RISK SOCIETY,MEDIA, AND POWER: THE CASE OF NANOTECHNOLOGY

Risk society theory posits that the transformation of industrial to postindustrial society corresponded with a transformation of societal power structured by capital, to one structured by the ability to define risk. Perceptions of risk are, in part, socially constructed and created through the framing efforts of various institutional actors. The resulting struggle over meaning is particularly acute when the issues contain many unknown elements—as is the case with emerging technologies. Applying insights from media studies, frame analysis, and organizational theory, we analyze coverage of nanotechnology (NT) in popular press, trade, and general science publications. The findings document the extent to which the risks of this emerging technology are presented or ignored across, between, and within organizational subfields. The analysis empirically assesses a key proposition of risk society theory and reveals how institutional processes reflect and reproduce power differentials. We discuss the implications of the empirical findings for sociological theories of risk and society, power, and collective action.     

Labor‐Environmental Coalition Formation: Framing and the Right to Know1

This article examines the formation of a cross‐movement coalition between elements of the labor and environmental movements in New Jersey. We explain the successful formation and initial political campaign of the New Jersey Work Environment Council with an expansion of the theoretical perspective of frame analysis. We propose a model of a coalition collective action frame that offers several important insights into the active role coalition actors play in the construction of a common frame uniting union and environmental activists. Using qualitative data gathered from interviews, observations, and document analyses of two major campaigns, we argue that the coalition frame allowed new political opportunities to be created, leading to the establishment of the most sweeping right‐to‐know laws in the United States. We conclude the discussion of coalition framing by examining political constraints on the framing possibilities of coalitions, specifically by exploring how the discursive shift from the right to know to the right to act failed to expand the influence of the cross‐movement coalition as originally expected by its members.     

‘My land,your social transformation’: Conflicts within the landless people movement (MST), Rio de Janeiro,Brazil

The Brazilian Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem-Terra (MST) is one of the best-known and most prominent rural social movements. The unequal distribution of land in Brazil, and the neglect of this problem by successive Brazilian governments contributed greatly to the organisation of rural movements striving for the implementation of land reform in the country. The struggle for land therefore frames the MST collective action and legitimates its raison d’être as a social movement. The MST framing process, carried out mainly by the movement leaders and organisers, intends to unify the social movement by articulating private beliefs, interpretations and preferences into shared values and meanings. However, this process of framing does not take place without competition or/and conflict: leaders are many times forced to compete with other institutions, with the media, or even with inherited cultural understandings which provide alternative frames. This paper focuses particularly on the conflicting process of framing internal to the MST. More specifically, the present paper looks at how the MST leaders/organisers frame, and interpret, community and land differently from the MST settlers/followers whose lived experiences and inherited cultural understandings naturally informed their perceptions both on community and land.     

Issue Framing and Citizen Apathy Toward Local Environmental Contamination

We adapt the frame-alignment perspective in order to demonstrate how institutional framing shapes media coverage of a toxic crisis. This framing activity is described as a new approach to managing public responses to contamination that differs from the approach characterizing contamination episodes at Love Canal and Woburn, MA. Our analysis focuses on the process by which actors responsible for managing toxic crises carefully construct and manage a coordinated risk frame. We refer to this as institutional framing and illustrate how it shapes media framing of a toxic event. We conclude by proposing further research to identify the causal relationship between institutional framing and the absence of mobilization.     

Framing the Fat Body: Contested Meanings between Government,Activists, and Industry*

Sociologists have long recognized that social problems do not derive solely from objective conditions but from a process of collective definition. At the core of some social issues are framing competitions, struggles over the production of ideas and meanings. This article examines competing cultural meanings about the fat body. Through frame analysis of organizational materials, I map the contested field of obesity and document three cultural frames—medical frame, social justice frame, and market choice frame—as represented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA), and the food industry group the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), respectively. Using the “framing matrix,” I explore each frame's key signature elements and discuss its social and cultural significance. Notably, each frame leads to different outcomes for social equality and how society thinks about fat bodies, health, and public policy.     

