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This article seeks to analyse the skills and knowledge that have a positive impact on the reproduction of the core frames of social actors in the mass media.

The theoretical discussion is accompanied by a cross‐cultural case study of the debate surrounding the leaked e‐mail correspondence between climate researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in 2009. First, the authors analysed the framing work of the three main actors with their respective views, namely UEA and the blogs “Real climate”, “Climate audit” and “The air vent”. Second, they conducted an analysis of the media coverage of the issue in the UK, the USA, Germany and Norway, focusing on the importance of cultural factors, psychological biases and conformity to journalistic needs.

The literature review came to the conclusion that public relations practitioners stand good chances to succeed with their framing when they are able to conceive a message in a way that: is resonant with the underlying culture; appeals to psychological biases; and conforms to journalistic needs. The authors use “framing expertise” as an umbrella term for the knowledge and the skills related to these aspects when designing and promoting frames. In the case study, these theoretical assumptions were tested. While three different frames dominated the discourse, no clear winner of the framing contest was observed. Though qualitative differences in their framing expertise were noted, the frames of all of the strategic actors were accepted in the media, perhaps due to the norms of journalistic balance.

As this study is based on a single case, more research is needed to back up the findings and elaborate on the knowledge and skills needed when framing an issue.

The article pulls together, discusses and elaborates on a body of literature that thus far has been scattered, and makes contributions towards a better understanding of what it is that public relations practitioners actually do.

As the framing perspective has evolved, there has been growing recognition that framing processes cannot be adequately understood apart from the broader enveloping contexts in which those processes occur. One such context recently has been conceptualized as discursive opportunities or the DOS. To date the concept has been examined most closely and carefully in relation to the media, most notably in Koopmans research on how the strategies of the German radical right have evolved partly in response to various media reactions and constraints (Koopmans, 2004) and in Ferree, Gamson, Gerhards, and Rucht's (2002) comparison of abortion discourse in the U.S. and Germany (between 1970 and 1994) via the media. Koopmans provides the most straightforward and researchable conception of discursive opportunities, defining them in terms of three selection mechanisms that affect the probability of a proffered message or framing being picked-up and diffused. They include “visibility (the extent to which a message is covered by the mass media), resonance (the extent to which others – allies, opponents, authorities, etc. – react to a message), and legitimacy (the degree to which such reactions are supportive)” (Koopmans, 2004, p. 367).

In this paper, we investigate how digital technology disruptors and the incumbents who stand to be disrupted by them frame their arguments to transform or sustain existing institutional frameworks to enable or deter the market entry of these technologies. Using a longitudinal, comparative case analysis of three digital technologies – namely, voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), cloud antenna, and over-the-top (OTT) technologies – we explore how stakeholders use public interest frames for this purpose. We find that entrepreneurs use three specific frames to drive institutional change for the successful adoption of digital technologies in the presence of established incumbents and powerful regulators: frames that emphasize the broad public appeal of the new digital technology; frames that emphasize efficiency, democracy, and technological advancement; and frames that emphasize present as well as future benefits to the public. We find that constructing interpretations of what serves the public interest is the primary tactic used by disruptors to gain market entry, and an equally popular weapon for incumbents to block the entry of new digital technologies. These interpretations lead to a framing contest aimed at influencing regulators and obtaining a more favorable institutional environment. Our empirical findings illustrate that new digital technologies themselves are not the sole contributors to institutional change. Rather, institutional outcomes associated with the introduction of new digital technologies are shaped by how disruptors and incumbents use public interest frames and how regulators react to these frames.

The purpose of this paper is to examine a case of companies cooperating with the State to prevent a public controversy over nuclear power following the Fukushima disaster and achieve mutually beneficial policy outcomes. It analyses the private and public communication of pro-nuclear corporate, political and regulatory actors.

Drawing on the political economy theory, the study examines how actors mobilised power by accessing an existing social network to agree a joint public communication strategy in order to ensure public support for the continuation of nuclear power generation in the UK. It traces discursive frames from their inception in private communication to their reproduction in public communication and their dissemination via the media.

The study provides evidence of pro-nuclear actors cooperating behind the scenes to achieve consistent public pro-nuclear messaging. It finds evidence of four discursive frames: avoiding knee-jerk reactions, lessons learned, safety and nuclear renaissance. In combination, they guide audiences’ evaluation of the consequences of the Fukushima disaster for the UK in favour of continuing the commercial use of nuclear energy.

The private e-mail exchange between pro-nuclear actors presents a unique opportunity to examine the mobilisation of less visible forms of power in the form of agenda setting (manipulation) and discursive framing (domination) in order to influence policy outcomes and shape public opinion on nuclear energy. This is problematic because it constitutes a lack of transparency and accountability on part of the State with respect to policy outcomes and restricts the civic space by curtailing the articulation of alternative interests and voices.

