Cognitive Framing
Definition
The discipline of designing the conceptual lens through which an audience interprets a political issue — codified by George Lakoff in Don’t Think of an Elephant! (Chelsea Green, 2004; rev. 2014) — so that the campaign’s language activates the audience’s existing values rather than triggering their opponent’s. [source: dont-think-of-an-elephant]
The core practitioner claim is that political language does not describe reality neutrally: every noun frames, every metaphor activates, and successful campaigns choose frames deliberately rather than letting opponents’ frames dominate. Lakoff’s prescriptive rule is the operational form of this claim: never state the opponent’s frame even to deny it, because stating an opponent’s frame activates and strengthens it; explicit rebuttal is itself a frame-activation, not a frame-eviction. [source: dont-think-of-an-elephant]
It is distinguished from framing-and-narrative (which is the broader campaign discipline of choosing stories and messengers) by its focus on the conceptual layer beneath stories — the values being activated, the metaphors being used, and the world-view being assumed.
Full page: [[cognitive-framing]].