Frames as Boundaries: Rhetorical Framing Analysis and the Confines of Public Discourse in Online News Coverage of Vegan Parenting

Abstract

This article examines the boundary work of frames and the methodological significance of understanding this work when conducting rhetorical framing analysis. While the boundary properties of frames have been theorized by scholars, there remains a lack of clear engagement with how to effectively address these discursive boundaries methodically. I argue that agenda-dismissal, which makes use of both prolepses and blind spots, ought to be addressed in addition to agenda-setting and agenda-extension when conducting rhetorical framing analysis. A case study is provided in which the rhetorical framing of vegan parenting in online news media is analyzed and critiqued for confining the issue within a dominant health-based frame. Strategies for dismantling discursive boundaries and reframing public issues are also considered within the context of the case study.

Keywords

qualitative methodology communication theory news media agenda-setting framing

Introduction

Rhetorical framing analysis has been used as an effective method for assessing the discursive significance of texts and public speeches since the 1980s (Kuypers, 2005). This multidisciplinary method of qualitative analysis is useful in gaining greater insight into the rhetorical means by which topics are discussed, whether in public debate, news media, or advertising and other promotional cultures. Rhetorical framing analysis has also been used to study a variety of health topics in both the humanities and social sciences, including obesity (Saguy & Riley, 2005), HIV or AIDS (Yartey, 2015), and breastfeeding (Hausman, 2013).

However, there remain methodological limitations to rhetorical framing analysis that have not yet been significantly addressed in the existing literature. Rhetorical frames perform boundary work, insofar as they establish that which will be discussed and that which will not be discussed in public discourses. Although the boundary work that frames perform has been theorized and discussed by some scholars (e.g., Pan & Kosicki, 2001), there remain almost no methodological inquiries into how the boundary work of frames can be studied through qualitative analysis.

This article therefore engages with methodological considerations for why and how rhetorical framing analysis can be used to assess the boundary work of frames in public discourse. In order to demonstrate the value of considering boundaries in rhetorical framing analysis, a case study is provided in which the boundary work of frames in the online news coverage of vegan parenting is critically analyzed from a rhetorical perspective. I also engage with some prognoses for how to effectively address the boundary issues of frames in public discourse, as outlined by Lakoff (2004) and Ceccarelli (2011). Ultimately, this article aims to contribute to the methodological significance of rhetorical framing analysis as a useful tool for social research.

While this article predominantly deals with the methodological issues of rhetorical framing analysis from a social scientific perspective, I also understand and acknowledge that, within the larger fields of rhetoric and mass communication, the differences between theory and method can be somewhat blurred (e.g., Scheufele, 1999). As such, I specifically wish to appeal to the social scientific notion of methodology as part of a larger meta-framing strategy (i.e., how discourses regarding frames and framing are themselves framed and rhetorically constructed), rather than in order to distinguish categorically between rhetorical theory and method.

Frames and Rhetorical Framing Analysis

Framing is the attempt to draw attention towards, make more salient, or else strategically organize certain aspects of a topic while deflecting attention away from other aspects; similar to how a picture frame might be chosen in order to emphasize some aspects of a photograph or de-emphasize others (Entman, 1993; Gamson & Modigliani, 1987; Tankard, 2001). As Entman (1993) argued, framing exists at four critical junctures in any communicative process: the communicator themselves, the communicative text or message, the receiver (or, audience), and the general culture (i.e., the common stock of frames in a given population or community). Framing thus serves necessary communicative and social functions—as well as cognitive functions—as Lakoff (2010) notes that frames also have neural bases, which allow us to make sense of our experiences and perceptions about the world.

Understanding framing is significant given the demonstrated effectiveness of framing in influencing the perceptions of audiences, who typically rely on the most readily available information in order to make decisions or interpret social phenomena (Nisbet, 2010). For example, one study found that audiences responded differently to news stories about a Ku Klux Klan rally based on whether the issue was framed in terms of free speech and civil liberties or safety and public order (Nelson, Clawson, & Oxley, 1997). While audiences certainly still maintain elements of cognitive autonomy, framing can affect the degree of this autonomy in significant ways when individuals are presented with ambiguous issues (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979). As a method, framing analysis is therefore useful in identifying and critically analyzing which aspects of a particular issue are being highlighted, de-emphasized, or wholly ignored by the speaker (Kuypers, 2002, 2010).

As Kuypers (2005) notes, facts remain neutral until they are framed in one way rather than another. While some form of framing may be necessary in order to convey a message by means of constructing a coherent narrative, framing can become insidious when it is used for political or ideological purposes. Some critics argue that news media should aim to inform rather than direct the public, and if it does direct, it ought to do so in a way that is not overly biased (Blidook, 2009). Others, however, argue that the notion of objective or value-neutral journalism is unrealistic, given that journalists are only human and therefore cannot help but include some personal perspectives in their reporting (McChesney, 2008; Schudson, 1989). Furthermore, attempts to limit or remove subjectivity from journalism disallow for journalists to offer critical perspectives on social and political phenomena and thereby restrict news media’s role as a watchdog in democratic societies (McChesney, 2008). Finally, Hackett and Gruneau (2000) have argued that the notion of objectivity in for-profit news journalism is effectively a nonissue, given the incredible degree of influence that media owners and managers exert over both the content being covered as well as the framing strategies of that content.

These competing perspectives further complicate the concept of framing, given that frames also tend to be most effective when they appeal to preexisting religious, political, or other cultural values of an audience (Nisbet, 2010; Reese, 2010). van Gorp (2010) therefore argues that “culturally embedded frames form universally understood codes that implicitly influence the receiver’s message interpretation, which lends meaning, coherence, and ready explanations for complex issues” (pp. 87–88). This is why, for example, framing an issue in terms of civil liberties or individual rights is so effective in Western neoliberal societies, as in the case of the aforementioned study regarding the Ku Klux Klan.

