993), scripts are framing devices through which journalists place seemingly isolated propositions into the context of human dramas and institutional conflicts. Specifically, scripts are hypotheses about the causes and consequences of campaign dramas and conflicts as well as value assessments about human actors and institutions involved in these dramas and conflicts.5 According to our analysis, there are five press scripts and six publicity scripts entailed in each of the 301 press propositions and in each of the 397 publicity propositions. That is, each proposition category is empirically linked to a hypothesis, or script, that in turn expresses a frame. Each campaign story contains a frame that is built up from the hypothesis-testing features of propositions and scripts. Table 3 lists scripts entailed in press and publicity propositions as well as the press and frames entailed in those scripts. Three press and publicity scripts concern the connectivity functions of the media. The “news media are technical transmitters of campaign events” script used the most press propositions (22%), mainly visual propositions of personnel who tape, film, and disseminate news as being technical conduits of candidates’ messages to the public. The “news media are a platform of campaign events” script used less press propositions (5%), mainly spoken propositions from news personnel. Many of the cross-referencing propositions supported this script. The third script that featured connectivity functions was built from publicity propositions. Called “mass media are a conveyor of publicity acts,” this script was built from 24% of the 397 publicity propositions. It entailed the hypothesis that publicity acts require the mass media for their transmission to audiences (e.g., Candidate x began an ad campaign today). The three scripts just described are indicative of a conduit press frame and a conduit publicity frame. A conduit press frame exists in a news story (or among stories) when propositions about the press congeal into scripts that emphasize the press’s connectivity function and deemphasize the fact that campaign journalists can influence campaign events merely by conducting the words of sponsors. A conduit publicity frame exists in a story when propositions about a candidate’s public strategies and publicity acts that have no direct relation to the news media are transmitted without additional comment by a source about the publicity act. These frames are not cynical depictions of composite topics (e.g., press and electioneering) because they depress the relational aspects of media politics and the instrumentality that characterize the interactions between the press and politicians.

632 TABLE 3:

a

Scripts and Frames in Campaign 2000 Meta-Coverage

Script and/or Frameb Press (C1) Press (C2) Press (S1) Press (S2) Press (A1) Publicity (C1) Publicity (S1) Publicity (S2) Publicity (S3) Publicity (A1) Publicity (A2) Total number of propositions

Script Description News media are a technical transmitter of campaign events News media are a journalistic platform of campaign events News media are a consequential actor in a strategic game of politics News media are an actor in a postmodern game of politics News media try to live up to standards of democratic performance Mass media are a conveyor of publicity acts Political publicity and PR are manipulative Publicity requires tactical expertise Publicity is theatrical Publicity is a viable part of media politics The truth about publicity claims can be discovered Other (no script could be coded) 301 (press) and 397 (publicity)

a. Based on 116 stories that qualified for framing analysis. b. C = conduit frame; S = strategy frame; A = accountability frame.

