Lesson Report:
Title: Media and Politics: How Framing Shapes What We Feel and Believe
Synopsis: The session introduced the role of media in politics, emphasizing how information is framed to influence audience perceptions and emotions. Students identified emotional triggers in real media, contrasted headlines covering the same event, and practiced reframing headlines to understand episodic vs. thematic frames and implicit author agendas.
Attendance
– Students mentioned absent: 4
– Names: Ajumal; Sami; Aydana (sick; spravka requested); Muratbek
Topics Covered (chronological)
1) Administrative updates and assessment feedback
– Congratulated the class on completing the first major assessment; early read-throughs showed solid performance overall with several excellent essays.
– Timeline: grades to be posted within 4–5 days.
– Grading returns: numeric score + brief comments.
– Offered optional deeper feedback: students can request 1:1 conversations for detailed critique and improvement strategies.
2) Attendance
– Roll call conducted; noted absentees and one student out sick pending spravka.
3) Setting the theme: The media in politics
– Framing the day: Only one session this week; focus on a core, accessible concept—how media interacts with politics.
– Brainstorming “What is media?â€�:
– Student-sourced examples: social media, electronic info, websites, newspapers, magazines, television, radio, billboards; informal sources like gossip/friends/family; journalism (with a brief mention of “muckrakerâ€� journalism).
– Clarified that “mediaâ€� is a medium for transferring information from one group/person to another.
– Introduced “mass mediaâ€� as media designed for large audiences.
4) Warm-up Activity: Media that evokes emotion (individual)
– Prompt 1: Identify a recent piece of media that elicited a strong emotion (news article, Instagram post, video, etc.) and note the emotion.
– Prompt 2: Identify the specific words, images, ideas, or devices in the media that produced that emotion.
5) Whole-class share-out: Building a “trigger� chart for emotional effects
– Group example 1: Violent crime story (schoolgirl rape/murder)
– Emotions: shock, fear, anger, pain, unfairness.
– Triggers: vivid/violent word choices (“killed,â€� “rapedâ€�); repeated incidents amplifying impact.
– Group example 2: Palestine coverage
– Emotions: distress, urgency, moral compulsion.
– Triggers: images of children crying/hungry/in ruins; donation appeals; religious/moral appeals (“your God will not forgive you if you skip thisâ€�).
– Perspective example: U.S. political angle on Palestine
– Emotions: frustration, anger.
– Triggers: images of political figures visiting Israel appearing indifferent; claims of paid/influencer-driven, inauthentic content; perceived manipulation.
– Instructor synthesis: inauthentic/manipulative media evokes distrust, anger.
– Group example 3: Anti-Ukrainian slur (“kill these Ukrainian pigsâ€�) in a broadcast
– Emotions: rage, moral dissonance, confusion.
– Triggers: dehumanizing language; juxtaposition of “fairnessâ€� claims with visuals of violence; word choice producing cognitive dissonance.
– Instructional takeaway: Media often embeds choices (images, verbs, quotes, labels) that powerfully steer audience emotion and judgment.
6) Conceptual core: Framing, objectivity, and subjectivity
– Quick review:
– Objective: factual (e.g., “plants exist,â€� “the marker is blueâ€�).
– Subjective: evaluative/opinion-based (e.g., “blue is a beautiful colorâ€�).
– Media’s stated aim is to inform (objective), but human storytellers and organizations inevitably inject beliefs/emotions into delivery—consciously or not—creating frames.
– Key principle: Media doesn’t just tell facts; it tells a story designed to make you feel and believe something.
7) Headline analysis activity: Same event, different frames
– Two headlines about the same protest:
– A: “Hundreds of students gathered to demand action on university budget cuts.â€�
– B: “Student protests disrupt campus life and operations for third straight day.â€�
– Shared objective event: students protesting university budget cuts.
– Frame comparison:
– Headline A frames students as pursuing justice; supportive language: “demand action,â€� naming the cause (“budget cutsâ€�).
– Headline B frames students as harmful/annoying; language emphasizes negative impact: “disrupt,â€� “campus life and operations,â€� “third straight day.â€�
– Discussion outcomes:
– “Good guys/bad guysâ€� lens: A valorizes the students’ cause; B spotlights inconvenience and disorder.
– Author intent: A aims to validate the protests; B aims to delegitimize by focusing on disruption and persistence.
8) Formalizing the framing toolkit
– Framing definition reiterated: How information is presented to elicit particular beliefs/emotions; can be deliberate or unintentional.
– Two key frame types introduced:
– Episodic frame: isolates a single event (focus on today’s incident).
– Thematic frame: situates an event in a broader pattern/trend/context (e.g., “third straight dayâ€� suggests ongoing disruption).
– Application: Students linked headlines to either episodic or thematic framing choices.
9) Partner project: Sourcing and reframing real headlines (with Telegram workflow)
– Step 1: With a partner, collect five recent news headlines of interest (from websites or Instagram news pages) and post to the class Telegram group.
– Instructor debrief during submissions:
– Editorial choices matter: quotation marks (e.g., “terroristsâ€�), verbs (“killedâ€� vs. “passed awayâ€�), and selection of quotes all frame meaning.
– Brief philosophical aside: discussion of objectivity vs. moral judgment; limits of “neutralityâ€� and when moral language is appropriate; Kant mentioned as a touchpoint on ethics and striving toward goodness.
– Step 2: Choose five headlines from other groups’ Telegram posts (not your own).
– Step 3: For each of those five, identify what the author wants readers to believe/feel (what frame is being used).
– Step 4: Choose three of those and rewrite each headline to present the same event from a different frame, designed to evoke a different belief/emotion; post original + reframed headlines to Telegram.
Actionable Items
Urgent (before next class)
– Grades: Finish grading essays and post numeric scores with brief comments within 4–5 days as promised.
– Essay follow-ups: Announce office-hour slots or a sign-up link for students seeking detailed essay feedback.
– Telegram check: Verify all pairs submitted:
– Their original five headlines.
– Selections of five headlines from other groups.
– Three reframed headlines (original + reframed pairs).
– Attendance clarification:
– Collect spravka from Aydana.
– Confirm whether Aziret was absent (name called three times; unclear response in transcript).
High priority (next session prep)
– Compile a few exemplar Telegram submissions showing:
– Clear episodic vs. thematic framing.
– Effective reframes that change audience emotion/belief.
– Notable editorial choices (verbs, quotation marks, labels).
– Plan a brief debrief segment: highlight strong reframes; discuss where students struggled (e.g., moving beyond word swaps to true frame shifts).
Ongoing/course-level
– Media literacy scaffolding:
– Prepare a handout/slide with common framing levers (word choice, source selection, image selection, ordering, labels, statistics framing, moral appeals).
– Consider a short follow-up assignment applying frames to a policy topic relevant to the course.
– Track absences: Update attendance records (Ajumal, Sami, Aydana, Muratbek; and verify Aziret).
Homework Instructions:
NO HOMEWORK
All tasks were in-class activities with immediate submission (“send your list of five headlines to our Telegram group chat,� then select and reframe others) and timed prompts (“we have 15 minutes left,� “we have six minutes left�), with no after-class deliverables or due dates mentioned.