Framing Communication: The Hidden Skill Behind Persuasive Messages

How you express the messages you tell your audience is a critical component of framing communication. This expression in your communication is audience framing.

Artists are best known for framing. Photographers and visual artists use framing to help viewers focus on the subject in their photos. Framing highlights what the artist wants the viewer to see in their portrait.

Framing in communication is no different. The way you craft your message or express an idea creates a frame, highlighting the meaning you want your listener to hear from your message.

What is Communication Framing?

Framing your communication means choosing a specific “frame” or angle to deliver your message so that you highlight the meaning you want your audience to focus on.

In practice, a frame is like a filter – it emphasizes certain aspects of the message and downplays others.

For example, will you use a metaphor, tell a story, or present statistics? Each approach frames the message differently.

Management consultant Gail Fairhurst says that framing gives a structured way to think about concepts. It also provides context to main ideas to your target audience.

In Fairhurst’s book, The Power of Framing, she states that leaders often cannot control events. “But they can control the context under which events are seen if they recognize a framing opportunity.”

If your message has the right frame, it can create more meaning and context. Your audience will also be more likely to interpret what you are saying the way you want them to interpret it.

Why Framing Matters

Every message is structured—whether you mean to or not. It shapes what your audience sees, feels, and does.

Framing isn’t fluff. It’s influence.

Two messages can say the same factual thing, both technically true—and still trigger completely different reactions. One builds trust. The other sparks fear. One leads to action. The other to avoidance.

But framing doesn’t just happen in what we say. It’s happening to us—constantly.

Headlines, ads, press releases, and content are framed to steer your reaction.

Framing is the discipline of choosing what to highlight so your message lands with clarity and impact.

In leadership, strategy, marketing—or even casual conversation—framing is the difference between being understood or dismissed.

If you don’t control the frame, you’re missing an opportunity to shape perception—and drive action.

Where did Communication Framing originate?

Framing as a communication concept has its roots in media and sociology. In mass communication theory, “framing” refers to how information is packaged by the media to influence interpretation by the public.

“According to the theory, the media highlights certain events and then places them within a particular context to encourage or discourage certain interpretations. In this way, the media exercises a selective influence over how people view reality. Anthropologist Gregory Bateson is credited with first positing the theory in 1972.” Source: Communications Studies

This theory – where the media controls how you view events — has seeped into marketing and leadership communications.

What you choose to communicate and how you frame your ideas can govern the interpretation of your audience.

See a real example in the New York Times. See how the highlighted a detail vs. other news outlets. 

5 Frames You Can Use to Communicate

The way you create a message and share it frames how the listener will receive it. Here we look at five ways to frame a message.

• Positive and Negative Frames
• Metaphor and Analogies
• Storytelling
• Contrast
• WIIFMs

1. Positive and Negative Frames

Any message can be framed with an optimistic spin or a cautionary tone. Positive and negative frames can be seen in almost every type of frame that exists.

• Positive framing focuses on the benefits, gains, or favorable outcomes of a situation.
• Negative framing highlights the risks, losses, or adverse outcomes.
• Neither is about changing the facts; it’s about changing which side of the coin to shine a light on.

If you create the same message but one with positive and the other with a negative framing, both statements will be true, but they set different expectations.

If you’re communicating a new initiative at work:

• Positive frame: “This change will create new opportunities for our team.”
• Negative frame: “Not embracing this change could put us behind our competitors.”

In fact, in public safety campaigns, negative or fear-based frames, like “If you text while driving, you increase your risk of a crash,” have been used to discourage dangerous behavior.

Whereas positive frames, “Stay safe by focusing on the road – arrive alive,” appeal to the desire for a good outcome.

Positive framing often works best when:

• The audience is already open or neutral to the idea.
• You’re promoting preventive behaviors, benefits, or rewards.
• The goal is to build trust, hope, or optimism.
• Example: “Eat more vegetables to boost your energy.”

Negative framing tends to be more effective when:

• The audience is apathetic, resistant, or unaware of a risk.
• The topic involves danger, loss, or urgency.
• You’re trying to interrupt inaction or complacency.
• Example: “Not exercising increases your risk of heart disease.”

3. Framing Through Storytelling

Our brains are hardwired to learn from stories. We have been learning and passing information to one another through stories since our species began communicating. Now storytelling works well in business.

According to Leo Widrich’s Lifehacker article:

A story, if broken down into the simplest form, is a connection of cause and effect. And that is exactly how we think.

We think in narratives all day long, no matter if it is about buying groceries, whether we think about work or our spouse at home.

Stories are also easy to remember and help people learn and connect with the material. According to the Harvard Business Journal, “Psychologist Jerome Bruner’s research suggests that facts are 20 times more likely to be remembered if they’re part of a story.”

4. Framing Through Contrast

Contrasting principles can set up an influential frame. It’s based on one of Robert Cialdini’s universal principles of persuasion.

From Selling and Persuasion Techniques, Using Contrast to Sell:

The contrast principle can be used when you are dealing with price objections to make the cost of your offer look smaller. The idea is to compare your price to something larger so it doesn’t look so expensive.

You may compare your price to the extra profit the client will make or to your competitors or to the much larger costs inherent in the client’s business.

Contrast can be used for almost any topic. It does not just work with price.

For example, a local school in Arlington, Texas, used this principle. In the daycare industry, turnover is extremely high.

Usually, teachers do not stay at the same school for long. However, this school’s average staff had been there for more than 15 years. The school is using this contrasting point in their marketing message and gaining traction in the market.

5. Framing Through WiiFMs

WIIFM stands for What’s in it for me?

Audience members are selfish. They want to know how the thing you are communicating about will affect their lives.

Will it make their life better? Can they implement it? Your entire message needs to should center on how the audience will benefit.

No one cares about the Tarzan chest-beating, which communicators do from time to time. They are trying to show how great their company is, but often it misses the mark.

Here are two frames, but they are talking about the same thing. Each one is talking about why you should do business with this fictitious company.

We have received award after award for our customer service. We have created some of the most innovative software for companies. Our digital first philosophy drives everything we do. Our knowledge skill and experience cuts waste and we have given companies the ability to move faster.

So you might be interested in working with that company. They are qualified and know what they are doing.

But what if the company said it like this?

When you work with us, you get to experience one of the best customer service teams in the country. We don’t rest until you are satisfied. You will be receiving the best software you need to bring your company and employees into the digital age so you can be more productive ad spend more time on what matters.

When we frame our communication in this way, the listener hears the value you have to offer.

Communicators often point to the greatness of their company. Instead, communicators should show how their company gives their customers’ value.

Start with Clarity. Then Frame It.

A frame influences how your audience sees your business, your message, or your product. It’s a powerful tool—but it’s not magic.

Framing only works if the message underneath is clear.

Most people rush to shape perception before they’ve done the harder work: figuring out what they’re really trying to say and why it matters.

If your message is muddy, no frame will save it.
So before you craft the frame, find the point. Nail the purpose. Strip the noise.
Because a strong frame can’t fix a weak message.

Start with clarity. Then frame with intent.

Why is Communication So Difficult?

The bottom line is that effective communication is difficult. It just is, even for naturally good communicators. If you look at the challenges modern humans face compared to our hominid ancestors, it’s just complicated. Plain and simple. Here’s why: The subjects modern humans talk about are extremely complicated and unnatural. We respond to things that … Read more Why is Communication So Difficult?