Message framing — shape your language to get readers on board

Jayne Webb | June 4, 2025

Do you find that your words don’t always have the effect you want? Do you feel that people aren’t listening, even when presented with all the best facts and evidence? Do you sometimes feel you’re communicating into a void? You’re not alone.

We live in an overloaded information environment, and our brains want to deal with information in a ‘quick-thinking’ way. This means it’s more important than ever to frame messages in the right way.

Framing is about the choices we make in what we say and how we say it. Framing includes:

The first two points are straightforward — a bit like with a picture frame, you can choose what you want to put in the frame and what you want to leave out.

For example, if you’re encouraging people to exercise, you can choose one of two approaches. You can focus on the benefits of regular exercise (called gain framing). Or you can focus on the negative effects of a sedentary life (loss framing). Similarly, are you more likely to buy food that’s ‘75% fat-free’ or ‘with 25% fat’?

Words can frame thinking

How you frame an issue influences people’s beliefs, attitudes, and ways of reasoning — their mindsets.

For example, look at the word ‘cyclists’. When people read the term ‘cyclists’, they tend to start thinking about a set of people who are different from those people who drive cars or who walk or take the bus. This word brings with it an individualistic mindset that pitches ‘them against us’.

But if we say, ‘people on bikes’, it brings to the surface mindsets about ‘all people getting about town to do the things they need to do’. It’s a ‘people first’, ‘better together’ mindset, which deepens thinking to explain that sometimes people bike, sometimes they walk or take the bus, and sometimes they drive or are driven. With this mindset, people find it easier to understand the changes needed to design the streets for all people.

Here’s another example. Here in New Zealand’s capital, Wellington, we hear the catchcry of ‘pipes over cycleways’ (a simplistic way of saying let’s prioritise fixing our ageing water pipes over building cycleways). This phrase triggers a ‘zero-sum’ mindset, where people are led to believe that only one option is possible. However, ‘connecting people and places’ helps people think more deeply and broadly about all transport options — instead of war words like ‘battling for spaces’ or sports language like ‘competing for funding’.

These framing choices matter because they affect how people hear you, what they understand, and how they act.

Metaphors are a useful frame

Metaphors are frames that help explain something more complex by using a concept that we’re already familiar with. People tend to remember metaphors. Here are some examples of metaphors that help explain more complex issues.

Table explaining some examples of metaphors and how they're used.

Image by Write Group

Different metaphors influence how people reason about an issue

Your choice of metaphor can influence how people explain the causes and solutions for an issue. If possible, test your metaphor with your target audience.

In a US study by Thibodeau and Boroditsky, participants were presented with short paragraphs about crime in a hypothetical city. For half the participants, a few words were altered so that the paragraph said that crime was a ‘beast preying’ on the city. For the other half, crime was described as a ‘virus infecting’ the city.

Changing the metaphor influenced people’s beliefs about crime more than any pre-existing differences in opinion between Republicans and Democrats. Those exposed to the ‘beast’ metaphor were more likely to believe that crime should be dealt with by using punitive measures. Those people who read the ‘virus’ metaphor were more likely to support reformative measures.

One of the most remarkable things about the metaphor’s influence in this study was that it was covert. When participants were asked about what influenced their decision, no one mentioned the metaphor. They instead pointed to other aspects of the message that were the same for all participants, such as statistics.

Read about the study in this online journal article on the role of metaphor in reasoning.

So, the words we use make a difference to how people receive our messages and reason about the world. Choosing the right frame is essential.

Learn more about choosing words wisely

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