June 6, 2015
Do NOT repeat your opposition's frame
This well intentioned editorial in the Bangor Daily News is a framing nightmare. Main argument? Reference the title: "Welfare fraud by providers is bigger problem than individual 'welfare cheats.'" Effect of this kind of framing?
1. Repeating myths, even to refute them = reinforcing myths.
2. It provides anti-welfare folks sufficient evidence that it IS in fact a broken system - it's just that they got wrong WHO was defrauding that system. Ugh
*Bonus: I threw the content of the editorial in a word cloud creator, and the result is the image below. Think that pretty much sums up the framing problems.
If something is a myth, that means it is easily accessible to us, cognitively. So instead of repeating it, and running the risk of reinforcing it, it makes much more strategic sense to assert your position without reference to the original myth. At the very least, make your case first. If you have to refute something specific, state your case first and only then proceed to introduce the contrary data or argument.
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