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Media framing: how the presentation of a fact can shape its interpretation

A headline, a selection of facts or the omission of caveats can alter the interpretation of an event. Studies and ethics rulings make it possible to distinguish these effects from misleading presentations and fabrications, without attributing an intention to them.

By Nick FreemanUpdated 10 min read

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Generated image or non-documentary illustration. This image is not evidence or a photograph of a real event.

On November 7, 2017, the news agency The Canadian Press published an article entitled “Debate over Conservative bill to ease gun-carrying rules”.1 According to the Conseil de presse du Québec, a journalism ethics body, the headline confused carrying guns with possessing guns and was therefore not faithful to reality. In its decision D2017-11-127 of October 19, 2018, the body upheld the inaccuracy, dismissed the complaint of sensationalism and granted absolution because of a prompt correction: the headline had been corrected on the day it was published.1

A difference in perception can also arise from the selection and presentation of information. Research on media effects shows that making elements more salient can alter the criteria used for judgment, opinions or emotional reactions. These findings do not mean that all readers react in the same way.23

This article extends our investigation into the Hugging Face incident. That investigation distinguished the evaluation protocol and the disabled safeguards from the account of the incident itself, attributed to OpenAI and publications within its ecosystem. The question here becomes more general: what does a public presentation retain of the conditions and limits of the fact it recounts?

What is established and what remains to be distinguished

  • Established
    The presentation of information can alter its interpretation, even when its essential content or informational value remains equivalent.456

    The research converges on the existence of this effect, without establishing a uniform public reaction.

  • Disputed
    The scope of the term framing is the subject of theoretical disagreement.758

    The authors of Dynamic Transactions Between News Frames and Sociopolitical Events adopt a broad definition based on selection and salience. Those of The State of Framing Research require, under a strict psychological definition, identical information presented differently. Those of The End of Framing as We Know It propose distinguishing several types rather than retaining a general term.

  • Reported
    According to Robert M. Entman, framing rests on selection and salience.9

    This is a theoretical definition, not an independent experimental demonstration.

  • Established
    Repetition increases perceived truth, with an especially pronounced effect at the second exposure followed by diminishing gains.101112

    This effect concerns judgments of truthfulness. It does not support the conclusion that every repetition produces lasting acceptance.

  • Established
    Ethics bodies have identified misleading presentations involving terminological confusion, suggested guilt or the unjustified association of a personal characteristic with events.13114

    The convergence concerns the existence of these breaches. Each individual decision remains attributed to the body that issued it.

  • Reported
    British studies of scientific press releases did not find that their exaggeration increased the amount of media coverage.1516

    These findings concern the corpora studied. The two publications are not sufficient to establish a general rule for all fields or countries.

Established Shown by verifiable documents or data.

Disputed Contradicted by other documented evidence.

Reported Stated by an identified source, not independently confirmed.

Framing, making salient, shaping the criteria of judgment

According to researcher Robert M. Entman, in his theoretical article Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm, framing consists of selecting and making certain elements salient. This definition invites examination of what appears in an account and what is absent from it.9

The term does not, however, refer to exactly the same operations across authors. The researchers who wrote Dynamic Transactions Between News Frames and Sociopolitical Events, in the scholarly journal Journal of Communication, adopt a broad definition based on selection and salience, whereas the authors of The State of Framing Research reserve framing, under a strict psychological definition, for different presentations of identical information. The authors of The End of Framing as We Know It, in the scholarly journal Mass Communication & Society, propose replacing the general term with a distinction between several types of framing. This disagreement concerns the classification of mechanisms. It does not necessarily constitute a contradiction between their empirical findings.758

The amount of coverage and the prominence given to an issue contribute to its salience, which can influence the criteria used to judge political leaders. The book News That Matters, published by the academic publisher University of Chicago Press, and the experimental article cited below document these mechanisms.172

According to the authors of the experimental article Experimental Demonstrations of the “Not-So-Minimal” Consequences of Television News Programs, the problems highlighted in the evening news were given greater weight in evaluations of presidential performance. The article reports two experiments. This result is not sufficient to measure the effect of all political coverage.2

According to the authors of the study Rethinking news framing with large language models, the selection of accurate facts and their tone can influence public attitudes. Their estimate nevertheless partially combines these two dimensions. It does not make it possible to attribute the entire effect separately to the choice of facts or to their tone.3

Negativity and repetition: distinct effects

Negative information receives, on average, increased attention or dissemination. The magnitude, and sometimes the direction, of this preference nevertheless varies according to individuals, countries, content and tasks. The findings of the studies Individual-level differences in negativity biases in news selection, Rethinking news framing with large language models and Negative online news articles are shared more to social media therefore do not justify assuming that every reader always prefers an alarmist headline.18319

Repetition acts on another dimension: perceived truth. A systematic review with a meta-analysis published in the scholarly journal Nature Communications, the study The effects of repetition frequency on the illusory truth effect and a review devoted to this effect converge on an increase in truthfulness judgments. The gain is especially pronounced at the second exposure, then decreases with additional exposures.101112

Repeating inaccurate information can also increase its perceived accuracy and its likelihood of being shared. These measures must be distinguished from a demonstration that every repetition of a headline would lead to lasting acceptance of its interpretation.102012

From the scientific finding to the press release, then to the news report

The transformation can begin before a newsroom becomes involved. According to the authors of a retrospective observational study published in the scholarly journal BMJ, a sample of 462 press releases from 20 British universities in 2011 contained 40% exaggerated advice, 33% exaggerated causal claims and 36% exaggerated extrapolations from animals to humans. These proportions describe this sample, not scientific communication as a whole.15