Violence in the name of god? A framing processes approach to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria

Since summer 2014, the insurgent group ‘Islamic State in Iraq and Syria’ (ISIS) has become a major concern for international politics and global security due to its rapid territorial gains, violent operations and the propagation of Salafi-jihadist ideology. This study aims to enhance the academic understanding of ISIS by demystifying the ideological reasoning behind its use of violence. It therefore investigates the link between structural factors that served ISIS’s evolution, its ideological outlook and the significance of this ideology to legitimize violent action. As its theoretical basis, the study employs framing processes within the study of social movements. Methodologically, discursive frame analysis serves to explore the relation of ISIS’s ideology to structural events and experiences to better understand how the group justifies violence. Therefore, the study draws on audio speeches and issues of the magazines Dabiq and Dar al-Islam published by ISIS, which are examined on the rhetoric of othering, collective identity and justifying violence. It is argued that ISIS constructs a collective action frame which creates a social reality that bestows the group with a rationale for action. ISIS’s ideology, based on Islamic symbolism, presents an interpretative lens which assigns meaning to the structural environment of ISIS’s emergence. In this context, violence is justified as a necessity to defend Islam and as an obligation for the true Muslim believer. The discussion concludes that ISIS’s ideology legitimizes the very existence of the group and conceals its mundane struggle for power, territory and wealth through reference to divine authority.     

Certainty,Fairness, and Balance: State Resonance and Environmental Justice Policy Implementation1

Little research has examined how and why institutional context and framing dynamics shape the institutionalization of movement claims into the state’s formal policies, and what the implication of these processes might be for movements attempting to mobilize on the same conceptual terms after institutionalization. In this study, I explore the role institutional context and framing play in the institutionalization of movement claims in a case: the implementation of environmental justice policy in the California Environmental Protection Agency from 2002 to 2007. I ask: How and why were aspects of the environmental justice frame institutionalized into regulatory policy while others were not? I use ethnographic field methods and content analysis of archival data to answer this question and offer two contributions to previous research. First, I add to previous scholarship on the environmental justice movement by identifying the character of newer problems faced by movement actors as they engage in regulatory policy processes with opponents in the United States. Second, I extend social movement framing theory by developing the notion of “state resonance” to understand how and why a collective action frame is institutionalized and implemented in regulatory policy.     

Theorizing Meaning Construction in Social Movements: Symbolic Structures and Interpretation during the Irish Land War, 1879–1882

Though the process of meaning construction is widely recognized to be a crucial factor in the mobilization, unfolding, and outcomes of social movements, the conditions and mechanisms that allow meaning construction and cultural transformation are often misconceptualized and/or underanalyzed. Following a "tool kit" perspective on culture, dominant social movement theory locates meaning only as it is embodied in concrete social practices. Meaning construction from this perspective is a matter of manipulating static symbols and meaning to achieve goals. I argue instead that meaning is located in the structure of culture, and that the condition and mechanism of meaning construction and transformation are, respectively, the metaphoric nature of symbolic systems, and individual and collective interpretation of those systems in the face of concrete events. This theory is demonstrated by analyzing, through textual anlaysis, meaning construction during the Irish Land War, 1879–1882, showing how diverse social groups constructed new and emergent symbolic meanings and how transformed collective understandings contributed to specific, yet unpredictable, political action and movement outcomes. The theoretical model and empirical case demonstrates that social movement analysis must examine the metaphoric logic of symbolic systems and the interpretive process by which people construct meaning in order to fully explain the role of culture in social movements, the agency of movement participants, and the contingency of the course and outcomes of social movements.     

Leading the debate for the business case for gender equality,perilous for whom?

This research examines how the framing of the business case for gender equality (BCGE) in the European Union (EU) translates in the Irish national context and how different actors have engaged with this framing exercise. A central concern is how gender knowledge is mobilized by different actors as they compete to shape discourse, policy and practice on gender equality. We draw upon theoretical work that has interrogated the relationship between neoliberalism, gender inequality and feminist mobilization before reviewing critical assessments of the BCGE. The primary focus of this paper, having mapped this theoretical debate, is to analyse the role different Irish actors and organizations play in reproducing key frames and to examine the ambiguous or ambivalent engagement of different interest groups with this agenda. In turn, we assess the degree to which the agenda enables or disables structural change in access to power. We explore three case studies through which the BCGE in the EU was reinforced, adapted, resisted and rejected in our discussions, and draw out the constraints, opportunities and outcomes in each. Our first case study, which sets the national context for the following case studies, reviews how the Irish state interacts with the EU to frame gender equality and how it partners with key actors (state feminism and femocrats, private actors and feminist actors) to advance the BCGE. The second case study examines the role of the leading Irish feminist civil society organization (CSO) in the Women on Boards campaign that reinforces the dominant instrumental discourse associated with EU and national framing of gender parity on boards, and the ambiguity of feminists about this campaign. The third case study examines how Irish financial elites symbolically engage with gender parity on boards while simultaneously seeking to veto the implementation of gender representation targets proposed in the EU Capital Directive. It is clear that a degree of instrumentality informs most actors’ framing of BCGE. We also find evidence of how power actors and financial elites, while rhetorically engaging in BCGE and employing it when relevant to develop reputational capital, will seek ultimately to protect the status quo rejecting the governance benefits implied in BCGE. Ultimately, our cases illustrate the potential of the BCGE to support the inclusion of women in governance structures yet demonstrate that engaging with BCGE is perilous for some.     

