The Battle of Frames


BY MANUEL BUENCAMINO

 Framing works with words and images to delineate conceptual parameters. The most obvious example is in war-related propaganda where the enemy is invariably caricatured as the other who is ugly, evil and sub-human. Rationalization and motivation for the mass slaughter that is war becomes easier when it is framed in terms of the-good- and-the-beautiful who must battle and defeat the evil-other.  The battle of frames can determine the outcome of a war. This is why opposing sides wage the battle of frames as doggedly as they do the actual war itself. The North Vietnamese leadership framed the war in terms of a liberation struggle against colonial rule. Alas, for America, the US leadership never figured out how to frame the war properly.  The US leadership lost its own people's support even though the Americans were winning the war in terms of casualties, fifty thousand Americans against millions of Vietnamese deaths.