Frames in Thought and Schema Development: Hidden Sources of Stability and Change via Frame Content

Unpublished manuscript. Presented at the ICA Annual Conference, 2025.

The article advances a schema-based theory of framing, arguing that media influence operates not only through changing which considerations people prioritize, but also through gradual transformations in the meaning and structure of citizens’ frames in thought. Its research design combines two longitudinal experiments, open-ended survey responses, and computational text analysis to trace how framing effects unfold across repeated, shifting, affective, and choice-based exposure contexts. The contribution is both theoretical and methodological: it links framing, schema adaptation, and long-term media effects in a design capable of detecting subtle forms of cognitive change that standard closed-ended measures often miss.