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Don't Think of An Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate
Campaigns & Elections, Oct-Nov, 2005 by Ron Faucheux
Don't Think of An Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate, by George Lakoff, Chelsea Green Publishing, 124 pages.
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Looks at the various messages both parties are sending to voters through frames of reference and the language used. The author, a liberal Democrat, urges his fellow party members to reframe the national political debate in ways that would advantage his side.
He essentially sees the political context in terms of the "strict father model" (conservatives/Republicans) and the "nurturant parent model" (progressives/Democrats). He shows how both domestic and foreign policies relate to one another based on these frames which fit what is already in the synapses of the brains of voters. He argues that to be accepted, the truth must fit people's frames. If the facts do not fit the frame, he says, the frame stays and the facts bounce off.
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That's why campaigning is more than simply giving voters a laundry list of policy proposals but a chance to build frames, which are mental structures that shape how people see the world. He uses a number of examples, such as the GOP's use of the term "tax relief" because of the way it creates a frame that conjures up many mental pictures that reinforce the Republican policy positions.
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COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group
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