Number of Propositions 152 37 70 1 13 169 12 120 39 25 58 3 n = 698

Share (%) 22 5 10 — 2 24 2 17 6 4 8 — 100

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In addition, Table 3 shows press and publicity scripts expressing strategyoriented hypotheses. The “news media are a consequential actor in the strategic game of politics” press script used 10% of the press propositions, all of which contained statements about the news media locked in contentious interplay with political actors or the public. Three strategy scripts were supported by publicityrelated propositions. One publicity strategy script, “political publicity and PR are manipulative,” used 2% of the publicity propositions, variously presenting publicity acts in skeptical, sinister, demonic, and contemptuous lights. Another publicity strategy script, “publicity requires tactical expertise,” used 17% of the publicity propositions, most of them from correspondents who spoke like “insiders” about tactical considerations and purposes behind publicity moves. The third publicity strategy script, “publicity is theatrical,” used 6% of the publicity propositions about the images, façades, and presentational styles of candidates. The scripts just described are indicative of a strategy press frame and a strategy publicity frame (see Table 3). A strategy press frame is found in stories that emphasize the news media’s role as an autonomous, consequential actor—for example, in a story in which a political actor asserts (or complains) that the press is “keeping a story alive” or in a story in which a political actor claims that the press compels a candidate to adapt his or her strategies to press coverage. A strategy publicity frame is found in stories that emphasize the candidate’s use of paid media (political advertising), allotted media (debate appearances), soft media (appearances on afternoon talk shows or late night shows), communication personnel (consultants or aides), or other image and event management strategies, motives, tactics, and rationales—all of which that have no direct relation to the news media. In both cases, a strategy script communicates that the news media or other communications media are enmeshed in the tactical aspects of campaign reality. It is a cynical frame of reference about media politics for it locates press and publicity behaviors within the clashing goals of candidates and the media. The third and arguably most interesting class of scripts that emerged from the coverage of the 2000 presidential campaign news concerned press coverage or publicity acts within the context of democratic functioning. One of these scripts used press propositions. The “news media try to uphold standards of democratic performance” script used 2% of press propositions. These 13 propositions conveyed the “facts” about how the news media are aware and worried about news journalists’ standards, behaviors, effects, and responsibilities in the course of covering campaign events. In addition, two scripts used publicity propositions. Another publicity script, “publicity is a viable part of media politics,” used 4% of the publicity propositions, mainly those in which journalists provided helpful, insightful, and expert knowledge about the backgrounds and effects of political advertising, political marketing, and other public strategies. The second publicity script, “the truth about publicity claims can be discovered,” used 8% of

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the publicity propositions, mainly from journalists who assessed claims made by candidates in political ads or televised debates. As shown in Table 3, these scripts are indicative of an accountability press frame and an accountability publicity frame. An accountability press frame is found in stories that depict the news media as concerned about understanding the professional dilemmas of covering events that ordinarily should be avoided and the economic constraints that compel or discourage certain kinds of coverage. In short, an accountability press frame “frames the press” in terms of standards and democratic norms. Likewise, an accountability publicity frame is found in stories that discuss the “fact” that advertising, marketing, public relations, and scripted debate performances can or should be regulated by principles of democratic performance and outcomes. In both dimensions of meta-coverage, an accountability frame results from scripts about the enlarged press intermediary and the heightened publicity environment, all of which are supported by propositions that express the “facts” about how the legitimacy of both can be enhanced. Compared with a strategy frame, an accountability frame is a less cynical depiction of campaign reality.

PRESS AND PUBLICITY FRAMES IN TOPICS OF CAMPAIGN 2000 NETWORK NEWS Press and publicity framing occurs in conjunction with other topics in the media politics environment. As noted, media politics features candidatecentered campaigning enabled by professional consultants and an enlarged press intermediary in which journalists work within and tell stories about the following three topic clusters: ideas, personalities, and processes. Thus, press and publicity frames are overlaid onto stories whose topical structures can include ideas, personalities, or processes. Table 4 presents a matrix of topics and press and publicity frames. Because a frame is a thematic unit that suffuses a news story, a single frame tends to dominate a news story, but elements of more than one frame can exist within a single story (see Cappella & Jamieson, 1997; Iyengar 1991). Our model accounts for this possibility insofar as a single story may have more than one script, thus drawing on diverse types of propositions for support. Table 4 shows that 187 frames suffused the 116 stories that contained enough press or publicity topics to generate press or publicity frames. Although conduit scripts used more propositions (51%) than strategy scripts (35%; see Table 3), strategy frames were more prevalent than were conduit frames in actual campaign stories. The press strategy frame was found about equally as often in stories that contained electioneering and/or campaigning, personal character, and nonissue topics. Most of these Campaign 2000 stories were about Republican candidates; for

TABLE 4:

Press Frames and Publicity Frames by Campaign Topicsa Press Conduit Frame

Politics and processes Electioneering and/or campaigning Voters and/or public opinion Electoral and/or political system Personalities Personal character Nonissues and nonevents Ideas Issues and/or plans Prospective and/or retrospective evaluation Ideology and/or political worldviews Total (n = 187 frames) Total (100%)

Press Strategy Frame

Press Accountability Frame

Publicity Conduit Frame

Publicity Strategy Frame

Publicity Accountability Frame

9 29 1

7 0 0

2 1 0

13 1 0

40 4 0

12 3 1

2 1

6 5

0 2

3 0

23 2

0 0

3 0 0

0 1 0

0 0 0

0 1 0

4 3 0

8 0 0

n = 45 24%

n = 19 10%

a. Based on 116 ABC and NBC network stories that qualified for framing analysis.

