Valuing immigration: How frame elements contribute to effective communications

Two experimental surveys were conducted to understand the effects of three types of value frames: (1) frames that specifically implicate racial and ethnic discrimination, structural racism or inequality in explaining why society ought to enact policy reforms; (2) frames that simply underscore the benefits that might accrue to racial and ethnic minority communities if policy reforms were enacted; and (3) frames with no racial overtones at all. Study I presented values that emphasized the first types of values, and the authors found minimal effects on policy when those were tasked with impacting immigration policies. Study II was designed to test the second and third types of frames, and authors found that it is the latter with the strongest impacts on immigration policy.