Framing Sarah Palin

The Topic

I chose to do the story on Sarah Palin and her foreign policy experience. For my first source, I used Saturday Night Live's parody of Palin's interview with Katie Couric (view real version here), focusing on the part where she answers the question about her foreign policy experience. The other source is "No Experience Necessary" an article by Michael Kinsley from slate.com.


Comedy as news?

It may seem strange to choose SNL's parody of this interview as opposed to the real thing, but I find that in doing so I kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, as SNL is an interesting media source to compare any other source to and it also has many direct quotes from the actual interview. This allows the viewer to see, very obviously so, SNL's point frame, but also, in a more subtle way, the frame that first occured in the original interview.

SNL, specifically Tina Fey, uses visuals with comedic hand motions and words that are direct quotes from Palin to frame this story. These visuals and words leave no doubt in the mind of the viewer what angle SNL is taking-mockery. SNL is a comedy show which allows the frame to be as twisted as it is. The biggest part of this frame is the fact that the main source is Palin herself and with a few simple elaborations by Tina Fey it becomes a hilarious parody of the already awkward interview. It takes an interview that may be hard for some to see as funny and makes it easy for everyone to think of as funny.


Palin Innocent

In the article at slate.com, the frame is surprisingly different. Though it begins about the same as every other article on the issue of Sarah Palin-which generally means mockery of her supposed experience as opposed to support of- in the end it puts the blame on McCain. It isn't a mockery of the stupidity of the what Palin said, but instead a criticism of McCain's choice. The frame is created, I feel, mostly by focusing the issue on McCain as opposed to Palin. What's not framed is Palin's silly visuals and direct quotes as with the SNL video. Also, I feel as though who the author is contributed to why the frame is what it is. He is, traditionally, a columnist and also the founding editor of slate.com. This may allow him to come to conclusions that other authors wouldn't come to because he is more free to. He is more free to shift the frame without the audience wondering what he is doing.