n=5 3%

n = 18 10%

n = 76 41%

n = 24 13%

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example, stories that profiled Bush and Cheney usually delved into ways they dealt with negative news reports about their pasts. Strategy frames dominate the topic matrix: Slightly more than half of the 187 press and publicity frames in the networks’ election coverage (n = 95) were related to strategy. The press strategy frame was found about equally as often in stories that contained the topics of electioneering and/or campaigning, personal character, and nonissues. Most of these Campaign 2000 stories were about Republican candidates; for example, stories that profiled Bush and Cheney usually delved into ways they dealt with negative news reports about their pasts. Stories with a strategy publicity frame were also frequently linked to electioneering and/or campaigning and to personal character. Specifically, stories with a strategy publicity frame mainly contained propositions about advertising strategies, debate strategies, strategies behind television appearances, strategic information measures of campaign teams vis-à-vis opponents or the general public (without reference to news media), and public relations and image management strategies. Often, these measures were linked directly to candidates, particularly regarding the failed debate strategies of either Bush or Gore. Conduit frames were found in 34% of the stories in our sample. There were 45 press conduit frames and 18 publicity conduit frames, most of them occurring in conjunction with process topics. For example, 29 press conduit frames occurred in conjunction with the voter and/or public opinion topic. Many of these stories framed the press as transmitting information via mediacommissioned polls about voters’ views and inclinations. Although press conduit frames call to mind Patterson’s (1993) point that media polls contribute to the decline of electoral politics because they are staged news, the press conduit frame does not contain scripts or propositions about this point, which is why the implicative press conduit frame is found in those stories. Press conduit frames were also frequently found in stories that contained an electioneering and/or campaigning topic, depicting news journalists, news organizations, or the products of news organizations as a platform for campaign events and candidate appearances. Conduit publicity frames were mostly found in stories that contained an electioneering and/or campaigning topic (e.g., image or event management or advertising or preparation for televised debates). Akin to stories with the press conduit frame, stories with the conduit publicity frame contained scripts and propositions about the platform or information transmission aspects of communications media in publicity processes. In the coverage of the 2000 campaign, the networks used accountability frames the least to cover campaign topics. Only five stories contained press accountability frames. Two were about nonissues and contained propositions about how a damaging story was leaked to the press, what were the vested interests of the sources, and how journalists tried to handle that information. One story with a press accountability frame dealt with the topic of voters and/or public opinion. It contained propositions about the risk of making wrong

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predictions on election night and what kind of procedure, equipment, and computer models should be used on election night. Finally, there were two stories with press accountability frames in conjunction with the electioneering and/or campaigning topic. These stories contained propositions about the possibility of producing the wrong headlines on election night and about the effects of subliminal messages. Of the 24 stories that contained publicity accountability frames, 12 contained propositions that analyzed claims made by candidates in televised debates or in televised ads and were thus found in conjunction with stories about electioneering and/or campaigning. Of the remaining 12 stories with publicity accountability frames, 6 contained propositions that analyzed a new trend in political marketing. More so than in any prior election, Campaign 2000 was characterized by political ads targeted for key swing states. These stories explained potential effects on election outcomes, featured voters’ comments about the ads, and provided scientific explanations about how key states are targeted with ads and why they can decide an election. Table 4 shows that not all topics are as likely to be subject to press and publicity framing. One of the processes topics (electoral and/or political system) and all of the ideas topics (issues and/or plans, prospective and/or retrospective evaluations, and ideology and/or political worldviews) are less often the basis for press and publicity frames as are the processes topic of electioneering and/or campaigning and both of the personalities topics (personal character and nonissues).

