This communications research project is informed by Frameworks' research strategy, which is called strategic frame analysis. This approach "pays attention to the public's deeply held worldviews and widely held assumptions." The focus is on "framing", which FrameWorks describes as "the subtle selection of certain aspects of an issue in order to cue a specific response; as researchers have shown, the way an issue is framed explains who is responsible, and suggests potential solutions conveyed by images, stereotypes, messengers, and metaphors." Strategic frame analysis is designed to support "research to document and deconstruct the frames currently in the public consciousness and to understand their impact on public policy preferences."

FrameWorks Institutes began the research process by examining the place of race in American media, in part to identify a core set of articles for the focus group portion of the research (see below). Researchers initiated a policy inquiry in May 2003 to enlist input from groups working on race-related issues; a scholar from the University of South Carolina integrated these responses into a broader policy framework in the paper "Outlining a Race Policy Agenda for America". Researchers then conducted a content analysis of major US media; emphasis was placed on such events as the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision and "Cover the Uninsured" Week. In partnership with Cultural Logic, FrameWorks engaged in an analysis of prototypical and aberrant news coverage to examine "exactly how the dominant scripts affect thinking about race, and whether any of the alternative coverage yields different patterns of thinking".

Researchers see the dialogue about race in terms of a narrative: "We think about the research as clarifying the 'story in people's heads'". To that end, qualitative research methodologies drawing on interpersonal modes of communication were used to solicit United States citizens' viewpoints about the place of race in the media. FrameWorks again partnered with Cultural Logic to carry out one-on-one open-ended interviews with 50 individuals in 7 states. These interviews helped guide the selection of particular race-related issues for discussion within the focus groups, which were designed to further researchers' understanding of the impact of these issues on public discourse.

Beginning in July 2004, organisers gathered groups in 6 states throughout the USA. They tested the use of different sets of news articles to facilitate group conversations about race. For example, one Latino man noted "There are obvious differences with the cultures here in Albuquerque [New Mexico, USA]. Let's not be naive about it. But I don't feel it is as fractured as it seems to be communicated by this article." (Researchers cite this comment as evidence suggesting that, for many Americans, "race is an old debate that has already been settled").

The research is designed not only to learn how people living in the United States think and talk about race - and how their media represents it - but to effect change in these patterns. Researchers note that "the story we need to tell has appears to have the following characteristics:

• Opens up a conversation the public is willing to have
• Derails the default to individual worth and effort
• Focuses on solutions that benefit the us, the it
• Defines problem as world we want to create for all not some (equal opportunity)
• Effectively taps in to values of fairness, opportunity, teamwork
• Tone is practical
• Call to action is to update/reform current system."

In order to "evolve this narrative", by mid-2005 researchers expect to have conducted "Simplifying Models Research" to capture the relationship of individuals to structures, as well as a national opinion survey to validate findings suggested by the qualitative research. Researchers will publish these results and share this model through such channels as the FrameWorks Institute website.

Equity, Rights.

"Overall, the results of our research to date are sobering...It is imperative that we begin with the observation that few people in the society find this a comfortable and welcome conversation." Reflecting on the focus group experience in particular, organisers note that "the failure of various focus group guides to result in (a) any discussion of race among either whites or race and ethnic groups and (b) any positive responses to policies that address structural racism, has necessitated the constant refinement and reconstruction of the focus group guide between sets of groups." As of this writing, organisers are pursuing funding to support set-up of 8 additional focus groups - "to test more prescriptive frames with respect to solutions, systems and race".

The FrameWorks Institute is a nonprofit organisation working to design, commission, manage, and publish communications research in an effort to prepare nonprofit organisations to expand their constituency base, to build public will, and to further public understanding of social issues such as gender equity, leadership development, neighbourhood transformation, global interdependence, early child and youth development, the environment, and rural living.