----- Original Message ----- From: "Eugene Coyle" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
A friend sent me this interview with George Lakoff, which goes towards answering your question, Michael. > Inside the Frame > <http://www.alternet.org/print.html?StoryID=17574> > > Inside the Frame > > BuzzFlash > January 15, 2004 > Viewed on January 16, 2004 > > > George Lakoff, a professor of linguistics and cognitive science at the > University of California Berkeley, is a specialist in the technique of > "framing," a communication tool that creates a "frame" for a message > that defines the terms of the debate. Lakoff believes that the > Republicans are experts at framing, while the Democrats hardly appear > to understand how the technique works at all. Take almost any major > political issue, and the Democrats react to how the Bush Cartel has > "framed the issue," rather than forcing the GOP to respond to a > Democratic "frame." Gene ======================================== "'perceptual fault lines' run through apparently stable communities that appear to have agreed on basic institutions and structures and on general governing rules. Consent comes apart in battles of description. Consent comes apart over whose stories to tell." [Kim Scheppele] "From a rhetorical standpoint, a description is a verbal representation of some object to some audience, such that the speaker is able to change the audience's attitude toward the object without changing the object itself. Thus, the trick for any would-be describer is to contain the effects of her discourse so that the object remains intact once her discourse is done. In descriptions of human behavior, this is often very difficult to manage, as the people being described, once informed of the description, may become upset and proceed to subvert the describer's authority." [Steve Fuller] http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/msg80249.html