Intervention and representation of poverty

Any intervention against poverty is not so much an administrative process as a social relation between categories of actors that are partly defined by it. Being a social action, it implies a construction of meaning that will guide the behavior of the actors. This semantic network needs an interpretation. This article presents a simplified model (an "ideal-type") of this meaningful interaction. It will contrast the way the professional actors of the poverty field present poverty and poor people and the way poor people themselves present their situation and the difficulties they face. This comparison will show the great distance between these discourses.     

Narrative and Frame Alignment in Social Movements: Labor Problem Novels and the 1929 Gastonia Strike

Research on social movements and frame alignment has shed light on how activists draw new participants to social movements through meaning making. However, the ‘framing perspective’ has failed to interrogate how the form or genre in which frames are deployed affects the communication of meaning. The burgeoning literature on social movements and narrative would seem to point to one discursive form of importance to meaning making in social movements, but scholars have failed to connect their insights with the literature on framing. In this article, I analyze five novels published in response to a 1929 communist-led strike in Gastonia, North Carolina. I argue that labor movement activists deployed these long-form narratives for the purposes of ‘frame alignment,’ specifically ‘frame amplification’ and ‘frame transformation,’ and I show how these narratives conveyed frames in ways that other discursive forms could not. The study raises new questions about the selection and reception of discursive forms in social movements.     

Making Sense of Social Change: Observing Collective Action in Networked Cultures

This article presents an overview of rising trends in the study of networked interactions conveyed by social media technologies and the emergence of new meanings associated with social change. In recent years, a healthy amount of studies has focused on ICT uses within collective action, considering social media tools to have become crucial components of many transnational movements and social change projects. Crossing boundaries between social movements theories, political science, and communication studies, literature suggests that ‘online activism’ and increasingly networked interactions may have transformed the meanings and definitions associated with ‘collective action’ and ‘social change’. To make sense of these meanings, we identify three approaches used by scholars, which focus on (i) the actual networking of actors, (ii) the diffusion of new repertoires and frames through networks, and (iii) making sense of new meanings conveyed within networked cultures. We conclude by suggesting the need for more comprehensive research to better observe and make sense of how's actors define collective action and how they use social media tools when striving to convey social change.     

MASTER FRAMES, POLITICAL OPPORTUNITIES, AND SELF-DETERMINATION:c The Åland Islands in the Post-WWI Period

While the literature on master frames has drawn attention to the crucial role of ideas in cycles of protest, reliance on the creation of frame resonance to account for the success or failure of a social movement within a cycle can be problematic. Applying propositions adapted from McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald (1996), this article traces how political opportunities interacted with framing processes during the emergence and development of the Åland Islands secessionist movement of the post-WWI period. The Ålanders aligned their claims with early representations of the "selfdetermination master frame" that underlay the cycle of protest that emerged after the war in a way that resonated with the Allied leaders adjudicating their case. Shifts in political conditions, however, helped to foster an intense "framing contest" among contenders that in the end undermined the Ålanders' representation of the master frame and their ability to achieve desired ends. Although the case reveals certain shortcomings in the propositions, they nevertheless provide a useful starting point when documenting the complex interplay of political conditions and framing processes in an instance of collective action.     

