Projections of Power: Framing News, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy

Abstract

Projections of Power: Framing News, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy. By Robert M. Entman. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. 200p. $16.00. Which news frames prevail in the coverage of U.S. foreign policy? Robert Entman introduces a “cascading activation” model to explain news framing—“the process of selecting and enhancing some aspects of a perceived reality, and enhancing the salience of an interpretation and evaluation of that reality” (p. 5). According to the cascade model, news frames flow hierarchically, from the White House to Washington elites to the media—although they may also flow directly from the administration to the media—and then to the public. Whereas the “indexing” model holds that news reflects the homogeneity of Washington elites, Entman's model has political communication going both ways: Presidential administrations and Washington elites (congressmen, ex-government officials, lobbyists, academic experts) are guided and constrained by the news (actual or anticipated), just as news organizations tailor the news according to public opinion (actual or anticipated). Because different news frames activate different thoughts and feelings at each stage of the process (p. 9), some frames succeed better than others.