Framing and Technology Policy
Professor Hans de Bruijn and Gerdien de Vries of the Chair of Public Administration at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands visited the ISTP yesterday and presented their Research Program on Governance and Systems.
By MSc STP student Jascha Grübel
De Bruijn and Gerdien seek to find ways to effectively inform people about important issues and therefore they study framing (also known as "nudging") to find ways to best convey complex information. Conceptually, technological problems require nuance to be explained, but for public discussion, they need to be simplified, framed. For example, two frames can be extracted from a given situation in the US: in reference to people with no legal standing in the US, Republicans use the term illegal migrant, whereas Democrats use the term undocumented workers. Each illuminate the frame that is applied to the context.
A good frame is catchy and generates people's intuitive agreement. Further, they implicitly fill a void (e.g. a politician proclaiming he is "tough on crime" implies that others haven't been and the situation requires change). Additionally, a good frame draws opponents in, forcing the opponent to acknowledge the frame with its conditions and language and thereby forces the opponent on the defensive. Denying a frame usually enforces and strengthens it. To address the issue it is necessary to effectively reframe.
Framing relies on simple principles and an easy scenario sets up the frame in the form of victims, villains and heroes. An example from Australian immigration policy: currently Australia places illegal immigrants in camps in Papua New Guinea and these immigrants eventually can return home or live in Cambodia or Papua New Guinea, but never in Australia. The following frame could be used to describe the situation: the victims are the illegal immigrants, the villain is the Australian Government, and the heroes are opponents of the policy. A reframing by the government would place the human smugglers in the villain role and make the Australian Government the hero for interrupting their business model.
Recognition of frames' power to structure public debate around controversial issues is an important component of science and technology policy-making, and awareness of how the issues are communicated, and not just what is communicated is essential.