Frames therefore work in a similar way to Kenneth Burke’s concept of terministic screens. Burke (1966) argued that individuals can represent issues differently based on what aspects they (whether consciously or unconsciously) highlight, de-emphasize, or ignore in their language. Terministic screens therefore function in similar ways to filters for photographs. For example, choosing to apply different filters to the same photograph might serve to influence different interpretations of that image if its brightness is augmented, is made black and white, or set in sepia tone. Similarly, applying different terministic screens to the language of an issue can change the ways in which others interpret the discourse. The difference between frames and terministic screens, however, is that frames also function to create discursive borders that establish what individuals will interpret in addition to influencing how they will do so.

Frames also become stronger over time, and the continuous framing of an issue in a specific way can determine what the audience will think about—a phenomenon known as agenda-setting (Iyengar & Kinder, 2010; Kuypers, 2005; Kuypers & Cooper, 2005). Studies have found that news media, though often perceived as at least somewhat biased by the public in one way or other, are nevertheless consistently effective at agenda-setting (i.e., telling the public what to think about, rather than what to think; Kuypers & Cooper, 2005). News media are also effective in suggesting how issues ought to be interpreted, which is further accomplished through prolonged framing. This extended framing process is known as agenda-extension and works to expand upon the ways in which an issue has become framed (Kuypers & Cooper, 2005). As such, rather than telling the public what to think, news media are largely responsible for influencing which issues the public will be thinking about (agenda-setting) as well as highlighting and expanding upon particular aspects of those issues (agenda-extension). Although different social or political actors might attempt to frame a single issue in differing ways, these various frames inevitably compete with each other until one becomes dominant. These framing contests occur when actors strategically work to align their respective frames with the cognitive predispositions of their audience in a way that most effectively promotes each actor’s position on a given issue (Kaplan, 2008; Saguy & Riley, 2005). Framing contests are therefore significant elements to consider when analyzing instances of agenda-setting and agenda-extension.

The use of framing analysis has increased among communications scholars since the 1980s and is employed in order to examine many types of discourse, including policy, advertising, and public deliberations (Kuypers, 2010; Reese, 2010). Grube (2010), for example, analyzed the current trends in how contemporary Australian Prime Ministers have framed their respective policies, and framing analysis is often employed by marketing researchers to determine the most effective ways for organizations to communicate with the public (e.g., Auger, 2014; Garcia & Greenwood, 2015).

Although framing analysis can be employed in both quantitative and qualitative ways (e.g., Bigl, 2017; Sznitman & Lewis, 2015), Kuypers (2005) has noted that since framing is primarily a rhetorical act, it makes methodological sense to study instances of framing from a rhetorical perspective—especially through comparative analyses. By comparing the rhetorical strategies used by different actors to address the same issue or similar issues, we can identify and critically analyze the differences or similarities in framing techniques and the significances thereof. In order to demonstrate the usefulness of rhetorical framing analysis, Kuypers has applied this method extensively to the comparative analyses of various U.S. political speeches and mainstream news coverage of issues such as race relations and the second Iraq War (Kuypers, 2002; Kuypers & Cooper, 2005). Kuypers’ extensive work has expanded upon the methodology of rhetorical framing analysis and used this method to develop the argument that there exists a prevalent liberal (or at least, anti-conservative) bias in U.S. mainstream media.

Although I am ultimately interested in engaging with and expanding upon Kuypers’ crucial methodological work regarding rhetorical framing analysis, I also believe that it is important to outline how his own work has been, in some ways, problematic. Johnston (2003) and Weaver (2004), for example, have both noted that Kuypers tends to present overgeneralized arguments regarding widespread liberal bias in U.S. news media based on only a handful of case studies. Additionally, Kuypers’ claim that U.S. news media are liberally biased and consistently anticonservative are based solely on case studies of social issues, especially race and homosexuality, while ignoring how economic issues are framed (Weaver, 2004). Kuypers also tends to conflate the correlation of overwhelmingly (self-reported) liberal journalists and (perceived) liberal biases with causation, while wholly ignoring the significant influence of media ownership and control on content production (e.g., Bagdikian, 2004; Blidook, 2009; Downing, 2011; Hackett & Gruneau, 2000; Herman & Chomsky, 1988; McChesney, 2008; Mirrlees, 2016). Finally, Kuypers’ work does not engage with any articulation of what constitutes liberal or conservative perspectives and seems to group together all notions of Left politics indiscriminately.

Despite these ideological issues in his own application, Kuypers remains one of the most prominent scholars of rhetorical framing analysis. Indeed, Kuypers’ methodological work (regarding what rhetorical framing analysis is and its utility as a research tool) has been crucial in developing this particular research method for communication scholars. However, I argue that the methodology of rhetorical framing analysis itself remains partially incomplete. Specifically, I will argue that rhetorical framing analysis has, until now, largely ignored the significance of identifying and critically analyzing how frames create discursive boundaries that can confine public deliberation.

Frames as Boundaries

Framing not only highlights and ignores certain aspects of an issue, but it also establishes the boundaries within which an issue is able to be discussed (Pan & Kosicki, 2001). Framing therefore constitutes a form of boundary work, a concept referring to the processes of establishing, engaging with, defying, or critiquing the boundaries of an issue (Metze, 2017). It is therefore important to assess the methodological dimensions of the boundary work of frames in order to more fully understand and appreciate their rhetorical implications.

