Framing the Event: When Events Facilitate Re-framing

Political communication is a fight over how to understand the reality. But what happens when reality change? Contributing to the rising frame building literature, this paper takes an inductive approach and examines how events affect the political debate and the competition over defining reality. Does the framing of a policy question sustain or does it change? This was examined via a content analysis of news stories in two Danish omnibus newspapers about several policy questions over decades. The findings indicate that the framing of a policy question is rather stable and only rarely changes. Moreover, it shows that events can only facilitate a re-framing if 1) the event gives strength to one or several frames that challenge the current framing of the policy question, and 2) politicians sponsor one or several frames in light of the event with a high level of intensity. Otherwise, a potential frame-shift fails to occur. This finding contributes to our understanding of the dynamics in political debates and shows that events are an important driving force behind re-framing.