DISCUSSION This study presents a new model of framing in meta-coverage and conducts a content analysis of the press and publicity frames in network news coverage of Campaign 2000 during the general election period. We have modified the conceptualization of Kerbel (1997; Kerbel et al., 2000), who argued that metacoverage, although consisting of both press and publicity topics (see Kerbel, 1998), is uniformly cynical and strategy oriented. Our model specifies the framing devices in meta-coverage and illuminates how the news media integrate a wide range of propositions into hypothesis-like script structures, some of which manifest the cynical tendencies of meta-coverage to which Kerbel refers. This study presents a close-up view of the topics of campaign discourse— and by extension, the realities of campaign events—within which the press and publicity are discursively connected. The major finding is that press and publicity frames occur most frequently in stories about electioneering and/or campaigning. This finding appears to support Kerbel’s (1998, 1999) conclusion that meta-coverage is symptomatic of a condition in which news organizations and publicity professionals hinder party control of campaigns (see also Patterson, 1993). However, simply covering media-centric and candidate-centered

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campaigns is not necessarily a sign that the press has abrogated one of its core political functions: to assess the conduct of political actors, which include the press, according to values and standards of democratic performance. In fact, by performing this function—one that culminates in press and publicity frames— the news media take advantage of an opportunity to bolster their political role in electoral politics. In light of the point that the news media perform an important political function by framing the press and publicity process, the data presented here about the 2000 presidential election indicate there is cause for concern about the health of electoral politics in the United States. Specifically, press strategy frames and the publicity strategy frames far outnumber their counterpart accountability frames. Recall that strategy frames are built from propositions that support scripts about the antagonistic relationship between the press and politicians. Therefore, coverage containing these frames is reasonably conceived to contribute to the cynical tenor of campaign news in general and Campaign 2000 news in particular. However, although it may be appropriate to bemoan the relative paucity of accountability frames in Campaign 2000 coverage, it should be pointed out that accountability frames mainly arise in coverage when norms have been breached by political scandals (e.g., negative information about candidates leaked to the media) or media mistakes (e.g., after the incorrect election night predictions). Thus, the relative lack of accountability frames could be interpreted as a sign that Campaign 2000 progressed smoothly in its final stage. In all, this study breaks new ground toward understanding how framing occurs in meta-coverage and how meta-coverage is part of a larger information environment. But it is still a first step. Research on framing in meta-coverage will be advanced with additional work on presidential and midterm elections, particularly on past elections. In this way, the findings reported here can be used as a benchmark for the amount of meta-coverage (both topically and in frames) that occurred in previous elections. Also, future research should compare findings about U.S. campaign meta-coverage with that of other countries (see Esser et al., 2001). Such comparative research will provide important clues about the degree to which the news media in electoral systems are adapting their integrative functions toward changing political contexts.

NOTES 1. The codebook and coding instrument are available from the first author. 2. Cross-tabulations of press and proposition topics with all of the other eight topics are made later in the analysis at the level of press and publicity frames. 3. Framing researchers agree that the lead parts of a news story have special importance in conveying frames. For example, Neuman, Just, and Crigler (1992) observed that in television news and newsmagazines, framing devices usually occur in the initial parts of the story. The high rate of framing at the very beginning of television stories was due in part to the typical practice of having anchors introduce the story, followed by a cut to reporters on the scene who set up the story. Other format (i.e.,

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syntactical) structures are important, too. For example, Iyengar (1991) identified “episodic” and “thematic” frames based on the industry-specific format. An episodic frame “takes the form of a case study or event-oriented report and depicts public issues in terms of concrete instances” (p. 14). By contrast, a thematic frame “places public issues in some more general or abstract context and takes the form of a ‘takeout,’ or ‘backgrounder,’ report directed at general outcomes or conditions” (p. 14). This study is mainly concerned with mapping the propositions and frames within Campaign 2000 news. Therefore, attention was not paid in the coding scheme to syntactical structures, although that data would be useful to understand the potential effects of press and publicity frames. 4. Our coding scheme does not measure overlapping visual and verbal propositions. 5. The framing model in this study modifies the model of Pan and Kosicki (1993) with regard to the nature of scripts as framing devices. Script structures in our model encompass both script and thematic structures from their model. Their model places the hypothesis-testing features of news within thematic structures; our model places hypothesis-testing features within script structures. In part, this modification was made to clarify an ambiguity in their model, in which frames are defined as themes but framing devices are said to have a thematic structure.

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