Information Selection | Hans Rudolf Straub

Framing matters

The framing effect is a topic that comes up a lot these days. Framing is the phenomenon whereby the same message is perceived differently, depending on what additional information is sent with it. The additional information is provided to give the message the right ‘frame’ so that recipients respond appropriately.

Even if the additional information is undoubtedly true, the recipient can be genuinely manipulated by framing, simply by the selection of details that are in themselves factually correct. Framing is, of course, used in advertising, but its role in political reporting has become something of a hot topic of late.

Of course, framing in politics and advertising always involves choosing words that connect an item of information to the corresponding emotional content. But the simple fact that some aspects (details) of events are drawn into the foreground and some pushed into the background changes the image that the recipient forms of the message. For example, our response to the fact that a lot of refugees/migrants want to come to Europe depends on which of the many people we have in mind and which of the diverse range of aspects, reasons, circumstances and consequences of their journey we focus on. Reports about the criminal activities of individual migrants evoke a completely different image from descriptions of the inhuman, unfathomably awful conditions of the journey. That people are coming is a fact. But the way this fact is evaluated – its interpretation – is a matter of simplification, i.e. the selection of data. This brings us clearly to the phenomenon of information reduction.

Framing and information reduction

Real-world situations always contain much more detail than we can process. And because this means we always need to simplify them, information selection plays a crucial role: what do we bring to the forefront and what do we push into the background? The answer to this question colours our perception and thus our opinion. This phenomenon of information reduction is the same as that encountered in medical coding, where a variety of characteristics are drawn upon – or disregarded – in the assignment of codes (see article Two types of coding 1). The reduction and selection of information is part of all perception processes, and our actions and decisions are always based upon simplifications. The selection of details is what shapes our perception, and this selection depends not upon the object being viewed, but on the subject making the selection.

Diverging interpretations are possible (see previous article)

Reality (top of the diagram) is made up of all the facts, but our interpretation of it is always based upon a selection from this vast array of detail. This may lead us to form a range of different opinions. I believe that this phenomenon of information reduction (the interpretation phenomenon) is both fundamental and inescapable, and that it plays an important role in a wide range of different contexts. The framing effect is a typical example, but it is one of many.

Links to framing (in German):
– Spiegel article “Ab jetzt wird zurückgeframt” of 22.2.2019
– Wikipedia.de on the framing effect
– Interview with communication trainer Benedikt Held

This is a page about information reduction — see also overview.

Translation: Tony Häfliger and Vivien Blandford

Information reduction is everywhere

In a previous post, I described how the coding of medical facts – a process that leads from a real-world situation to a flat rate per case (DRG) – involves a dramatic reduction in the amount of information:

Informationsreduktion

Information reduction

This information reduction is a very general phenomenon and by no means limited to information and its coding in the field of medicine. Whenever we notice something, our sensory organs – for example our retinas – reduce the amount of information we take in. Our brain then simplifies the data further so that only the essence of the impressions, the part that is important to us, arrives in our consciousness.

Information reduction is necessary

If you ask someone how much they want to know, most people will tell you that they want to know as much as possible. Fortunately, this wish is not granted. Many will have heard of the savant who, after flying over a city just once, was able to draw every single house correctly from memory. Sadly, the same individual was incapable of navigating his everyday life unaided – the flood of information got in the way. So knowing every last detail is definitely not something to aspire to.

Information reduction means selection

If it is necessary and desirable to lose data, the next question concerns which data we should lose and which we should retain. Some will imagine that this is a natural choice, with the object we are looking at determining which data is important and which is not. In my opinion, this assumption is simply wrong. It is the observer who decides which information is important to him and which he can disregard. The information he chooses to retain will depend upon his goals.

Of course, the observer cannot get information out of the object that the object does not contain. But the decision as to which information he considers important is down to him – or to the system he feels an allegiance to.

This is particularly true in the field of medicine. What is important is the information about the patient that allows the doctor to make a meaningful diagnosis – and the system of diagnoses depends essentially on what can be treated and how. Medical progress means that the aspects and data that come into play will change over time.

In other words, we cannot know everything, and we must actively reduce the amount of information available so that we can make decisions and act. Information reduction is inevitable and always involves making a choice.

Different selections are possible

Which information is lost and which is retained? The answer to this question determines what we see when we look at an object.

Interpretation der Realität

Various information selections (interpretations) are possible

Because the observer – or the system that he lives in and that moulds and shapes his thinking – decides which information to keep, different selections are possible. Depending on which features we prioritise, different individual cases may be placed in a given group or category and different viewers will thus arrive at different interpretations of the same reality.

This is a page about information reduction — see also overview.

Translation: Tony Häfliger and Vivien Blandford

Hans Rudolf Straub

Tag Archives: Information Selection

Information Reduction 4: Framing