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.     

The death of bin Laden: How Russian and U.S. media frame counterterrorism

This study explored how Russian and U.S. newspapers covered the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011 through the lens of framing theory. Results reflect significant disparity in how media in different countries covered the same event, suggesting that terrorism events were framed as national concerns rather than global issues, thus potentially limiting governments and the media from building a shared understanding with international audiences. The findings also indicate that more robust media relations efforts are needed to counter simplistic media counterterrorism frames. Finally, the study identified new frames for counterterrorism including secrecy and humanizing terrorists. These new frames suggest the need to expand the framing literature to provide a better understanding of how the media cover counterterrorism, which may impact the U.S. government's public diplomacy and counterterrorism efforts.     

Neutralizing Problematic Frames in the Culture Wars: Anti‐Evolutionists Grapple with Religion

This article contributes to the literature on culture wars work by examining how anti‐evolutionists neutralize the framing of their position as religious. Their efforts are uncovered by analyzing 570 letters to the editor published in American newspapers in the months surrounding a nationally covered 2005 federal judicial decision on the legality of the Dover PA, school board's decision to undermine evolutionary theory in the classroom. Anti‐evolutionists neutralized the framing of their position as religious through the processes of selective acknowledgement and disagreement with the problematic framing. These findings provide insights into the anti‐evolutionist movement, the nature of the culture wars, and the basic ways in which problematic frames are neutralized. First, it shows how public anti‐evolutionist discourse has not followed its leaders' efforts to minimize the religious motivations of the movement. Second, the wide variety of neutralizations partially explains the persistence of many cultural disputes. Third, this study calls attention to the under theorized role of disagreement and agreement in undoing problematic definitions of the situation.     

Visually Assessing the First Lady in a Digital Age: A Study of Michelle Obama as Portrayed by Journalists and the White House

In a digital age in which the First Lady’s image is captured and disseminated by many different outlets, this article proposes the development of a coding instrument using Goffman’s (1979) gender displays as a new method for exploring the visual frames of the First Lady. Given the manner in which photographs are disseminated via the Internet by both official and journalistic sources, this new coding instrument takes into consideration the different vantage points that these image capturers have. Until recently, visual gender display frames of the First Lady from differing outlets have not been easily studied separately, given the fact that images disseminated by the White House had to go through the journalistic gate prior to dispersion. Ultimately, the study of photos of the First Lady as she appears in the “media” was mixed and confounded journalistic and official framing. The Internet has changed all of this and opens opportunities to study these framing sources separately. As a test of a new coding instrument to study these different framing sources, this article assesses Michelle Obama in her gender portrayal from two different framing sources: journalists and the White House. This visual content analysis demonstrates and supports the use of a new context-independent coding instrument, borrowing from Goffman’s gender displays as a method for visually studying the First Lady.     

Pursuing Political Persuasion: War and Peace Frames in the United States after September 11th

Despite the prominence of framing analysis in social movement research, the ways that power-holders and challengers attempt to persuade the general public remain under-theorized. We develop a multidimensional typology of what content producers frequently anticipate will make their frames potent. Moreover, we argue that several contextual factors influence which of these dimensions are emphasized in frames. To assess these propositions, we conducted an analysis of statements issued by President Bush and 10 US peace movement organizations following the September 11th attacks. Both sides touched upon all dimensions. President Bush's statements took advantage of discursive and emotional opportunities in crafting messages supportive of war and repression. Illustrating their strategic nature, PMO statements either appropriated or rejected dominant discourses for any single dimension. While peace groups took advantage of emotional opportunities, oppositional cultures curtailed their use of discursive opportunities. Lacking democratic legitimacy and rational legal authority, peace groups devoted a higher proportion of text to establishing the empirical credibility and the moral authority of their claims. The study advances social movement theory by highlighting the interplay of culture, power, and agency in the production of public collective action frames.     

The Microlevel Discourse of Social Movement Framing: Debating Antiwar Protests on a University Listserv

Abstract

Over the past two decades, researchers have increasingly employed frame analysis in attempts to understand the genesis, development, and outcomes of social movements. Relatively little attention, however, has focused on the microlevel processes involved in generating social movement frames. This paper is an effort to link theories of social movement framing with the methodology of discourse analysis. In the following, an online debate over the legitimacy of protests against the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States provides qualitative data for a discourse analysis of microlevel framing processes. The debate occurred on a university listserv and involved more than 100 messages offered by 67 individuals over 16 days. Analyses reveal four distinct framing contests in the discourse. An initiating contest regarding a specific antiwar protest is found to generate three additional contests, the first about antiwar protests more generally, the second about the war in Iraq itself, and the third about the appropriateness of holding such a debate on a listserv sent to university employees. A framing process schema is offered to represent conflict between social movement and countermovement participants across the discourse.     

