Framing is the process by which journalists — and editors, and platform algorithms — select certain aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, or treatment recommendation. In plain terms: the same event, reported through two different frames, can lead readers to entirely different conclusions. This is not necessarily dishonest. Framing is unavoidable. Every narrative choice involves selection and emphasis. What matters is whether readers are equipped to recognise it.

Consider how a single policy story can be framed three ways. A piece on new housing legislation might be headlined "Government expands housing support for low-income families" — a policy-benefit frame that centres recipients. The same legislation might run as "Taxpayers to fund new $2 billion housing programme" — a cost frame that centres fiscal impact. A third outlet might run "Critics warn new housing bill fails to address supply crisis" — an oppositional frame that centres the policy's critics. All three stories could use identical underlying facts. The frame is built through headline choice, source selection, the ordering of information, and which number gets a dollar sign versus which gets contextualised as investment.

The most powerful frames are the ones you don't notice. Frames become invisible when they align with your existing expectations — when the way a story is told matches what you already believe about the world. This is why people often perceive coverage that challenges their priors as "biased" while experiencing confirming coverage as straightforwardly factual. Breaking that habit requires deliberately seeking out coverage from perspectives you don't usually read, comparing how different outlets frame identical events, and paying close attention to word choice, source selection, and what gets said in the first paragraph versus the last.

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