Equivalence Framing and the Construction of Advocacy Messages

Abstract

Alternative messages that present logically equivalent information, often referred to as equivalence frames, have been shown to influence readers' opinions on public issues. While equivalence framing has been studied in the context of issue advocacy, exhibiting pervasive effects across domains of decision-making, little attention has been paid to whether the general public is able to choose these equivalence frames based on the goal of persuasion. Given that framing effects have important implications on democratic decision-making, this paper reports on experiments that manipulate the strategic goal of policy advocacy (i.e., supporting alternative policy proposals) and ask respondents to select between equivalence frames to enhance the persuasive power of the advocacy toward the specified goal. Findings across three issue topics suggest that for the general adult population, only a small proportion of people were able to select equivalence frames based on the goal of persuasion with most people failing to do so. Also, a follow-up study with a university student sample showed that familiarity with one equivalence frame over the other was a more consistent predictor of equivalence frame use than the goal of advocacy in communicating policy issues.