The Benefits of Frame Resonance Disputes for Transnational Movements: The Case of Botswana's Central Kalahari Game Reserve

Internal rifts over framing and tactics often hinder groups from mobilizing the degree of support and resources necessary to achieve their stated goals. As a result of disparities in political culture and ideology, the existence of such rifts may be especially frequent and disabling for forms of transnational collective action. However, using the case of the transnational movement lobbying on behalf of Botswana's minority groups, particularly the indigenous San, this paper argues that frame resonance disputes can sometimes facilitate the achievement of a movement's immediate goals. This is for two main reasons. First, by appealing to different audiences, the movement can gain complementary and reinforcing forms of legitimacy and support. Second, states and their societies may possess different points of vulnerability, which can be more effectively targeted through the simultaneous use of multiple frames. By helping minority groups receive legal entitlement to their ancestral lands and opening a debate about the nature of Botswana's democracy, the transnational movement campaigning for the return of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve underscores the benefits of frame resonance disputes.     

‘I Hate It,But It Still Sounds Good’: Collective Identity and the Evaluation of Oppositional Frame Resonance

While activists often respond to claims advanced by their opposition, little is known about how oppositional rhetoric is evaluated. This study focuses on the evaluation process, examining how movement actors assess the resonant appeal of oppositional frames. I analyze how activists in the American pro-choice movement respond to a faction of the pro-life movement that primarily frames abortion as harmful to women. Drawing on focus group conversations with pro-choice activists, I find feminist collective identity and their own experience advancing gendered frames influence which oppositional frames pro-choice actors consider most likely to resonate with a non-activist audience. These judgments subsequently guide decisions about how to respond to oppositional frames and construct of counterframes. I find activists to use collective identity to rule out potential strategies and tactics they feel are in conflict with what the group represents. I argue that in cases where similarities exist between frames and counterframes, experience advancing rhetoric superficially similar to that of the opposing movement provides strategic insight. Movement actors draw on lessons learned from their own collective framing experiences to evaluate how audiences will respond to oppositional frames with comparable cultural themes. These experiences serve as a guide, informing activists' perceptions of the frames a non-activist audience will be most likely to embrace, which frames must be addressed, and which can be safely ignored. This study emphasizes movement actors' agency and strategic decision-making processes, demonstrates how collective identity influences the framing process, and contributes to knowledge of how group experiences and identity affect perception and strategy.     

What Happened on Ruby Ridge: Terrorism or Tyranny?

In the 1992 Ruby Ridge, Idaho, incident during which U.S. Marshal William Degan and Sammy and Vicki Weaver were killed, law enforcement and the Weavers socially constructed each other's roles. We focus on how the framing of what happened on Ruby Ridge changed. Drawing on Gamson's (1968) discussion of law enforcement strategies, we suggest that certain federal agencies were challenged about the justness of their actions. The Weavers, white separatists, and others tried to alter the dominant frame of the federal government from a legitimating one to that of unjust authority. To counter that, investigations by the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism and the Department of Justice portrayed certain agents as incompetent rather than unjust. Various federal agencies “yielded ground” by recognizing mistakes, making payments to the Weavers and Kevin Harris, and charging one official and temporarily suspending others, but they maintained the legitimacy frame.     

Framing Symbols and Space: Counterrecruitment and Resistance to the U.S. Military in Public Education

Despite recent federal laws providing military recruiters unprecedented access to public schools and student information, sociologists have given scant attention to the militarization of education or the military counterrecruitment movement in the United States. Semistructured in‐depth interviews with counterrecruiters reveal five framing campaigns used to resist the armed forces' efforts to dominate the symbolic discourse in public schools: 1) the rendition of information, 2) educational space, 3) heroic military narrative, 4) educational mission, and 5) vocational vision. Analysis examining the interaction of space and social movement framing reveals how counterrecruiters compete with military recruiters over the U.S. public education's foundational values and symbols. This article advances our understanding of the counterrecruitment movement in U.S. public schools and how space influences social movement framing through the concepts of spatial legitimacy, spatial authorities, and spatial protocols.     

Framing authoritarian legitimacy: elite cohesion in the aftermath of popular rebellion

ABSTRACT

Protest activity presents a significant threat to state legitimacy in nondemocratic settings. Although authoritarian regimes rely heavily on coercion, state officials must also justify their authority to both the public and other elites. Previous work has shown how elites vilify challengers to legitimize repression, but scholars have yet to examine how state officials engage in meaning work to prevent elite divisions from forming in light of popular challenges to regime legitimacy. In this study, we examine elite framing processes in a case of popular resistance to a 1953 currency reform in Communist Czechoslovakia. Using archival material, we trace the inter- and intra-organizational processes through which officials construct legitimacy claims by explaining and adjudicating blame for the popular rebellion. Results indicate that authoritarian rulers relied on a variety of discursive mechanisms to generate consensus among subordinate elites and protect regime legitimacy. We conclude by discussing implications for research on authoritarianism and social movements.     

