Political Framing Strategies and Their Impact on Media Framing in a Swiss Direct-Democratic Campaign

Abstract

This article analyzes framing strategies by political actors and their impact on media framing. By framing the issue strategically, we argue that political actors face three strategic choices. First, they must choose one or several substantive frames capable of steering the attention of the media and the public to their own cause and away from the cause of their opponents (“substantive emphasis choice”). Second, they must decide about the amount of attention they want to pay to the opponent's substantive frame(s) as compared to their own frames and whether they want to use their opponents' frames offensively or defensively (“oppositional emphasis choice”). Third, they must decide about how much priority they want to give to their own substantive frame(s) as compared to the (referendum) campaign contest (“contest emphasis choice”). The results are based on a Swiss direct-democratic campaign about the tightening of the asylum law and can be summarized along the three choices. First, in this case, the framing input of the political actors is decisive. The media tend to respect frame ownership and report accordingly. Second, while the political actors predominantly focus on their own frames, they do not exclusively, but refer to their adversaries' frames as well. They do so mainly in a defensive way. The journalists reported both camps with their adversaries' frames too, and attributed a slightly more offensive stance to both camps. Third, the political actors mainly focus on substance. The substantive frames also dominate in the media.