Of spreading activation, applicability, and schemas: Conceptual distinctions and their operational implications for measuring frames and framing effects

Abstract

Overall, the framing approach still has conceptual shortcomings, especially with respect to the relevance and role of schemas in news framing research. Our heretofore separate metatheoretical considerations (e.g., B. Scheufele, 2004; D. Scheufele 1999) have elaborated upon various aspects of the so-called framing-effects approach. An area of common interest in those considerations is the cognitive structures that enable journalists to make news and that enable audiences to understand and use news in their everyday lives. This chapter synthesizes our work to produce a model of cognitive structures: in showing how schemas work with frames on the cognitive level, we shed light on the construction of news on the textual level and on the development and transformation of cognitive frames on the discourse level.