A fundamental function of framing’s boundary work is the establishment of how an issue is able to be discussed, including what terms may be used and what positions or perspectives are allowed to be included in the debate. By engaging some social actors in a debate and excluding others, a discursive community develops and continues to reproduce itself through continuous engagement with an issue. Framing is therefore a process of discursive community building, in which a lexicon is put forward by media and political actors and subsequently adopted by other stakeholders and citizens for deliberative purposes (Pan & Kosicki, 2001). In contrast with traditional communities defined by the spatial proximity or value-sharing of individuals, what these discursive communities share is their deliberative engagement with the language and perspectives that exist within a dominant frame (Pan and Kosicki, 2001). Individuals who participate in public deliberation by discussing particular issues within the confines of the dominant frames therefore assert their membership within a dominant discursive community.

The discursive community building aspect of framing is closely related to Kenneth Burke’s concept of identification. For Burke (1969), the primary goal of rhetoric should be identification, as identification is crucial for persuasion. It is therefore important for individuals to be able to either effectively identify themselves with their audience or else to identify for their audience the relationships between other elements of an issue (Burke, 1969). This relates to the process of discursive community building, as the boundaries of a dominant frame serve to identify for audiences which perspectives and opinions on an issue are included and which perspectives are excluded from the discussion. As a necessary consequence, Burke further noted that an equal occurrence of division results from the process of identification (Burke, 1969). This means that identifying with the discourse of a dominant frame allows for an individual to engage with the issue as an identified member of a discursive community, whereas not aligning with the language or perspectives of a dominant frame risks separating an individual from the discussion altogether.

The creation of discursive communities occurs when influential social actors such as politicians, media, and celebrities draw or redraw the discursive boundaries of a particular issue in order to produce or reproduce a particular frame, within which other social actors can then either situate themselves or not situate themselves. This process is known as frame alignment and involves individuals or groups of social actors deciding whether or not to engage with an issue within the boundaries of a dominant discursive frame (Pan & Kosicki, 2001; Snow, Rochford, Worden, & Benford, 1986). For example, Pan and Kosicki (2001) have noted that during the Persian Gulf War, then U.S. President Bush and his administration were effective in narrowly confining public discourse to a deliberation about the best means by which to punish the aggressive actions of Iraq. This confined framework was made possible due to the Bush administration’s persistent, consistent, and simplistic media message. In contrast, the competing frames of anti-war and humanitarian interventionist perspectives on the issue were packaged together less cohesively and thus did not achieve dominance. As a result, opponents of the Bush administration needed to align their dissenting perspectives within the boundaries of the dominant frame in order to effectively engage with the issue at all, given the ineffectiveness of the competing frames.

Critical communications scholars have argued that news media can be particularly insidious in allowing for problematic (i.e., misleading, divisive, etc.) dominant frames to arise. For example, Hackett and Gruneau (2000) have argued that the use of official sources can significantly affect news framing processes, given that it is more efficient for journalists to rely on pre-made public relations campaigns by policy makers, corporations, and other wealthy actors than to do in-depth investigative journalism. Conversely, when grassroots organizers, activists, or unions demonstrate or protest in order to draw attention to an issue, their actions are often given greater attention in news media than their causes. Herman and Chomsky (1988) also identified sourcing as well as four other filters (ownership and control, advertising, flak, and communist scapegoating) in their propaganda model of news media, which further addresses the problematic relationship between corporate media structures and the creation and reproduction of dominant frames. According to these critical scholars, the various news filters tend to perpetuate dominant frames, while simultaneously creating blind spots that news media consistently fail to address in any adequate capacity.

The notion of blind spots within news media is crucial to conceptualizing frames as discursive boundaries, as these blind spots can be understood as the flip-side of agenda-setting. By ignoring particular issues or certain aspects of issues, a necessary result of agenda-setting is the simultaneous process of agenda-dismissal, wherein the news media also establish what issues the public will not think about or deliberate. This agenda-dismissal property of blind spots further reflects Burke’s concept of division as the necessary rhetorical consequence of identification, wherein one is necessarily the result of the other.

While this is not to suggest that agenda-dismissal literally disallows individuals to think about and discuss issues in ways that do not fit within the boundaries of a dominant frame, it does mean that doing so risks situating the individual outside of a particular discursive community. This can then lead to what is often called the spiral of silence, referring to the phenomenon in which individuals with marginalized perspectives that are not often (if ever) addressed in the media tend to become increasingly reluctant to express those views for fear of being ridiculed or ignored (Hackett & Gruneau, 2000; Kuypers, 2002). Once a dominant frame has emerged and established the discursive boundaries of an issue, it becomes increasingly difficult over time for perspectives exterior to the boundaries of a dominant frame to engage in the debate to any meaningful or sustained degree. As a result, the dominant views and perspectives from within the discursive community become augmented and eventually encompass the entire debate about a particular issue.

A final point regarding the nature of frames as boundaries is that these boundaries are not always restrictive but can also serve to expand the perimeters of public deliberation for strategic political purposes. Ceccarelli (2011) addresses the phenomenon of strategic boundary extension by analyzing manufactured scientific controversies in news media. While legitimate controversies arise naturally in public debate when there exist sustained differences of values or opinions on a given issue (such as on the topic of abortion), Ceccarelli notes that manufactured controversies arise “in the public sphere when an arguer announces that there is an ongoing scientific debate in the technical sphere about a matter for which there is actually an overwhelming scientific consensus” (p. 196). Unlike legitimate, naturally arising controversies, manufactured controversies tend to be employed by news media in order to perpetuate a continuous debate about facts rather than accepting scientific consensus on an issue. The result is that deliberation regarding the best course of policy action cannot occur in any meaningful way while members of this expanded discursive community continue to disagree on basic premises. An example of expanded frame boundaries is the ongoing public debate regarding climate change—although there is overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is a significant global threat that policy makers urgently need to address, there still exists an ongoing public debate regarding whether or not climate change is occurring at all (Ceccarelli, 2011).

