1.1 How framing shapes sense-making
Now that you have been introduced to the concept of ‘the frame’, you will explore how framing can shape sense-making. In Activity 1, you will see how frames can help sense-making but also hinder it.
Activity 1 You’ve been framed!
Look at the terrified woman in the image below. This close-up image of her facial expression allows you to see that she is terrified, displaying many of the classic facial patterns associated with extreme fear: her mouth is open in a scream, her eyebrows are furrowed, and her eyes are tightly pinched shut. What terrifying scene has she just witnessed?
Now click on the image to reveal a wider frame.
By clicking on the image, you zoom out from the close-up. As the frame expands, you now see a picture of tennis player Serena Williams – the photograph was actually taken immediately after she defeated her sister in the 2008 US Open Tennis Championships final.
Now spend a few minutes noting down your thoughts in response to the following questions.
- What happened to your sense-making when the expanded frame showed you a bigger picture? In other words, what changed about how you made sense of what you were seeing?
Discussion
If this activity worked as we anticipated (and, as explained below, there is no guarantee that it did), then you will have accepted that this was the face of a terrified woman when you first looked at the close-up image. In other words, the sense you made out of what you saw was that this person’s face was expressing fear. What probably happened next is that, after seeing the bigger picture, you completely changed your mind about the emotion this face was expressing. The sense you made of what you saw after zooming out was likely that Williams is quite ecstatic, not terrified.
- Why did this happen to your sense-making? In other words, how did the change of frame shape how you made sense of what this woman was experiencing? Was it simply that more of this picture was included because of the expanded frame?
Discussion
You may have noted that part of what happened to produce this change in your sense-making was that you realised this was a picture of the famous tennis champion Serena Williams. Since she is famous, it is possible, of course, that you may have recognised her even in the close-up (if so, this might have made you less vulnerable to accepting that her face was expressing terror).
You were probably aware that, although no details on Williams’ face changed, you now understood more of the context thanks to the expanded frame of the bigger picture. This is because, once you enlarge the frame, more of the image becomes visible: her outfit, her tennis racket, the background detail, and the way her clenched fist is raised. All of these details – now included in the frame – combine and influence your sense-making.
You may also have noted that there is a further layer of framing at play – one that exists outside the picture. Did you notice how the textual description of the face as expressing fear also framed what you saw? In other words, we on the course team framed this activity in a way that may have misled you. Perhaps you even felt that it was you who were framed!
This is an important point to reflect on. Whenever you engage in sense-making, you are doing so from a particular point of view that is embedded in a particular context. When looking at the close-up image of Williams, you did not just view a face – you viewed that face under a specific discursive description. So, if you did experience this quite radical change in sense-making (from an expression of terror to one of joy), it is because you accepted the suggestion ‘Look at the terrified woman in the image below’. What you saw (your perceptual sense-making) was influenced by what was said (your discursive sense-making). You may have noticed that this misleading discursive description was a key, though perhaps unnoticed, part of how the initial image was framed.
Context is a complex idea. In Activity 1, you saw how framing functions as a device for shaping sense-making by setting up what counts as ‘context’. For example, you saw how expanding the frame changed the sense you made of the expression on the face you were observing.
You may find it helpful here to differentiate between two aspects of sense-making: first-order and second-order sense-making. Notice, for example, that in this activity you were making sense of how Serena Williams was making sense in the moment she was pictured. In particular, you were making sense of her emotional or affective sense-making (was she making sense of the world fearfully or joyfully?). This positions you as a second-order sense-maker of Serena’s first-order sense-making. Once you saw the bigger-picture image of Serena Williams, you made different second-order sense out of her first-order emotional sense-making. In other words, you experienced her expression very differently as the frame was changed because you understood more about what she was actually feeling when the photo was taken.
This distinction between first-order and second-order sense-making is not static and fixed, but dynamic. Put simply, a second-order sense-maker occupies the position of a ‘subject’ in process of making sense of an ‘object’ who is also a sense-maker. So, in observing the picture of Serena Williams, you acted as a second-order sense-maker and the picture of Serena served as the ‘object’ you were making sense of. But these positions are not static because your own sense-making can also be the ‘object’ for some other second-order sense-maker. Also, when a second-order sense-maker ‘changes their mind’, in the way we hope you did during the last activity, it typically draws their attention to their own sense-making process. You may even have taken a second-order perspective on your own sense-making process (and become an observer of your own way of observing). In this case, your previous sense-making becomes the ‘object’ of your present sense-making. You ‘turn around’, as it were, on your own sense-making. Small as this point may seem, it is quite fundamental to becoming a social psychologist.
OpenLearn - Social psychology: sense-making in crises
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