Lesson 8 — What Gets Reported and What Gets Left Out

Summary

Learners analyze how the framing and selection of a story — what is in the frame and what is left out — shape what people come to believe. They compare two differently-framed reports of the same event, identify each report’s angle and omissions, and connect framing back to ownership and to their own habits as readers.

Objectives

• Analyze how media framing and selection shape what is reported and left out. (D10.S2.10.02)

Connection

A photograph is a choice about where to point the lens. Point it at the crowd and you see a celebration; point it at one angry face and the same crowd looks like a riot. News works the same way: every story is a frame, and the frame decides what is inside — and, just as powerfully, what is outside. A flood reported as “government failure” leaves out the river’s neglected floodplain; a protest reported as “violence” leaves out what the people were protesting. You cannot see everything at once; so the question is never whether a frame exists, but whether you know you are looking through one — and what the frame left out.

Materials

• Framing comparison
• Frame/omission sheet

Preparation

• Copy the framing comparison and the frame/omission sheet.
• Retrieval: from Lesson 7, recall who owns the outlets you use and what that ownership might leave out. Today we analyze the how — the frame itself.
• Prepare one worked example of listing what is in and out of a frame.

Facilitator note

This lesson is written to the learner (“you”). The idea to land: every report is framed — a selection of what to show and what to omit — and the frame shapes what people conclude; media literacy is the habit of noticing the frame and asking what it left out. The critical-thinking lens is the spine. The ethics lens: fair reporting names its angle and seeks what it might be missing (S-442). The egalitarian lens: framing decides whose experience is centered and whose is omitted — a question of who gets to be the “we” of a story (S-417). The global lens: the same event is framed differently by different media systems and cultures, and reading across them widens the frame. The technology lens: the feed amplifies the most engaging frame, not the most complete one (S-482). The environment lens: environmental stories are especially vulnerable to framing — a drought framed as “weather” omits the long human causes; notice what the frame hides. Use the event example with care and keep claims hedged. Preview: we now pivot to the Earth itself — ecosystem services and tipping points — the environment half of the unit.

Procedure

1. Recall (5 min). From Lesson 7: what is media concentration, and what can it leave out?
2. Meet the frame (10 min). Framing is choosing what to include and how to present it. Selection is what a story picks out; omission is what it leaves out. Agenda setting is the power to make some things seem important and others invisible. An angle is the particular point of view a story takes.
3. Worked example (10 min). Watch one frame analyzed step by step: two reports of a market fire — one framed as “looters run wild,” another as “families lose their stalls.” (a) What is inside each frame (who is named, what words are used); (b) what is outside (the cause, the history, the people affected); (c) what a reader of each would conclude.
4. Guided practice (15 min). In a group, compare the two reports in the framing comparison. Fill the frame/omission sheet: for each, list what is in the frame and what is out, and name the angle.
5. Independent practice (10 min). In your journal, answer: what is one thing both frames leave out, and how would you find it? If you only described the frames without the omission, mark “not yet.”
6. Close (5 min). Share one omission. The reader’s power is the question: what is outside this frame?

Differentiation

• Support: Provide one report pre-annotated (in-frame / out-of-frame labeled) and sentence starters.
• Extension: Identify the audience each report targets, and argue who benefits from each framing.
• Expression: Learners may draw the frame and list items, or have a partner read their reasoning — no step requires writing.

Assessment

• Formative (peer + self): Can the learner identify what is in and out of a frame, name the angle, and say how framing shapes what a reader concludes?
• Portfolio artifact (unit): The frame/omission sheet with one report comparison, completing the “media ownership analysis” section.

Home connection

With a family member, take one news story and ask: what is inside this frame, and what is left out? Where would you look to fill the gap?

Resources

• On the five core questions of media literacy (what is omitted, who benefits): Center for Media Literacy, Five Core Concepts and Key Questions, https://www.medialit.org/ (S-442).
• On how the feed amplifies the engaging frame over the complete one: Eli Pariser, The Filter Bubble (2011) (S-482).
• On the danger of a single story and whose experience is centered: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, “The Danger of a Single Story,” https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story (S-417).