Implicit media frames: Automated analysis of public debate on artificial sweeteners

TL;DR

This paper introduces an automated semantic map method to analyze diachronic changes in implicit media frames, applied to the NYT debate on artificial sweeteners from 1980 to 2006, revealing emerging metaphors and frame dynamics.

Contribution

It presents a novel automated approach for analyzing implicit media frames over time, distinguishing it from prior explicit frame analysis methods.

Findings

Semantic changes reveal dynamics of implicit frames

Detection of emerging metaphors in public debates

Analysis of media frame evolution over decades

Abstract

The framing of issues in the mass media plays a crucial role in the public understanding of science and technology. This article contributes to research concerned with diachronic analysis of media frames by making an analytical distinction between implicit and explicit media frames, and by introducing an automated method for analysing diachronic changes of implicit frames. In particular, we apply a semantic maps method to a case study on the newspaper debate about artificial sweeteners, published in The New York Times (NYT) between 1980 and 2006. Our results show that the analysis of semantic changes enables us to filter out the dynamics of implicit frames, and to detect emerging metaphors in public debates. Theoretically, we discuss the relation between implicit frames in public debates and codification of information in scientific discourses, and suggest further avenues for research interested in the automated analysis of frame changes and trends in public debates.