Both of these passages from magazine articles – the first from Newsweek and the second from the National Review – discuss the implications of domestic surveillance activities by U.S. government agencies. But this is where the similarity ends. These two excerpts represent two very different ways of telling a story about government surveillance. One obvious difference is that the first excerpt emphasizes the issue of civil liberties, while the second emphasizes the issue of national security. In addition, the stories illustrate two different common targets of government scrutiny: activist groups and Arab groups. But a more subtle difference is that the first story addresses the broader policy implications of surveillance in relation to large groups, while the second focuses on a single, potentially dangerous individual.

The differences in these stories raise a number of questions: Would audience members react differently depending on which of these stories they encountered about the debate over domestic security and civil liberties? How would the frame of the news story, whether it organized the issue around individuals or collectives, shape reactions of audience members? Are audience members more likely to favor national security over personal freedoms when seeing individuals or collectives targeted under the PATRIOT Act?