Self identification as liberal has declined quite notably in the United States since the mid 1960s. Part of the explanation of this decline is a growing association of the connotation of liberalism along the lines of race, protest, counter culture, and the like. I investigate the portions of this group association thesis which are possible to observe in the ANES feeling thermometer data and observe clear evidence of growing group association with the term. That raised the question of where the group association arises. I hypothesize media framing as the cause and observe it by word counts, which I take as proxies for frames. I observe fairly strong associations between presumed cause, media frames, and effect, change in perceptions of liberals.Master of Art
