Counting mentions of religious elements serves as a soft proxy for framing

Evidence

Our final outcome variable assessed whether the article included a religious element or substantive topic2; that is, whether the article discussed any aspect of faith, religious customs, prayer, spiritual practices, doctrines, religious services, or belief systems, including but not limited to Islam. This variable captured the ways in which the topic was discussed, which served as a soft proxy for framing. — Emily Greene-Colozzi, Amy Adamczyk, and Senahan Kiyal Keles, Differences in Religious Framing of…, 49

Categorization

• DEFINE: Operationalizes ‘religious element’ as a countable content variable, and defines framing here as a soft proxy rather than a strict analytical category.
• XREF: Connects to broader media-studies debates over measuring framing quantitatively versus qualitatively — useful when reasoning about content-analysis designs.