Ceccarelli’s concept of manufactured scientific controversies thus supports the notion of frames as boundaries by demonstrating how the strategic expansion of these frames can significantly alter the nature of public debate. Similarly, the potential for blind spots in news media identified by various critical scholars demonstrates the ability of restricted boundaries to confine public discourse by ignoring views that fall outside of the dominant frame, which can lead to a spiral of silence for those advocating marginalized perspectives. I now move on to how rhetorical framing analysis might be useful in identifying and addressing boundary problems within the case study of media reports on vegan parenting.

Case Study: Vegan Parenting

During the Summer and Fall of 2016, Washington Post’s website posted several articles on the issue of parents raising their children on vegan diets. This trend in coverage began after the hospitalization of an infant boy in Italy “whose parents allegedly kept him on a vegan diet without providing dietary supplements” (Hui, para. 2). Following this initial story, the newspaper’s website continued to both follow the story of vegan parenting in Italy and the ensuing legal debate as well as reporting on several other global incidents of child malnourishment or neglect involving vegan parents (Guarino, 2016; Hui, 2016; Schmelzer, 2016). Many of these articles were subsequently republished in various other online news platforms, or referenced in related news stories (De Groot, 2016).

By late-October of 2016, The Associated Press published an article on the issue from the perspectives of vegan parents themselves, who argued that the recent debate about vegan parenting and child neglect “unfairly stigmatizes those who have done their homework and are safely raising their babies without feeding them animal products” (De Groot, para. 3). However, by the time that The Associated Press article was published, the issue’s discursive boundaries had already been established, and the dominant frame had already built and confined a discursive community. As such, even articles appearing to defend parents raising their children on a vegan diet were engaging with a debate that had preexisting discursive parameters. This ultimately restricted the range of available rhetorical strategies in addressing the issue of vegan parenting and inadvertently contributed to reproducing and strengthening the boundaries of the dominant frame: that vegan parenting is potentially dangerous for children.

In this case study, I use rhetorical framing analysis in order to identify the agenda-setting and agenda-dismissal strategies of the vegan parenting issue as discussed in the Washington Post articles of 2016. I employ a qualitative analysis of these articles due to the sudden (albeit, short-lived) interest of Washington Post in vegan parenting beginning in the Summer of 2016 and abruptly ending by the early-Fall of that same year. Ultimately, I argue that Washington Post’s brief interest in covering stories about veganism—and, more specifically, vegan parenting—represents an ephemeral period of interest in engaging in sensationalized journalism, similar to reports of pit bull attacks in the United Kingdom during the early-1980s (see: Cohen & Richardson, 2002).

Washington Post is one of the most widely read newspapers in North America (usually ranked in the top 3 U.S. newspapers in terms of readership and digital subscriptions; Atkinson, 2017). As such, the newspaper’s contributions to and influences upon public discourse in North America are substantial, and therefore, such an identifiable period of sensationalist reporting from such a widely circulated medium merits critical analysis.

My goal is to demonstrate the value in using rhetorical framing analysis to address not only what perspectives are included in the discursive boundaries of dominant frames but also the significance of specifically identifying and addressing the ways in which those boundaries exclude certain perspectives from a discourse. While, certainly, the notion of frames as discursive boundaries suggests that any dominant frame necessarily excludes a nearly infinite number of possible perspectives on an issue, I argue that what frames do include within their boundaries are closely related to specific, alternative perspectives that become rhetorically dismissed through the process of agenda-dismissal—a phenomenon closely related to Burke’s twin notions of identification and division. I also engage with Lakoff’s (2004) and Ceccarelli’s (2011) prognostic strategies for how to effectively address issues of framing in public discourse without becoming trapped within the discursive boundaries of dominant frames.

Agenda-Setting and Agenda-Dismissal in News Coverage of Vegan Parenting

There are two main agenda-setting strategies in the Washington Post news coverage of vegan parenting, which effectively established the dominant frame for the issue over several months. These strategies are important to understand, as they established the boundaries within which other news coverage and public discourses were able to address the issue. The first of these agenda-setting strategies is the identification between vegan parenting and child malnourishment, or the vegan malnourishment frame. As noted above, identification is the rhetorical act of drawing attention towards an association between two or more things or people (Burke, 1969). Identification, in this sense, can be an effective rhetorical strategy regardless of whether the associative qualities are real or manufactured, so long as the audience is sufficiently convinced that an association exists or might exist.

In the case of vegan parenting, Washington Post’s series of articles perpetuated the vegan malnourishment frame—an identification between parents raising their children on vegan diets and instances of child malnourishment. For example, Hui’s (2016) article draws attention to instances of both vegan parenting and child malnourishment at various points, including a recent case in Italy, an unspecified case from 2007, and a 2004 case in France. By grouping together several loosely related anecdotes, and by repeating terms like “vegan” and “malnourishment,” Hui presents to her audience an association between two phenomena that might otherwise be considered unrelated. In Guarino’s (2016) article, vegan parenting is identified with child malnourishment and child endangerment several times, and the author notes that “a commitment to veganism can make raising a healthy child more challenging, as parents must ensure that a child receives sufficient calories and the correct balance of nutrients” (para. 7). This vegan malnourishment frame thus indirectly suggests that nonvegan parents do not need to concern themselves with these potential risks, and that nonvegan diets for children are somehow inherently safe or healthy, or at least safer or healthier than vegan diets. As a whole, this strategy works to establish and perpetuate a dominant frame of malnourishment, towards which discussions of vegan parenting gravitate, and subsequently become confined within the boundaries of that frame.