OFFICIAL FRAMES IN SOCIAL MOVEMENT THEORY: The FBI, HUAC, and the Communist Threat in Hollywood

Social movement researchers acknowledge that frames promoted by state managers compete in intense framing contests with collective action frames promoted by social movement entrepeneurs. But they have not analyzed the construction and promotion of these "official frames.'The FBI framing of the communist threat in Hollywood during the 1940s is examined and the limits of the countersubversive anticommunist master frame are explored. State agencies are established as signifying agents, and the construction and promotion of official frames is compared to similar processes for collective action frames.     

Framing Emerging Environmental Movement Tactics: Mobilizing Consensus,Demobilizing Conflict

This paper is a study of an emerging environmental decision-making model that attempts to move beyond traditionally adversarial approaches toward consensus building. Consensus-based decision making ostensibly allows activists equal power with industrialists and state actors in environmental policy-making. This research builds upon the growing literature on frame-analysis by demonstrating that there are instances when challengers actually engage in collaborative framing with their adversaries. This does not presume that activists reject oppositional framing altogether. In these cases, environmentalists actually draw on a mixture of confrontation and negotiation in this innovative form of collective action that positions them in contexts most environmentalists never experience—a place at the decision-making table with elites. This study reveals that environmentalists are becoming more sophisticated in their efforts to protect local communities and natural resources.     

A life course built for two: Acting,aging, and soap operas

Due to their longevity, daytime soap operas provide a rich entertainment text through which to examine representations of, and experiences of, age and aging. Our exploratory, qualitative project explores how veteran soap actors make sense of their own aging process alongside that of their characters’, and how soaps serve as an unexpected cultural resource for negotiating the varied meanings of aging. Drawing on original interview data with soap actors (n = 11) and other industry experts (n = 4), original survey data with long-term viewers (n = 34), and secondary data as reported in the entertainment and popular presses, we examine actors’ use of fictional narratives to make meaning of their progression through the life course. Our analysis is situated at the intersections of gerontology, media studies, and the sociology of work.     

Framing Public Discussion of Gay Civil Unions

Although the framing of public opinion has often been conceptualizedas a collective and social process, experimental studies offraming have typically examined only individual, psychologicalresponses to alternative message frames. In this research weemploy for the first time group conversations as the unit ofanalysis (following Gamson 1992) in an experimental study offraming effects. Two hundred and thirty-five American citizensin 50 groups (17 homo-geneously conservative groups, 15 homogeneouslyliberal groups, and 18 heterogeneous groups) discussed whetheror not gay and lesbian partnerships should be legally recognized.Groups were randomly assigned to one of two framing conditions(a "homosexual marriage/special rights" frame or a "civil union/equalrights" frame). Results indicated framing effects that were,in all cases, contingent on the ideological leanings of thegroup. The "marriage" frame tended to polarize group discussionsalong ideological lines. Both liberal and conservative groupsappeared to find their opponents’ frame more provocative,responding to them with a larger number of statements and expressinggreater ambivalence than when reacting to more hospitable frames.     

The Process of Cognitive Liberation: Cultural Synapses,Links, and Frame Contradictions in the U.S.-Central America Peace Movement*

Based upon qualitative interviews with thirty-two Central American peace activists, this article elaborates the process of “cognitive liberation” through the application of frame analysis. In addition, I seek to explain the diffusion of this social-psychological state from Central to North America. Attention is given to the role of the church as a common cultural link that functioned as a micro-mobilizing context, which provided missionaries who served as “meso-mobilizing actors.” The term frame contradictions is introduced to specify the condition in which irreconcilable differences between a movement's frame and its opponent's frame are exposed, thereby facilitating frame adoption. I conclude that some type of cultural link is necessary for the development of a common frame that can integrate groups cross-nationally and that can provide agents of mobilization to serve as a synapse through which frames can be transmitted from one country to another.     

What is Real in the Age of Virtual Reality?“Retraining” Frame Analysis for a Technological World

How do social actors determine what is really happening and what is not? This distinction, analyzed in such depth by Erving Goffman in Frame Analysis, now requires further analysis as technologies such as virtual reality become ever more affordable and available, transforming many aspects of everyday life and, inevitably, the definition of the “real” experience itself. This article considers the ways that experience is generated and organized in modern social life, arguing that a “refraining” of frame analysis and a “reconceptualization” of reality itself is necessary to help us understand the ways in which social worlds involving highly sophisticated technologies are created and endowed with meaning by actors, as well as the subtle, long-term effects of such technologies.