The authors of this study and those of Exaggerations and Caveats in Press Releases and Health-Related Science News, published in the scholarly journal PLOS ONE, report a strong association between exaggerations in press releases and corresponding exaggerations in news reports. These observational analyses document an association. They are not sufficient to establish that a press release, by itself, causes every exaggeration.1516

According to the findings of these two British studies, exaggeration in press releases did not increase the amount of media coverage. It would therefore be excessive to present exaggeration as a means whose effectiveness in obtaining more coverage has been demonstrated.1516

Press releases also influence the selection of topics. According to the authors of Science communication in online media: influence of press releases on coverage of genetics and CRISPR, media reliance on press releases reached 92.5% for topic selection in the datasets studied. This result, specific to genetics and CRISPR, cannot automatically be generalized to all scientific fields.21

Presenting an association as a cause, turning an observation into advice or extending to humans a result obtained in animals changes the scope of the statement. These are the categories of exaggeration examined in the study published in BMJ.15 The mitigation or omission of uncertainty can also increase the impression of certainty and alter the public interpretation of a finding, according to research published in the scholarly journal Humanities and Social Sciences Communications and by the learned society Royal Society.2223

Headlines, wording and omissions: ethics rulings

In a case involving an acquitted man, the Conseil de presse du Québec reported that a headline presented him as guilty of acts of which he had been acquitted. According to the body, this presentation led to a reprimand against the media outlets La Voix de l’Est and lapresse.ca. This finding concerns a specific publication. It does not measure its effect on readers.13

According to the Australian Press Council, an Australian press self-regulatory body, the headline and first paragraph of an article by the news.com.au outlet about a victim misleadingly and unfairly suggested her consent. The Council found breaches of its General Principles 1 and 3.24

According to the same body, a headline published by the Daily Mail Australia outlet on October 31, 2025 highlighted a person’s transgender status without any reported connection to the events. The Council found breaches of General Principles 3 and 6. This case concerns the relevance of a personal characteristic to the account.14

The omission can also concern the context of a judicial conclusion. According to the Australian Press Council, the media outlet The Australian had not sufficiently highlighted the communications underlying a reasonable appearance of bias in articles concerning Shane Drumgold.25

These decisions identify specific problems: terminological confusion, suggested guilt, implicitly attributed consent, an irrelevant personal characteristic or insufficiently presented context. They do not make it possible to equate every difference in framing with an ethical breach.113241425

Media outlets found at fault for different acts

According to the Independent Press Standards Organisation, the British press self-regulatory body, an article published by Newbury Weekly News on 15 May 2025 incorrectly described a release on bail as being subject to conditions. In decision 05702-25 of 16 April 2026, the organisation found a breach of the accuracy clause and required a correction. This decision identifies an error in judicial reporting; it does not demonstrate an intention to mislead.26

The case of journalist Jayson Blair falls into a different category. According to an internal investigation published in 2003 by The New York Times, he had fabricated comments and scenes and reused material from other media outlets. The documentary company EBSCO also reports these fabrications and this plagiarism in a summary. The case concerns the invention of content, not merely the choice of an angle.2728

Research funding and interests

In its Weekly Beast column, The Guardian presents News Corp as a majority member of the Australian Press Council and describes its contribution using the phrase “up to 70% of its annual $1.7m budget”.29 It also writes that News Corp “effectively controls the APC as a majority member”.29 The amount and this assessment of News Corp’s power remain attributed to The Guardian. They do not demonstrate that this funding determined a decision by the Council.

The authors of the study published in PLOS ONE declare support from the ESRC and Cardiff University, as well as an absence of competing interests. These declarations provide information about the provenance of the work; they do not replace an examination of its method and results.16

According to the authors of the retrospective analysis Disclosure of study funding and author conflicts of interest in press releases and the news, published in the scientific journal BMJ Open, the mention of funding, in the 2011 cohort studied, fell from 94% in scientific articles to 29% in press releases and 9% in news stories. This correlational result describes a loss of information in this cohort.30

Limits of traceability and interpretation

  • Reported
    According to The Guardian, News Corp contributes to the budget of the Australian Press Council and holds a majority position within it.29

    This description is based on a single publication. It does not prove influence over the decisions examined.

  • Reported
    The authors of the study published in PLOS ONE declare support from the ESRC and Cardiff University, as well as an absence of competing interests.16

    These are the authors’ declarations, not an independent verification of all their relationships.

  • Unknown
    The financial independence of all the studies cited has been established.153102

    Not all funding and interests are known. Unknown funding does not mean an absence of funding.

Reported Stated by an identified source, not independently confirmed.

Unknown No available source can establish it.

How to read an article

The studies and decisions cited suggest a few practical checks:

  • Compare the headline with the body of the text. Does the headline retain the necessary reservations, attributions and distinctions? According to the Conseil de presse du Québec, confusion between carrying and possessing weapons shows the importance of a single term.1
  • Identify who is asserting what. In judicial reporting, allegations, established facts and the outcome of the proceedings must remain distinct.3126
  • Look for the conditions underlying the scientific result. Does the article describe an association or a cause? An animal or human study? A result or advice added during its communication? These distinctions correspond to the categories examined in the study published in BMJ.15
  • Check the relevance of personal details and the presence of decisive context. According to the Australian Press Council, these choices made certain presentations unfair or misleading.1425
  • Trace the information back to the original publication. Information about funding, conflicts of interest, limitations and uncertainty can disappear between the study, the press release and the news story.302223

To compare two accounts of the same event, one can identify the facts they have in common, those present in only one text, the words in the headline and the position of the reservations. This reading draws on the dimensions of selection and salience described by Entman and on those studied in Rethinking news framing with large language models. It makes it possible to examine the construction of the account without attributing an intention based solely on its framing.93

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Media framing: how the presentation of a fact can shape its interpretation · FactaVue