Frames in Production: Actors, Networks, Diffusion (FRAMENET)

政治行为者不会客观地提出问题。它们强调某些方面，而不强调其他方面，并影响观众对问题的思考方式，这被称为框架效应。例如，森林可以被框定为一个有待开发的资源库，一个艺术灵感的源泉，一个脆弱而复杂的生态系统，或者一个必须驯服的威胁。这些备选框架中的每一个都指向不同的政策处方。此外，并不是每一帧对观众的影响力都是一样的。现有的研究表明，带有负面信息的情感框架在改变人们的想法方面特别有效。近几十年来，在大多数与欧洲联盟(欧盟)有关的全民投票中，强调移民增加风险的情绪化论点在说服一部分公众投票反对手头的欧盟条约方面发挥了重要作用。框架的重要性在当今世界是显而易见的。行为者框定问题的方式在选举、移民政策、环境政治、贸易谈判、全球健康、透明度改革等领域都有重要影响。虽然框架在政治心理学、社会运动、国际关系或政治沟通等领域得到了广泛的研究，但现有研究的主要焦点是其说服力，换句话说，影响其说服力的因素。这个项目提出了一个被忽视的问题：帧最初来自哪里？为什么演员会选择他们使用的特定画面？因此，该项目旨在创建一个新的比较研究议程，调查具体声明何时以及如何出现在政治辩论中，由哪些行为者提出，以及这些声明是否和如何传播给其他人。该项目研究了五个问题领域(贸易、移民、环境、全球卫生和透明度)的框架，在每个问题领域都精心挑选了两场政治辩论。该项目采取了四个步骤来实现其目标。在第一步，它使用一种名为话语网络分析的新方法工具(与行为者网络一起研究论点的内容)，以追踪在一些选定的政治辩论中出现的具体框架、参与这一过程的最重要行为者以及所涉及的传播网络。在第二步中，它与这些参与框定的关键行为者进行访谈，以调查决定他们框定选择的最重要因素，以及他们各自的机构是否对这些选择产生影响。在第三步中，该项目研究这些模式是否以及如何在不同的问题领域(贸易、移民、环境、全球卫生和透明度)之间存在差异。因此，该项目以创新和混合方法为一个关键但被忽视的理论问题提供了一个比较全面的答案。该项目的第四步也是最后一步是向学术界和非学术界传播其调查结果，以提高人们对在全球化世界中这五个关键问题领域产生框架的过程的认识，鼓励政策和媒体精英更好地认识到他们的框架过程和战略如何影响公众对这些问题的辩论，并提出创新、包容和以证据为基础的传播战略。该项目与全球领先的全球发展政策智库之一德国发展研究所以及一系列相关的政府和非政府行为者合作，将研究每个阶段的主要受益者纳入其中。这些将通过定期会议、布鲁塞尔和日内瓦的两次政策活动、各种政策文件，最后是我们网站上的一个分析工具来实现，该工具将把我们的发现可视化，以便政策制定者、活动人士和普通公众能够很容易地理解这些发现。

Political actors do not present issues objectively. They emphasise certain aspects and deemphasise others and influence the way the audience thinks about the issue, which is called a framing effect. A forest, for example, can be framed as a resource pool to be exploited, a source of artistic inspiration, a fragile and complex ecosystem, or a threat that must be tamed. Each of these alternative frames points to a different policy prescription. Moreover, not every frame is equally influential on its audience. Existing research demonstrates that emotionally compelling frames with negative information are especially effective in changing people's minds. In the recent decades, in most referendums relating to the European Union (EU), emotional arguments highlighting the risks of an increase in immigration played a significant role in persuading a segment of the public to vote against the EU treaty at hand. The importance of frames is evident in today's world. The ways actors frame issues are shown to matter in the fields of elections, immigration policy, environmental politics, trade negotiations, global health, transparency reforms and more.Although frames have been studied extensively in fields such as political psychology, social movements, international relations or political communication, the main focus of the existing research is their persuasiveness, in other words the factors that affect their persuasiveness. This project asks a neglected question: Where do frames come from in the first place? Why do actors choose the specific frames they use? The project thus aims to create a new, comparative research agenda that investigates when and how specific statements emerge in a political debate, by which kinds of actors they are proposed, and whether and how they diffuse to others. The project studies frames in five issue areas (trade, immigration, environment, global health, and transparency), with two carefully selected political debates in each of these issue areas. The project takes four steps in order to achieve its aim. In a first step, it uses a new methodological tool called Discourse Network Analysis (studying the content of arguments together with the networks of actors), in order to trace the emergenceof specific frames in a number of selected political debates, the most important actors involved in the process, and the diffusion networks involved. In a second step, it conducts interviews with these key actors involved in framing in order to investigate the most important factors determining their framing choices and whether their respective institutions have an impact on these choices. In a third step, the project studies whether and how these patterns vary from one issue area to another (trade, immigration, environment, global health, and transparency). As such, the project offers a comparative andcomprehensive answer to a crucial but overlooked theoretical question, with an innovative and mixed-method methodology.The fourth and final step of the project is to disseminate its findings to academic and non-academic communities, in order to raise awareness on the processes that produce frames in these five key issue areas in a globalising world, encourage policy and media elites to be better aware of how their framing processes and strategies impact the public debates on these issues, and to suggest innovative, inclusive and evidence-based communication strategies. Working in partnership with German Development Institute, one of the leading think tanks for global development policy worldwide, and a range of relevant governmental and non-governmental actors, the project integrates key beneficiaries at every stage of the research. These will be achieved through regular meetings, two policy events in Brussels and Geneva, various policy papers, and finally an analytical tool on our website that will visualise our findings so that policymakers, activists and the general public can easily understand them.