These Washington Post articles also dismissed potential counterarguments on the issue of vegan parenting through the use of prolepsis. In theories of argumentation, prolepsis refers to the strategy of anticipating a counterargument and preemptively addressing that counterargument in order to strengthen one’s own position. Prolepsis therefore works as a sort of inoculation against an argumentative attack—by introducing a potential counterargument to one’s own position and addressing that counterargument on one’s own terms, an arguer is able to immunize themselves from that counterargument in case it is brought up again throughout the debate (Compton, Jackson, & Dimmock, 2016).

Prolepsis is a common framing technique and can be very effective in establishing discursive boundaries. By using prolepsis in the framing of an issue, social actors can effectively situate the discourse as being concerned with x and not with y. As such, anyone attempting to engage further with y can be dismissed by the discursive community, given that y now falls outside of the issue’s discursive boundaries. For example, Schmelzer’s (2016) article notes that “veganism itself isn’t necessarily dangerous to children… It just takes extra work” (para. 7). Through the use of prolepsis, this position effectively frames vegan parenting as a practice that can be either healthy for children or lead to malnourishment, without suggesting that vegan diets themselves are inherently dangerous. However, as a result of identifying vegan parenting with even the potential of malnourishment, there is also the simultaneous and necessary rhetorical effect of division (or, dissociation) between nonvegan parenting and malnourishment. This division situates any associations between nonvegan parenting and malnourishment outside of the dominant frame’s discursive boundaries and therefore situates anyone addressing these associations within the boundaries of an entirely different issue.

The prolepses used in the vegan malnourishment frame thus also constitute what Ibarra and Kitsuse (1993) called a sympathetic counterrhetoric. In public discourse, individuals in opposition to a particular position can take either a hardline, unsympathetic approach to countering the rhetoric of their opponents (by denying both the descriptive and prescriptive aspects of a social issue), or else take a more nuanced and sympathetic approach (in which only the prescriptive aspects of an opponent’s position are denied). Specifically, the vegan malnourishment frame employs what Ibarra and Kitsuse (1993) categorize as a costs involved sympathetic counterrhetoric. The “costs involved” sympathetic counterrhetoric works to sympathize with a described social problem (in this case, sympathizing with wanting to raise children on a vegan diet), though ultimately undermines this position by suggesting that the costs involved in achieving the desired would not outweigh the potential benefits (i.e., the notion that vegan parenting somehow requires more work than nonvegan parenting).

The consistent and constant vegan malnourishment frame also preempts the second, more general agenda-setting strategy of the issue’s dominant frame. Specifically, this second strategy involves the identification of vegan parenting as a health-related issue, or the health-based veganism frame. While there are certainly parents choosing to raise their children on vegan diets for health-based reasons, the dominant frame of health-based veganism establishes health as the sole issue involved in the discussion. The dominant frame is thus presented as whether or not vegan diets are healthy for children. This health-based veganism frame therefore wholly ignores (and thereby excludes from the debate) other reasons for vegan parenting, including parents choosing to raise their children on vegan diets for moral, religious, or environmental reasons. These other potential reasons for raising children on vegan diets thus become media blind spots to which the public is not exposed.

As a result of these blind spots, members of the dominant frame’s discursive community are able to dismiss these various other perspectives on the grounds that they are not engaging with the issue at hand. For example, Schmelzer’s (2016) article notes that conservative politicians in Italy have criticized vegan parenting as “some parents… [being] allowed to impose their will on children in an almost fanatical, religious way” (para. 3). This position is interesting, as it exemplifies a member of the dominant discursive community effectively decrying any potential religious-based arguments in favor of vegan parenting and thus reinforces the discursive boundaries that situate health within and other perspectives outside of the dominant frame.

These blind spots of ethical, environmental, and religious veganism are the rhetorical byproducts of identifying vegan diets with health-related notions such as malnourishment and dietary supplements (De Groot, 2016; Hui, 2016). By identifying vegan parenting as a health issue, the Washington Post articles simultaneously dissociate vegan parenting as a practice of instilling moral, cultural, or religious understandings in future generations. The agenda-setting strategy of vegan parenting as a health issue thus creates discursive boundaries that dismiss other perspectives from the debate. This agenda-dismissal also frames the discourse in a way that draws public attention away from discussing the potential moral, environmental, or religious aspects of why parents might be choosing to raise their children on vegan diets.

Analysis and Discussion: Dismantling Discursive Boundaries and Reframing Public Discourse

Identifying both the agenda-setting and agenda-dismissal aspects of a dominant frame is important when using rhetorical framing analysis in order to develop a more comprehensive understanding of any discursive issue. As such, critical readers must be able to recognize and appreciate the significance of the boundary work that frames perform. It is therefore also important to take into consideration these boundary aspects of media and public discourse in order to more fully develop rhetorical framing analysis as a method of inquiry. In this section, I further elaborate on the rhetorical significance of prolepsis and blind spots in creating discursive boundaries, as demonstrated in the case of vegan parenting, and discuss how rhetorical framing analysis is an appropriate method for studying these boundaries. I also engage with some prognostic arguments for how best to deal with these boundary issues and reframe discourses strategically, as rhetorical framing analysis is a useful tool for both scholarly inquiry as well as practical civic engagement and public deliberation.

