Framing Across Disconnected Public Spheres: Boundary Conditions of Effectiveness on WhatsApp and Telegram

A field experiment across WhatsApp and Telegram groups in India manipulates frame type (emphasis frames, cross-thematic salience) and metaphor, while mapping intergroup connectivity. The study tests whether framing effects attenuate or reverse when messages cross from one dissonant public sphere to another, and whether argument strength moderates these boundary effects. This challenges the dominant paradigm that frames operate solely at the individual cognition level by treating connectivity and dissonance as core moderators. Combining network analytics with randomized exposure embedded in messaging apps, it extends framing theory by explicitly modeling when bridges between public spheres break. If frames only work within connected clusters or backfire at boundaries, this can explain conflicting findings in media-effects research and inform better, context-aware messaging strategies. The impact is a boundary-conditions theory of framing that reframes effect heterogeneity as a function of network disconnection, with implications for platform design, counter-disinformation, and targeted civic messaging.

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