"Fear of framing"

"Challenging the popular notions of what this buzzword is all about: investigating why some progressives are resistant to the concept of framing in general.

Reframing pokes at a number of sore spots for people on the Left. Some of those spots include:

1. Our insistence that the Facts Alone Will Set Us Free.

2. Our resistance to ideas that feel like marketing and "selling."

3. The challenge that we might be fundamentally mistaken about how things operate.

4. The idea that framing is some kind of "magic bullet" to fix our problems. (Though no one is suggesting that it is."

-from Deanna Zandt's post on AlterNet, where she also discusses Peter Teague's earlier comments in "Suitable for Framing?" Teague says:

"Genuine re-framing is the hard work that progressives will have to do if we are to have any hope of offering a serious challenge to right-wing domination of American politics. It is the work that must precede message framing: Message framing without deep conceptual reframes is like hanging pictures in a house in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward right now. Without exposing the mold and the rot, taking things down to the foundations where necessary, and then framing new walls, windows and doors, we're not going to build a home that will last."

Zandt says it a little differently, arguing we need to connect with our audiences on a deeper, emotional level by starting with our shared values: "we have to dig deeper and examine closely just what those values are, and how we tap into them. Her advice:

"Reframing is the difficult, and often scary, prospect of admitting what doesn't work and rediscovering our fundamental core. We've pointed fingers at those who give in to their fears, but maybe it's time for us to stop being afraid as well."

This was cross-posted on Booman Tribune, where some very lively discussion ensued.