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U.S. in the World: Talking Global Issues With Americans -- A Practical Guide

America is facing critical choices about who it is and wants to be in an increasingly interconnected world -- choices that will have a profound impact on Americans, on other peoples and countries, and on future generations. This guide pulls together facts and arguments and the most effective ways to put them across for advocates of pragmatic, principled, effective and collaborative U.S.


Summary of Surveys on Development Aid, Global Hunger, and Poverty: Public Knowledge LLC/FrameWorks Institute - Scaring Ourselves Salient: Assumptions and Consequences of Various Frames on Foreign Policy (2004)

Report Date: January 2004
Data Collected: December 2-18, 2003
Survey Population: 4000 adults nationally drawn proportionate to population

Background
This survey was conducted to quantify the effects of different communications frames on support for international engagement and a range of policy objectives such as addressing world hunger, preventing infectious disease, and fighting terrorism, among many others.

Key Findings

  • Compared to a previous Public Knowledge study conducted in 2000, the public –as represented in the control group – has become more supportive of an active role in the world, and strong opposition to foreign economic assistance has declined. However, the national dialogue has not resulted in a more interdependent mindset nor has it caused Americans to place significantly higher priority on addressing a wide range of international problems.
  • Republicans and Independents are more supportive of an active role in the world than they were three years ago, but they are no more likely to hold an interdependent perspective, and Republicans are no more likely to prioritize international issues. Meanwhile, Democrats have become increasingly likely to believe the US is doing more in the world than it should. Continuing to define foreign policy as a national security issue is likely to cause Democrats to retreat from international engagement, and not lead to increased support for non-security engagement among Republicans.

Key Advice

  • While questions used to prime a security mindset received strong reactions in this survey, the consequences of the Security Frame prove quite damaging: “Once the Security Frame is invoked, public priority for a range of issues declines and some groups significantly reduce their support for international engagement and global economic assistance.”
  • All of the remaining three frames prove more effective than the Security Frame in building support for international engagement, but the Positive Interdependence Frame is generally stronger than the other two. Compared to the Security Frame, the Positive Interdependence Frame results in significantly higher priority ratings for 14 of the 18 issues tested, more than the Negative Interdependence (nine issues) and the Enlightened Self-Interest Frame (six issues).
  • Even when the objective for communications is to advance specific security policies, the Positive Interdependence Frame is the most effective in lifting the public’s priority for addressing these policies, while the Security Frame is the least effective.

Methodology
To achieve this objective, the research incorporated a series of “priming” experiments to cue specific frames, and then determine the extent to which exposure to the frames subsequently influenced reasoning and attitudes about global interdependence. Nearly 4000 survey respondents were initially divided into a control group of 1000, which received no deliberate framing, plus four groups of 750 respondents each who were exposed to four test frames. The four test frames were:

1) Security – the dominant media frame of terrorism and national security which positions American safety as the goal of international engagement
2) Positive Interdependence – the benefits of interdependence, positioning the US as a good citizen using global teamwork to achieve the common good
3) Negative Interdependence – global problems that cross borders, calling for U.S. leadership to achieve what is in the nation’s self-interest and protect us from threats like infectious disease, etc.
4) Enlightened Self-Interest – international cooperation is simply practical for mutual self-interest, positioning the US as a pragmatic leader that sees international cooperation as an effective tool

After each frame was invoked, respondents rated the priority of a range of policies and expressed their views toward global engagement. To provide additional advice in communicating specific security policies (weapons proliferation, loose nukes, etc.) an additional experiment translated each of the four frames outlined above into a transition to security policy. Subsequently, respondents again rated a range of policies and questions concerning global engagement.

Return to Index of Surveys.