Game-Framing the Issues: Tracking the Strategy Frame in Public Policy News

Scholars and journalists have argued that the game frame reporting politics primarily in strategic terms is predominant in mainstream news reporting of politics. Game-oriented reporting is problematic, according to its critics, because it crowds out issue-based reporting. But as of yet we know little and have theorized little about the specific contexts in which the game frame is likely to be reporters primary emphasis. While numerous studies have documented the predominance of the game schema in election news, the empirical record on public policy news is quite limited. Accordingly, the content of national news about the issue of U.S. welfare reform during 1996 is analyzed to illustrate three theoretical propositions about game-framed news coverage: that the game frame is most likely to be applied to public policy issues when they are discussed in national election news, that the game frame is also particularly likely to be applied when Washington policymakers are engaged in conflict that promises a clear outcome (i.e., the passage or rejection of legislation) over key issues in electoral politics, and that the game frame is less likely to be applied to public policy issues when they are discussed in news about state-level political debates and the implementation phase of policy-making.