A person has, through their lifetime, built a series of mental emotional filters. They use these filters to make sense of the world. The choices they then make are influenced by their frame or emotional filters. In psychology, framing is influenced by the background of a context choice and the way in which the question is worded. In 1991, Shanto Iyengar proposed there are two types of framing, episodic and thematic.
In episodic framing, the coverage focuses on a single event or instance and does not provide much background information on the subject. This leads the receiver of the frame to assume the individual is responsible. For example, on a story about healthcare, episodic framing would cause a viewer to believe that a person who gets sick but does not have health insurance was being irresponsible, when in fact there may have been other factors at play that the individual cannot control.
In thematic framing, the coverage puts the issue in a general or abstract context while providing a lot of background information. This leads to the frame receivers assuming society is at fault for all problems. Using the same healthcare example, thematic framing would cause television viewers to think that society is at fault for everyone who does not possess health insurance, when in fact in some cases people are irresponsible.
