(There’s not a lot of gray area in how Jon Stewart framed this, but you might find more nuance in the other media you consume…)

The government shutdown began its bureaucratic crawl toward completion this week, after eight non-Republicans in the senate joined the Republicans in approving a continuing resolution to keep the lights on here in the U.S.

The shutdown has been the longest work stoppage of its kind in the history of the federal government and it’s interesting to see how various media outlets have chosen to explain this.

As we discussed earlier, framing is a practice in which media outlets emphasize or de-emphasize various aspects of a situation to paint a picture for an audience. For example, a football game in which one team has an overwhelming lead, only to lose late in the contest could be framed as either an amazing comeback or an epic choke job.

Today’s exercise is a simple one: How did the media you consume frame the end of the shutdown? Some obvious approaches include Republican victory and Democratic caving, but there are more and more “think” pieces rolling out recently that look for a “silver lining” on this issue.

Find five or six stories on various media sites and look for stories about the shutdown. What do you see as the prominent issues emphasized in each of these? Do they match your personal viewpoint on this issue or not? What benefits and drawbacks do you see for each frame presented here?

Once you’re done, it’d be a good time for a class discussion about this.