ABSTRACT
As the chapters in this volume so ably demonstrate, the concept of framing provides political scientists with considerable explanatory leverage over both elite and mass political behavior. The chapters in Part I indicate that at the elite level strategic framing or “crafted talk” has emerged as an essential ingredient of political leadership. In the era of media-based politics, politicians have good reasons to be hypersensitive to the power of both imagery and language. Public personas and performances are orchestrated accordingly. In this sense, the framing phenomenon is simply an extension of William Riker’s dominance principle, i.e., that politicians strategically select or define the issues for public debate (Riker 1993).
