Mass social movements, of course, need more than framing, but, other things being equal (though they never are), framing appears to make a great deal of difference, as Doug suggests: e.g.,
<blockquote>_Risky choice framing tasks_ usually present participants with two options: one sure thing and one gamble. The different frames result from the options' being phrased either in terms of gains or in terms of losses. Tversky and Kahneman's (1981) "Asian disease problem" illustrates this class of framing problem:
Imagine that the U.S. is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed. Assume that the exact scientific estimate of the consequences of the programs are as follows:
If Program A is adopted, 200 people will be saved. If Program B is adopted, there is 1/3 probability that 600 people will be saved, and 2/3 probability that no people will be saved.
A majority of participants selected Program A over Program B. A separate group was presented with the same cover story, but with the two programs reformulated as follows:
If Program C is adopted, 400 people will die. If Program D is adopted, there is 1/3 probability that nobody will die, and 2/3 probability that 600 people will die.
Although Program C is simply a rewording of Program A and Program D is a rewording of Program B, only a minority of participants preferred C to D. That is, group preferences reversed when the options were merely rephrased. Programs A and B are phrased in terms of lives saved, whereas Programs C and D are phrased in terms of lives lost. According to the traditional explanation of the framing effect, people prefer Program A to Program B because they are generally risk averse for gains, but they prefer Program D to Program C because they are generally risk seeking for losses (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979; see also Kahneman & Tversky, 1984; Tversky & Kahneman, 1981, 1986). Like attribute framing effects, risky choice framing effects have been demonstrated using a wide variety of tasks (for reviews, see Kühberger, 1998; Levin et al., 1998).
(Craig R. M. McKenzie, "Framing Effects in Inference Tasks - And Why They're Normatively Defensible," Memory and Cognition 32, <http://psy.ucsd.edu/~mckenzie/McKenzieMem&Cog2004.pdf>, 2004)</blockquote>
>[lbo-talk] Straw in the wind: Republican base dividing on Iraq
>Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
>Mon Jun 20 13:26:49 PDT 2005
<snip>
>>Yeah, I'd noticed that and was trying to figure out what in meant.
>>It's not just that the antiwar "movement" hasn't been a factor,
>>it's virtually disappeared even as public opinion was turning in
>>its favor. Why?
>
>One way to look at this is that the anti-war movement became the
>Anybody But Bush movement. And that ironically, it won. Not in
>electing Kerry, which was never its main aim, but in turning people
>against the war, which was always the main focus its efforts, and
>which it continues to be fixated on to this day.
When the Anybody But Bush movement was most active and intense, polls registered a significant decline in anti-war opinions: "Last year, after climbing up to the high point of 56% on June 8-15, the voices that said 'Bring Home in Next Year' decreased significantly, *reaching the low point of 47% on November 9-14 and getting reduced to a minority for the first time since Harris began to poll on this question in October 2003*. The latest numbers show a recovery of sentiments against the war and occupation -- despite the ruling class propaganda about the successful Iraqi elections -- probably because the negative effects of electoral politics have worn off" (<http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20050221/004107.html>, 24 Feb. 2005). -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Monthly Review: <http://monthlyreview.org/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>