Promoting Volunteerism: Effects of Self-Efficacy, Advertisement-Induced Emotional Arousal, Perceived Costs of Volunteering, and Message Framing

This paper examines the extent to which communication strategies may influence willingness to volunteer. Research on persuasive advertising and the “arousal: cost-reward” model serve as theoretical foundations. The results of two experiments indicate that advertisement-induced (ad-induced) emotional arousal, message framing, and manipulations of self-efficacy perceptions can impact willingness to volunteer. Analysis detected a significant interaction between perceived self-efficacy and message framing. In the low (high) self-efficacy condition gain frames (loss frames) were more persuasive. When gender-related differences were considered, analysis revealed that ad-induced emotional arousal and manipulations of self-efficacy had their impact solely on men’s willingness to volunteer. Based on the results of the empirical analyses, implications for management and starting points for future research are presented.     

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.     

PEACENIKS AND WARMONGERS' FRAMING FRACAS ON THE HOME FRONT:

Research on collective action framing has tended to focus on inter- and intramovement interpretation of grievances, often assuming that hegemonic frames are taken for granted. The Persian Gulf conflict of 1990–1991 offers an empirical opportunity to extend the theoretical boundaries of social movement framing by incorporating, and identifying, the active framing strategies of dominant actors. From this vantage point, we can begin to see in what ways both dominant and oppositional discourses (and policy) are aided and constrained.     

Sector-dependent framing effects of corporate social responsibility messages: An experiment with non-alcoholic and alcoholic drinks

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) communications can be paradoxical in their effect on consumers attitudes and skepticism toward an organization, buying intentions and the organization's reputation. In this research, we investigated the effects of sector dependence and the framing of CSR messages. A 2 × 3 between-subjects experiment was used with six advertisements for two fictional organizations: one in the alcohol industry (a so-called socially stigmatized industry) and one in a non-alcohol industry. The experiment included 188 participants. The results show that the framing effects of CSR messages are sector specific: in the non-alcohol sector, CSR messages and frames had a positive effect on consumers, whereas in the alcohol sector, they had a negative effect on consumers.     

Hiding Spinach in the Brownies: Frame Alignment in Suffrage Community Cookbooks, 1886–1916

Recent studies have examined how the conventions of cultural genres help advance frames. This line of scholarship can be used to study how activists might popularize radical frames that fundamentally challenge widespread beliefs. In this article, I analyze how the gendered character of suffrage community cookbooks aids in frame alignment. I determine how these cookbooks advance ‘femininity frames’ that drew on widespread beliefs about femininity (and thus were more likely to resonate with a broad audience). I also examine how suffrage cookbooks advance ‘republican citizenship frames’ that argued that women should vote because they could embody the masculinized republican ideals of civic virtue and public responsibility. Republican citizenship frames challenged widespread beliefs about femininity (and thus were likely to be viewed as more radical). I find that the embrace of domestic femininity in community cookbooks amplifies femininity frames by intensifying traditional beliefs about women. Furthermore, the gendered character of community cookbooks extends republican citizenship frames to the average housewife by proving that women could incorporate new practices into their lives without abandoning their traditional feminine roles. This study enriches our understanding of the roles of cultural genres in framing, and it demonstrates how activists may try to popularize radical frames.     

Framing Immigration News in Spanish Regional Press

In this paper, an exploratory content analysis has been developed for a case study on the topic of immigration reported in the regional newspapers of the largest Spanish autonomous community, Castilla and Leon. This study based its research conceptualization on the framing theory in mass communication. In addition to usual issue frames and issue images, two framing devices were established for analytic variables ‐‐ the index of importance and the index of affective attribute. They formed a frame package capable of making latent frames evident by their linkage to manifest frames. Comparing to the general assumption of relevant‐bad‐news production, results obtained in this study proved that, on occasion, negative news stories could be reported as less relevant than the positive ones. The outcomes also show how concept mapping of frames was applicable to immigration issues and immigrants’ visual aspects of immigrant communities that were systematically articulated and disseminated by the press in this regional society of Spain.     

Krafting the obesity message: A case study in framing and issues management

This study examined the application of framing theory in issues management. Using case study methodology, the researchers analyzed message frames used by Kraft Foods in its public response to the obesity crisis, how the Kraft frames were reported by the media and whether Kraft's approach might help define effective framing and issues management practices in public relations. The study suggested that framing was indeed useful in Kraft's attempt to manage the issue of obesity.     

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 online news cycle and the continuous alteration of crisis frames: A Swedish case study on how the immediacy of online news affected the framing of the swine flu epidemic

Abstract

This explorative case study investigates how the continuous publication cycle and the immediacy of online news affected the Swedish news media framing of the swine flu epidemic between April and May 2009. The findings suggest that media framing changes continuously, several times a day, effectively painting different frames of the crisis. Consequently, an organization involved in this crisis may face stakeholders that have encountered contrasting frames depending on when they accessed the latest news. Furthermore, the results show that the speed of modifications seems to be highest in the initial stages of reporting when the flu was perceived as more dangerous. Because the crisis frames change constantly, this provides both a challenging crisis communication environment and an opportunity to influence and shape the frames by organizations that are aware of them and act swiftly.