Media framing shifts can reflect outlet politics rather than elite influence

Evidence

We also examined a fairly short period of time, and our results offer only a micro-examination into the 18 months before President Trump announced his campaign and the 18 months after he was elected. Notably absent is the period between the campaign announcement and election. It is possible that some important variation is evident during that time period, which could help explain or strengthen our results. Finally, we acknowledge that the preand post-variation in frames and claimsmakers may reflect the publication itself, rather than a true influence of the Trump Administration. For example, we did not code for the political orientation of the newspapers, which may be an important control in future studies to further validate our findings. — Emily Greene-Colozzi, Amy Adamczyk, and Senahan Kiyal Keles, Differences in Religious Framing of…, 81

Categorization

• QUESTION: Were post-2016 framing changes concentrated in right-leaning papers, or did they appear across the political spectrum? That split would decide whether this is elite cue-taking or editorial self-sorting.
• SEED: An essay on the missing middle: the campaign-announcement-to-election window is where most of the interesting media movement happens, and it’s the period studies routinely skip because it’s messy.
• XREF: connects to: Mainstream media’s failure to explain the banking crisis empowered Tory narratives — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1857