What’s In a Frame?

When I was a freshman at James Madison University (go Dukes!), I won an impromptu public speaking contest.

After drawing the word goldfish from a jar, I had 60 seconds to prepare a three-minute speech. A few moments of panic followed, then inspiration struck. I launched into a full-throated diatribe on the worldwide exploitation of goldfish. The speech ended with me leading the audience in a call-and-response chant:

“What do we want!?”

“Free the goldfish!”

“When should we free them!?”

“Now!”

Later that night, I called my mom to tell her about my big win.

Her response? “You’re telling me you won a bullshitting contest? Big surprise!”

She was teasing, of course. Mom was proud of her sometimes loquacious son. But her comment left a mark. Suddenly, my proud moment of rhetorical triumph felt like something else—something a little silly, maybe even a little shameful.

Her words didn’t just reflect a different opinion about what I had done. They created a whole new perspective and, in a sense, a new reality.

Was I a skilled orator or a bullshit artist? The answer didn’t lie in the facts of the case. It was all about the perspective you took. Mom had just given me a first-hand lesson in the power of rhetorical reframing.

Lesson Learned:
Changing the Frame Can Change the Game

People often assume that words are neutral vehicles for information, like buckets that carry water from one mind to another. But language doesn’t just reflect reality, it shapes how we experience it. Nowhere more so than in the case of framing.

Framing happens when words meet the world and begin to give it a particular shape and form. According to leading framing theorist George Lakoff, framing language activates mental structures that influence how we subsequently think and respond.

How Frames Shape Experience

Consider how companies talk about layoffs. Calling them “rightsizing” frames job cuts as correcting an imbalance, while “workforce reduction” makes the process seem clinical and inevitable. “Letting people go” sounds almost gentle, as if employees were being released from captivity. Each frame nudges you toward a different emotional response to the same hard reality.

Lakoff argues that frames are deeply tied to values, conceptual metaphors, and narratives that structure our thinking. They activate neural pathways in the brain, making some interpretations feel natural while suppressing others. In practice, they also tend to fast-track reactivity and shortcut careful reasoning.

Over time, frames can have effects far beyond the particular sentences we write:

• Values Shape Perception: Phrases like “pro-life” and “pro-choice” frame the abortion debate through opposing value systems, influencing how people approach the issue of women’s reproductive health, on which there’s actually more agreement than most people realize.
  

• Metaphors Influence Actions: Calling crime a “beast” that must be fought implies that we should pursue solutions focused on punishment and enforcement. Calling it a “virus” implies solutions focused on prevention and public health interventions. Consider how differently cities might allocate resources based on which metaphor dominates their thinking.
  

• Stories Reinforce Frames: A story about a “hardworking small business owner” reinforces frames of individualism and merit, while a story about “a family struggling to keep their store afloat” might highlight systemic inequities. Both could be accurate stories about the same family and store.

Frames don’t just capture what we find in the world. They shape perception in ways that can ultimately change it.

Reality Sometimes Resists

Of course, framing has limitations: Reality doesn’t just bend to suit our rhetorical whims. A manager who says his underperforming team is “facing exciting challenges” might make matters worse by reaching for a positive frame. Similarly, corporate messaging can undermine trust if people sense it’s being used to hide uncomfortable truths (remember those laid-off workers who were being “set free”).

Effective framing requires integrity and alignment with action: If it looks, sounds, or feels like manipulation, then people will believe it’s BS—the same way Mom saw through my plea for goldfish liberation.

Despite these limitations, the power of framing shows up in politics, branding, philanthropy, journalism, and even casual conversation. If you want to understand how influence works—or learn to wield it wisely—you need to learn how to 1) spot a frame and 2) create a better one.

Tricks to Try

Exercise 1: Find the Frame

Purpose: Train your eyes and mind to spot the rhetorical scaffolding beneath persuasive language.

Step-by-Step:

1. Choose a short, persuasive piece of writing: an op-ed, a press release, a political ad, or even a product description.

2. Highlight emotionally charged or value-laden words. Look for terms like “relief”, “freedom”, “crisis”, “entitlement”, “smart”, or “toxic.”

3. Analyze the frame:

   • What’s being presented as the problem, solution, hero, or villain?

   • What values or assumptions are implied?

   • What’s being left out or glossed over?

4. Try rewriting the piece using a different frame. Flip the metaphors, adjust the assumptions, shift the value base.

5. Reflect:

   • What changed in the meaning, emotion, or tone?
   • Which version would be more persuasive to which different audiences?

Why This Works: Once you can see the frame, you can think critically about its effects and better assess the claims being made.

Exercise 2: Create the Frame

Purpose: Practice building stronger, more constructive frames for real-life situations—starting with your own.

Step-by-Step:

 1. Choose a professional setback or awkward moment you usually describe negatively. It could be a project that failed, a presentation that flopped, or a decision you regret.

 2. Write a short paragraph about it using your usual framing.

 3. Step back and ask yourself:

 • What did I learn from this experience that I couldn’t have learned any other way?

 • What strength did I develop as a result?

 • How might this appear in a larger, more complex story?

 4. Now, reframe it. Write a new paragraph that puts the experience in a more constructive light—not as mere spin, but as honest reinterpretation.

 5. Reflect:

 • How does the new version change how you feel about the experience?

 • Does it help you see the same experience in a different light without fundamentally distorting it?

Why This Works: Framing isn’t just for persuading others. It’s also a way to make meaning for ourselves. A better frame can transform a setback into a step forward.

Want proof? Consider my mom’s teasing comment about my “bullshit” victory. At the time, it stung a little. Now I see it as one of my early lessons in how framing can change the meaning of experience. Mom’s teasing reframed my achievement. But I have since re-reframed it—for myself and now for you.

Bottom-Line Takeaway

Framing isn’t a side effect of communication. It’s the game’s central strategy. Change the frame, and you can change the game. Change the meaning of what happened before, and you can start to shape what happens next.