In the Frame

Well, this came out a little longer than I had planned, but I'm sure no one will read it anyway, so oh well.

Frames are an inevitable part of life. People need constants for their worlds to make any sort of sense at all, and it’s unrealistic to expect people to live for 30, 20 or even ten years without accumulating some sort of experience. It’s just when frames become set and rigid, and people refuse to change them to accommodate new information, that problems arise. This changes frames from definitions and expectations to prejudices and stereotypes.

There is also nothing wrong with carefully selecting the language you use to influence how people will see you. If you really believe that the message you have is right, correct, and true, then it only makes sense to make that truth look as good as possible. However, if your rhetoric actually works to obscure the truth (by using misleading words and phrases, omitting important information, or presenting opinions or prejudices as facts), then you are walking a fine ethical line.

Few people walk this line with the jaunty roguishness of Frank Luntz. Luntz himself seems to believe that he is not distorting or hiding the truth, just finding the proper light in which to reveal the truth. Some of his advice seems to bear this out. In his recommendations on how to talk about the problem of illegal immigration, he takes care to highlight the need for compassion, and also to emphasize the need for tightened border security since 9/11 exposed the holes in border security. Indeed, many of the things Luntz says seem like plain common sense.

However, other things he advises seem a little more objectionable. He takes care to cultivate in his target audience the conviction that they are right, they are special, they deserve to have their needs looked after. This is a very good way to make people believe that you know what is best for them and work to see that they get it. It is also a good way to make different demographics pull away from each other, blocking any sense of solidarity. Advertisers and propagandists have used this technique for centuries to turn whites against blacks, men against women, old against young, upstanding citizens against single mothers, Christians against Muslims, jocks against nerds, and so forth. Now Luntz uses this technique to turn “law-abiding American citizens” against illegal immigrants. Even Hispanic immigrants will be subtly turned against the illegals, who did not come to the U.S. “the right way.”

Another questionable part of Luntz’s tactics is the fact that he talks a lot more about appearing a certain way than actually being that way. More space is devoted to the need to promise this or that than to the need to follow through on those promises. Either he is taking it as a given that what he is saying is true and that his clients will follow through on what they say, but on the other hand, he may be telling them what to say that will get people off their backs so they can do what they wanted to without interference.

Much of what Luntz tells his focus groups is vague and not backed up with statistics, much less with undeniable fact. Luntz blatantly plays to his audiences’ perceptions, telling him what he thinks they want to hear. He tells his clients to say, “Fix the immigration problem and we begin to fix the economy. Fix the immigration problem. Fix the immigration problem and taxpayers get the break they deserve,” but not because his data shows that illegal immigrants significantly hurt the U.S. economy. He tells them to say this because “60% of those polled believe that illegal immigrants … “are partially responsible for the deficit.”

In some cases, he tells politicians to completely reverse their meaning depending on who they are talking to. For instance, he instructs his readers to tell voters that illegal immigrants are “more likely to be involved in anti-social behavior” because they have learned they can break the law and get away with it, and that they will have a negative impact on American society and fill up American prisons. However, if his readers happen to be talking to Hispanics, they are instructed to say that yes, illegal immigrants certainly do commit crimes, but no more than the average legal immigrant or native-born.

Frank Luntz sees himself as separate and above the issues of ordinary people. He observes them like a scientist observing rats in a cage, and takes the same delight as the scientist in manipulating his subjects’ instincts and reactions. Watching him crow with delight as one of his predictions comes true, or gloat over how “amazing” it is that certain words always produce the responses they do, or casually spin new political catchphrases around mouthfuls of candy bar, one can hardly avoid the impression that he revels in the feeling of puppet-master power that his abilities give him. It seems only fitting that as Luntz sees himself as separate from the great mass of people who prefer “music” to “substance,” he then plays on people’s prejudice, paranoia and pride to systematically separate everyone from everyone else.