As noted in the vegan parenting case study, prolepsis is a common means by which the discursive boundaries of frames can be established or reinforced. By appropriating potential counterarguments and explicitly undermining them, an arguer is able to make those perspectives seem less relevant to the discourse and impede their future usage by other individuals. This tactic then forces an arguer to either exert extra rhetorical effort to restore credit to the undermined position or else abandon that particular position and thereby concede that that position is (or has become) situated outside of the discursive frame. Prolepsis thus effectively engages in boundary work by attempting to either dismiss a perspective from a discourse or else enticing a discursive opponent to react to the dismissal in a defensive way.

The use of rhetorical framing analysis ought to include a special vigilance for identifying the use and discursive effects of prolepses when analyzing public discourses. This is because prolepsis, by the strategy’s very nature, works to try and situate certain perspectives within and other perspectives outside of a discourse. By identifying where and when in a discourse prolepses occur, a critical reader can better understand how a dominant frame is being established or reinforced and therefore gain a more comprehensive understanding of the frame itself.

Identifying blind spots is also crucial to the usefulness of rhetorical framing analysis in assessing the boundary work of frames. Blind spots are perspectives that relate to an issue yet are not included within the boundaries of a dominant frame. For example, most news media report regularly on business and investment issues, yet rarely (if ever) report on the labor perspective of capitalist economics, except when reporting on disruptive actions such as strikes (Hackett & Gruneau, 2000). As a result, labor issues become situated outside of the dominant economic frame and are unlikely to be presented to (or interpreted by) audiences as a significant aspect of economic discourse.

Blind spots therefore constitute the division that Burke argued was a necessary result of any rhetorical identification—by identifying x with y, an arguer is simultaneously dissociating x from z, unless otherwise specified. By analyzing the divisions associated with different instances of identification, rhetorical framing analysis can reveal which individuals and perspectives are and are not being allowed to participate within the confines of discursive boundaries for any given issue. As noted above, ignoring blind spots in public discourse can result in a spiral of silence in which certain perspectives become increasingly marginalized and eventually risk being silenced altogether. It is therefore important to avoid this potential spiraling in order to allow for a multitude of perspectives, opinions, and values to be included within a discursive community, especially regarding political, economic, and social issues.

A comprehensive understanding of how frames work in public discourse is also important for effective civic engagements with that discourse. Lakoff (2004) has argued that being able to effectively frame (or, reframe) the rhetoric of public discourse is a necessary element of successfully moving the passions of a civic audience. Specifically, Lakoff advocates for American liberal-progressives and Democrats to consider why and how American conservatives and the Republican Party have been so successful (since the 1980s) at gaining public support for their policies. Lakoff argues that the political success of conservatives in the United States is largely due to their learned ability to rhetorically frame the issues of public debate. For example, by constantly mentioning “tax relief,” George W. Bush and the Republican Party of the early-2000s managed to frame taxes as a burden on the citizenry (pp. 3–4). This continuous metaphor of tax as a burden thus worked to situate anyone against tax relief as a bad person (Lakoff, 2004). As a result, liberal-progressives also began engaging within the dominant frame of tax relief, though specifically advocating for tax relief for the middle- and working-class. Unfortunately for liberal-progressives, however, this reactive strategy has only served to further reproduce the dominant conservative framework (and its rhetorical boundaries), rather than reframing taxes as a necessary element for a functional democratic society.

Lakoff identifies several strategies for reframing the rhetoric of public discourse and debate, two of which relate to the notion of frames as boundaries. First, arguers need to avoid using the rhetoric of their opponents—using someone else’s words only reinforces their perspective, given that it makes that perspective more salient in the minds of the audience. For example, by constantly engaging with Republicans on the issue of tax relief, Democrats reinforced the notion that taxation-as-a-burden is an acceptable metaphor and therefore that the dominant frame is an acceptable discourse within which to situate oneself. As such, the more one engages with the language of their opponents, the more one reinforces the rhetorical boundaries within which one is able to address an issue. Second, Lakoff argues that individuals need to be able to reframe public discourses. In order to do so, arguers need to first present their perspective on an issue substantially yet clearly, then identify why and how the perspective of their opponent is incorrect, less ideal, less efficient, and so on, and finally articulate why their audience ought to side with them over their opponent (Lakoff, 2004). When done consistently and constantly, this strategy can work to dismantle the discursive boundaries of existing dominant frames and establish new ones that more effectively accomplish one’s goals. In order to accomplish this strategic reframing, however, it is crucial to first be able to identify the existing frames and discursive boundaries of an issue.

Ceccarelli (2011) has also suggested rhetorical strategies for effectively reframing issues in public discourse, based on stasis theory. Stasis theory conceptualizes issues or events as an amalgamation of hierarchical stases, with the lower level stases relating to the facts of the issue and the higher level stases relating to what ought to be done about the issue. In the case of vegan parenting, the dominant frame became centralized around the lower level stases of whether or not vegan parenting was a health concern. Ceccarelli, however, argues that reframing an issue in public discourse ought to briefly address the lower level stases, but quickly advance to addressing the higher level stases, such as what the best policy options might be for resolving the issue. For example, Ceccarelli notes that, rather than perpetuating any public debate regarding whether or not climate change is occurring, scientists could be more effective in their persuasion by first acknowledging that climate change is real and advancing to substantial discussions regarding the most effective policy measures for addressing the issue. This strategy, when used consistently and constantly, works to reframe the debate in a way that makes the public discussion more about policy than about basic facts and premises.

