When Framing Matters: How Partisan and Journalistic Frames Affect Individual Opinions and Party Identification

This monograph examines how the consistency and content of issue frames used by politicians and journalists from 1975–2008 affect preferences and partisanship. Combining our content analysis of Newsweek’s coverage of abortion and taxes with public opinion data, we show that consistent, partisan-sourced frames affect preferences and partisanship. In general, specific frames affect attitudes but not partisanship when sourced by partisan politicians, and both attitudes and partisanship when sourced by journalists. Policy-oriented liberal frames were associated with more liberal preferences and Democratic partisanship while symbolic conservative frames were associated with more conservative preferences and Republican partisanship.