Through an analysis of the leaders of the 1960s Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) this paper highlights the importance of individual identity work, and argues for an expanded theoretical treatment of social movement identity processes that takes account of partial identity correspondence (a partial alignment between an individual identity and the movement identity) to include degrees of identity congruence. Actors can embrace a movement, but remain in a state of conflict regarding some dimensions of its identity. Extending James Jasper's ((1997). The art of moral protest: Culture, biography, and creativity in social movements. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press) identity classifications, the data suggest that participants engage in identity justification work when incongruence among personal identity (biographical), collective identity (ascribed, i.e. race, gender), and movement identities exist. This work may not reflect the organization's efforts to frame or reframe the movement identity. This study finds that individuals manage incongruence with organizational and tactical movement identities by employing three identity justification mechanisms: (1) personal identity modification of the movement's identity; (2) individual amplification of the common cause dimension of collective identity; and (3) individual amplification of the activist identity through pragmatic politics. Rather than dismantling the past, as Snow and McAdam ((2000). In: S. Stryker, T. J. Owens, & R. W. White (Eds), Self, identity, and social movements (pp. 41–67). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press) propose, actors incorporate their biographies as a mechanism to achieve feelings of community and belonging. It is not so much an alignment with the organization's proffered movement identity as it is a reordering of the saliency hierarchy of their identities. Unlike Snow and McAdam's conceptualization of identity amplification, the reordering of an identity hierarchy and the amplification of certain identities is precipitated by the actor's, not the organization's, efforts to align her/his personal identity, collective identity, and movement identities.

Although granted funding from government agencies, Britain’s Northern Rock (NR) Bank experienced a depositors’ bank run in 2007. The purpose of this paper is to explore bank managers’ and the Triparties’ communications, in their failed attempt to reassure depositors during the crisis.

The paper is based on content analysis of information given to depositors by bank managers and the Triparties via mass media. The theoretical concepts of rituals and masking were utilized.

Results suggest that nonfinancial reporting supersedes financial reporting. Rather than hidden losses, bank regulators’ and politicians’ discussions of emergency funding for NR was the crucial incident signaling “something going on.” Even positive statements by prominent organizational actors may have signaled serious problems that compromised NR’s “business as usual” stance.

Collective action manifested in a bank run is triggered by reasons other than numbers in financial reporting. The research results indicate a need to consider how regulatory authorities act during financial crises.

Previous studies concluded that sensegivers must be consistent in framing communication to sensemakers. Sensemaking requires that the crisis communication is also consistent in the sensemakers’ framing. Because it is difficult for sensegivers to reshape the collective sensemakers’ frame, successful crisis communication requires that sensegivers change their communication to match the sensemakers’ frame, including symbolic actions. Additionally, a bank run is characterized first by loss of trust in financial reporting; second, in nonfinancial reporting; and, finally, in the sensegiving actor: a domino effect.

Despite an increasing trend in adoption of social media by for-profit organizations and their chief executive officers (CEOs), there is little understanding of how these new channels of communication are incorporated into the broader communication domain of a firm to discharge accountability during a crisis, when accountability is of critical importance. More importantly, research on how people perceive a crisis and voice their opinions to firms and CEOs on social media in reaction to that crisis is rather limited. Therefore, in this study the authors investigate these questions.

This study is based on a case. The authors focus on the biggest data breach in Internet history in a pioneer technology firm, the Yahoo data breach. The authors conduct descriptive and dramaturgical analyses informed by Goffman to investigate how Yahoo manages its several front stages (communication channels), including social media during and after the Yahoo data breach announcements, and how people respond to the Yahoo's front stage management.

The results show that, during this crisis, Yahoo engages in management of its front stages by first limiting them to a few, then by redrawing the line between its back and front stages, and finally by expanding its front stages to include two-way communication channels, including social media. An ongoing accountability process back stage guides Yahoo's management of its front stages and undermines Yahoo's accountability in front stages. However, social media audiences challenge Yahoo's control of its front stages by using various frames to make sense of the crisis, and to demand accountability.

This study furthers the understanding of how social media platforms are positioned in a firm's broader communication channels during a crisis. It also enhances understanding of accountability demand, especially during critical times in a digitized era.

Social problems researchers have documented the role of science in identifying, typifying and shaping policy responses with respect to a variety of new social problems. Researchers have given less attention, however, to the role of science in ongoing debates over problems that are well established and contentious. This paper examines the influence of mainstream scientific knowledge concerning the deterrent effects of the death penalty on a death penalty debate in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Mainstream scientific opposition to the deterrence hypothesis is found to influence the claims-making strategies of death-penalty proponents, leading them to draw heavily on common sense, to scale-back and qualify their claims concerning deterrence, and to reframe the debate in terms of just retribution. These effects are attributed to the cultural rules that structure debate in a legislative decision-making body.