Proponents of vegan parenting, then, might benefit from engaging less with whether or not vegan diets are healthy for children, and instead shifting the discursive boundaries by reframing the issue as being about public health policy, nutritional education, or reworking outdated national food guides. In accordance with Lakoff’s work, it might also be helpful for proponents of vegan parenting to reframe the debate as being about the health benefits of vegan diets for children rather than whether or not they are related to malnourishment, or focusing instead on the moral, environmental, or religious bases for raising a child on a vegan diet, with minimal engagement with the health benefits of vegan diets. In either case, a sustained and consistent rhetoric is necessary for reframing issues.

More generally, it is important for both communications scholars and engaged citizens to better understand the means by which frames and their boundary effects are constructed and manipulated by various other social actors, in order to allow for more effective participation in public discourses. This becomes especially pertinent during social periods of political polarization. As media discourses continue to contribute to the increasing polarization of global, national, and even local politics, a thorough understanding of framing and reframing strategies becomes a necessary component of any attempt to redirect public discourses towards a more constructive form of democratic participation. While it is well beyond the scope of this analysis to address this concern in any greater detail, further assessments of public discourse, media, and democratic participation ought to take into consideration issues relating to the aforementioned strategies of framing and reframing—including rhetorical strategies of agenda-dismissal.

Conclusion

This article has attempted to refine the methodology of rhetorical framing analysis by drawing attention to the ways in which frames create discursive boundaries, which I have argued ought to be taken into consideration when analyzing public discourses. While a significant body of work on rhetorical framing analysis has focused on the agenda-setting and agenda-extension aspects of news media, there has been less investigative emphasis on how discursive boundaries contribute to the agenda-dismissal aspects of framing. Specifically, I have argued that researchers using rhetorical framing analysis ought to be especially sensitive to the use of prolepsis as a potential signifier of discursive boundary confinement and therefore agenda-dismissal strategies. As well, the use of rhetorical framing analysis ought to engage more substantially with not only instances of identification but also with the resulting divisions (or, dissociations), as conceptualized by Kenneth Burke, given that division serves to both produce and perpetuate the parameters within which an issue is able to be discussed. By identifying and engaging with instances of strategic division, critical readers can help to illuminate marginalized or ignored perspectives and lessen the effects of the spiral of silence phenomenon in public discourse. Social and political actors hoping to engage with public discourses (including activists, journalists, scientists, and policy makers) can also increase the effectiveness of their own rhetorical framing and reframing strategies by better understanding how to assess existing dominant or competing frames and their discursive boundaries.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biography

Ryan J. Phillips is a PhD candidate in Ryerson University’s Communication and Culture program, and his research focuses on the rhetoric and political economy of promotional cultures. Specifically, his work explores the discursive aspects of alternative foods and diets as well as critical perspectives on advertising in public sports broadcasting in Canada.

References

Atkinson

(2017, December 28). Washington Post still plays catch-up, but is gaining on The Times. NBC News. Retrieved from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/washington-post-still-plays-catch-gaining-times-n833236

Auger

G. A.

(2014). Rhetorical framing: Examining the message structure of nonprofit organizations on Twitter. International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, 19(4), 239–249.

Bagdikian

B. H.

(2004). The new media monopoly. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

Bigl

(2017). Fracking in the German press: Securing energy supply on the eve of the ‘Energiewende’—A quantitative framing-based analysis. Environmental Communication, 11(2), 231–247.

Blidook

(2009). Choice and content: Media ownership and democratic ideals in Canada. Canadian Political Science Review, 3(2), 52–69.

Burke

(1966). Language as symbolic action. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Burke

(1969). A rhetoric of motives. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Ceccarelli

(2011). Manufactured scientific controversy: Science, rhetoric, and public debate. Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 14(2), 195–228.

Cohen

Richardson

(2002). Pit bull panic. The Journal of Popular Culture, 36(2), 285–317.

10.

Compton

Jackson

Dimmock

, J. A.

(2016). Persuading others to avoid persuasion: Inoculation theory and resistant health attitudes, Frontiers in Psychology, 7(122), 1–9.

11.

De Groot

(2016, October 21). Parents raising babies as vegan are ‘unfairly’ stigmatized, say mothers. The Toronto Star. Retrieved from www.thestar.com/life/2016/10/21/parents-raising-babies-as-vegan-are-unfairly-stigmatized-say-mothers

12.

Downing

J. D. H.

(2011). Media ownership, concentration, and control: The evolution of debate. In Wasko

Murdock

Sousa

(Eds.), The handbook of political economy of communications (pp. 140–168). Oxford, England: Blackwell Publishing.

13.

Entman

R. M.

(1993). Framing: Toward a clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(4), 51–58.

14.

Gamson

W. A.

Modigliani

(1987). Media discourse and public opinion on nuclear power: A constructionist approach. American Journal of Sociology, 95(1), 1–37.

15.

Garcia

M. M.

Greenwood

(2015). Visual CSR: A visual framing analysis of US multinational companies. Journal of Marketing Communications, 21(3), 167–184.

16.

Grube

(2010). The rhetorical framing of policy intervention. Australian Journal of Political Science, 45(4), 559–578.

17.

Guarino

(2016, October 7). A mom fed her 11-month-old only fruit and nuts. Now she faces child endangerment charges. Washington Post. Retrieved from www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/10/07/mom-fed-her-11-month-old-only-fruit-and-nuts-now-she-faces-child-endangerment-charges/?utm_term=.56de2429bc0e

18.

Hackett

R. A.

Gruneau

(2000). The missing news: Filters and blind spots in Canada’s press. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.

19.

