Читать книгу COVID-19 and Risk - Alaszewski Andy - Страница 14

Framing is influenced by the interests of individuals and groups. For example, when the aircraft manufacturer Boeing launched a new aircraft, the 737 Max, it was in its interest to frame it as a minor modification of an existing aircraft, the 737, rather than a new design. This framing was accepted both by the regulatory authority (the Federal Aviation Authority) minimising scrutiny and by the airlines minimising pilot retraining. As a Congressional inquiry made clear, this framing concealed a basic design defect ‘that resulted in the tragic and preventable deaths of 346 people’ (The House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, 2020, p. 5).

Once a frame has become established, it can be difficult to change, especially when it is accepted by a community. Individuals and groups will accept evidence that supports the frame and disregard and downplay evidence that indicates an alternative reality and frame. In the UK, this explains why in the 1970s the police in Leeds only arrested Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, by accident. The police disregarded both eye-​witness descriptions and alerts from junior officers who interviewed Sutcliffe. Following tapes and phone calls taunting the police, they had framed the killer as a man who spoke with a Wearside accent and Sutcliffe had a Yorkshire accent (Bindel, 2020, p. 31).

In early 2020, as news of a new form of pneumonia of unknown origins started to come out of China, policy makers across the world had to decide how to frame the new disease and answer the question, ‘what sort of disease is COVID-​19?’ They answered this question in different ways.