Hausman

B. L.

(2013). Breastfeeding, rhetoric, and the politics of feminism. Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, 34(4), 330–344.

20.

Herman

Chomsky

(1988). Manufacturing consent: The political economy of the mass media. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.

21.

Hui

(2016, July 11). An Italian baby raised on a vegan diet is hospitalized for severe malnutrition and removed from parents. Washington Post. Retrieved from www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/07/11/italian-baby-fed-vegan-diet-hospitalized-for-malnutrition/?utm_term=.b70ac0c1e87b

22.

Ibarra

P. R.

Kitsuse

J. I.

(1993). Vernacular constituents of moral discourse: An interactionist proposal for the study of social problems. In Holstein

J. A.

Miller

(Eds.), Reconsidering social constructionism: Debates in social problems theory (pp. 25–58). Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.

23.

Iyengar

Kinder

D. R.

(2010). News that matters: Television and American opinion (Updated ed.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

24.

Johnston

(2003). Press bias and politics: How the media frame controversial issues. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 80(3), 758–760.

25.

Kahneman

Tversky

(1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica, 47(2), 263–291.

26.

Kaplan

(2008). Framing contests: Strategy making under uncertainty. Organization Science, 19(5), 729–752.

27.

Kuypers

J. A.

(2002). Press bias and politics: How the media frame controversial issues. Westport, CT: Praeger.

28.

Kuypers

J. A.

(2005). Framing analysis. In Kuypers

J. A.

(Ed.) The art of rhetorical criticism (pp. 186–211). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

29.

Kuypers

J. A.

(2010). Framing analysis from a rhetorical perspective. In D’Angelo

Kuypers

J. A.

(Eds.), Doing new framing analysis: Empirical and theoretical perspectives (pp. 286–311). New York, NY: Routledge.

30.

Kuypers

J. A.

Cooper

S. D.

(2005). A comparative framing analysis of embedded and behind-the-lines reporting on the 2003 Iraq war. Quarterly Research Reports in Communications, 6(1), 1–10.

31.

Lakoff

(2004). Don’t think of an elephant! know your values and frame the debate: The essential guide for progressives. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing.

32.

Lakoff

(2010). Why it matters how we frame the environment. Environmental Communication, 4(1), 70–81.

33.

McChesney

R. W.

(2008). The political economy of media: Enduring issues, emerging dilemmas. New York, NY: Monthly Review Press.

34.

Metze

(2017). Fracking the debate: Frame shifts and boundary work in Dutch decision making on shale gas. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 19(1), 35–52.

35.

Mirrlees

(2016). Hearts and mines: The U.S. Empire’s culture industry. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.

36.

Nelson

T. E.

Clawson

R. A.

Oxley

Z. M.

(1997). Media framing of civil liberties conflict and its effects on tolerance. The American Political Science Review, 91(3), 567–583.

37.

Nisbet

M. C.

(2010). Knowledge into action: Framing the debates over climate change and poverty. In D’Angelo

P.J. A

. Kuypers (Eds.) Doing new framing analysis: Empirical and theoretical perspectives (pp. 43–83). New York, NY: Routledge.

38.

Pan

Kosicki

G. M.

(2001). Framing as strategic action in public deliberation. In Reese

S. D.

Gandy

O. H.

, Jr., & Grant

A. E.

(Eds.) Framing public life: Perspectives on media and our understanding of the social world (pp. 35–65). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

39.

Reese

S. D.

(2010). Finding frames in a web of culture: The case of the war on terror. In D’Angelo

Kuypers

J. A.

(Eds.), Doing new framing analysis: Empirical and theoretical perspectives (pp. 17–42). New York, NY: Routledge.

40.

Saguy

A. C.

Riley

K. W.

(2005). Weighing both sides: Morality, mortality, and framing contests over obesity. Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, 30(5), 869–923.

41.

Scheufele

D. A.

(1999). Framing as a theory of media effects. Journal of Communication, 49(1), 103–122.

42.

Schmelzer

(2016, August 11). An Italian lawmaker wants to make it a crime for parents to feed their kids vegan diets. Washington Post. Retrieved from www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/08/11/an-italian-lawmaker-wants-to-make-it-a-crime-for-parents-to-feed-their-kids-vegan-diets/?utm_term=.cef2b4a9642c

43.

Schudson

(1989). The sociology of news production. Media, Culture & Society, 11(3), 263–282.

44.

Snow

D. A.

Rochford

E. B.

Jr. Worden

S. K.

Benford

R. D.

(1986). Frame alignment processes: Micromobilization and movement participation. American Sociological Review, 51(4), 464–481.

45.

Sznitman

S. R.

Lewis

(2015). Is cannabis an illicit drug or a medicine? A quantitative framing analysis of Israeli newspaper coverage. International Journal of Drug Policy, 26(5), 446–452.

46.

Tankard

J. W.

(2001). The empirical approach to the study of media framing. In Reese

S. D.

Gandy

O. H.

, Jr., & Grant

A. E.

(Eds.), Framing public life: Perspectives on media and our understanding of the social world (pp. 95–106). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

47.

van Gorp

(2010). Strategies to take subjectivity out of framing analysis. In D’Angelo

Kuypers

J. A.

(Eds.), Doing new framing analysis: Empirical and theoretical perspectives (pp. 84–109). New York, NY: Routledge.

48.

Weaver

(2004). Press bias and politics: How the media frame controversial issues. Political Communication, 21(2), 251–253.

49.

Yartey

F. N. A.

(2015). The critical condition of rhetorical choices: The Bush administration’s framing of HIV/AIDS as a national security threat in PEPFAR. The Journal of International Communication, 21(2), 226–240.