Search results

Purpose of this paper is to explore how resistance of individual and collective actors play role in maintenance and change of institutions. Framing tactics of two emerging social movements in Istanbul Technical University and Middle East Technical University, which emerged against institutional changes in Turkish higher education, were examined by hybrid ethnography, using both online and offline data sources. Findings show that framing tactics of institutional entrepreneurs comprise different discourses and different forms of power, which also vary during different life stages of these movements. This paper contributes to existing literature in three ways. First power dynamics in institutional change, which is mostly disregarded in institutional theory, is taken into consideration. Second, with a longitudinal comparative study, it is shown that outcomes of social movements with similar demands may diverge according to different framing tactics based on power mechanisms that appealed at different stages of their life cycle. Third, this paper, as one of the few examples of a hybrid ethnographic approach, underlines the key role of considering both offline–online data sources, as an important part of actors’ life that take place in the online world.

The sociological and socio-legal literatures on social movements have identified three main types of “legal framing” in contemporary social movement discourse: collective rights framing, individual rights framing, and nationalistic legal framing. However, it is unclear from the current research how movement actors decide which of these framing strategies to use, under what circumstances, and to what effect. In this article, I offer a model for future empirical research on legal framing, which (1) distinguishes legal framing by its argumentative structure, ideological content, and remedy; and (2) analyzes how a social movement’s internal culture and institutional environment constrain the symbolic utility of particular legal frames and shape the movement’s legal framing strategy. I argue that the alternative approach offered here will help theorize how social movements strike a balance between the institutional pressure to reproduce dominant ideologies and the internal pressure to reform those ideologies. This perspective thus helps build socio-legal theory on the relationship between legal framing and social subordination, and on the conditions under which movements will be able to inflect legal language with insurgent social movement values.

Injustice is perceived, experienced and articulated. Social movements, and their constitutive parts, frame and re-frame these senses of injustice. Two often-overlapping accounts of social movements are in focus in this chapter. Human geography has been flooded with movement-based analyses of environmental justice (EJ). Sociology (more appropriately political sociology) has provided insight into social movements in the form of ‘contentious politics’ (CP). Building on both sets of literature, this chapter seeks to advance thought in human geography through a detailed exploration of master and collective action framing. It argues, firstly, that framing analysis challenges activist researchers to retain ‘spatial constructs’ as their central focus, rather than discourse. It calls, secondly, for us to unbind injustice as much as justice in our analysis of framing. And lastly, it demands a multi-spatial perspective on framing beyond simply scalar accounts.

The elaboration of framing in social movement theory offers a different perspective than is typically taken in social marketing. This paper explores how social marketing may benefit from this alternate lens.

The construction, features and processes associated with collective action frames in social movements are examined and explored via two social causes: obesity and disaster preparation.

A social movement perspective on framing highlights the need to better understand variations in how groups may perceive a problem and its solutions. It suggests a range of considerations and options in constructing and participating in the development of collective action frames, which are suggested to benefit social marketing initiatives and, thus, society.

Further research in societal well-being and the meso-level of social change should consider adopting a social movement framing perspective. A list of questions is provided to guide future research.

Mobilising a group into action is often a necessary and effective step in realising social change. The questions raised in social movement framing will equip practitioners and researchers with greater understanding of the issue, the context and potential solutions, ultimately to encourage positive social movements and social benefit.

While calls have been made for broader perspectives in social marketing, little attention has been given to social movements. This paper offers a way forward with respect to framing.

This study investigates core framing techniques utilized by two anti-illegal immigration social movement organizations, the Minuteman Project, Inc. and the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, both volunteer civil border patrol groups operating along the U.S.–Mexican border. Theoretically, this paper is informed by Robert Benford and David Snow's work on collective action framing. Using a case study approach, document analysis is employed to explore how four types of framing techniques (diagnostic framing, prognostic framing, motivational action framing, and credibility framing) are implemented by each group via information presented on their websites. The findings of this investigation suggest that these groups implement each of the four framing techniques in question, with the bulk of their focus resting in the diagnostic frame. Through the examination of these groups via the framing perspective, it is also found that the groups emphasize the importance of place, that is, the U.S.–Mexican border itself. The case analyses thus further framing theory by highlighting the roles that “geographic and place framing” also play. The Minuteman Project, Inc. and the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps are relatively new groups that have mobilized within the past few years. Sociologically, relatively few scholars have studied these particular groups within the larger anti-illegal immigration movement. This paper provides an in-depth analysis of how the groups utilize framing to construct their messages, missions, and goals to the public. Doing so contributes to an interesting and emerging type of civil border patrol movement and also adds to the body of work devoted to the importance of social movement framing.

How can organizations use strategic frames to develop support for illegal and stigmatized markets? Drawing on interviews, direct observation, and the analysis of 2,497 press releases, I show how pro-cannabis activists used distinct framing strategies at different stages of institutional development to negotiate the moral boundaries surrounding medical cannabis, diluting the market’s stigma in the process. Social movement organizations first established a moral (and legal) foothold for the market by framing cannabis as a palliative for the dying, respecting moral boundaries blocking widespread exchange. As market institutions emerged, activists extended this frame to include less serious conditions, making these boundaries permeable.

We use framing theory to analyze songs and poetry from the US women’s movement. Specifically, we utilize frame amplification and transformation as concepts to answer the question: did messages in songs and poetry from the women’s movement change as the movement achieved its original goal of suffrage? Furthermore, are there new organizational goals mentioned in musical artifacts from the second-wave feminist movement? And, if so, why? We find that songs became more radical in the second wave of the women’s movement. This shift reflects and reconstitutes the changing concerns of social movement activists. We demonstrate how frame amplification and transformation are important theoretical concepts in explaining the ideological shifts found in songs and poetry from the first- and second-wave women’s movement.

Since the 19th century, peace movements have consistently called on women to oppose war based on their roles as mothers and citizens. The women's rights and women's peace groups that participated in the anti-war movement of the 2000s continue this pattern drawing on both maternalist and egalitarian frames in their mobilizations. This chapter seeks to understand the forces that shape individual perceptions of the persuasiveness of these frames using face-to-face survey data collected at three 2004 demonstrations. The analyses show that different frames appeal to people with different levels of movement experience. The maternalism frame is negatively correlated with social movement experience and the egalitarian feminist frame is positively correlated. I extrapolate from this finding that that the maternalism frame may serve as a recruitment frame and that the egalitarian frame may serve as a retention frame. The conclusion theorizes that rather than thinking of women's groups that use different framing in oppositional contexts, it may be useful to think of the two sets of social movement organizations as working together in a symbiotic relationship that draws in new participants and maintains existing adherents through the use of distinctly different frames. This paper applies social movement framing theory in two unconventional ways: (1) it focuses on framing reception and the way that frames link individuals with organizations; (2) it encourages social movement scholars to think about the relationship between different frames within a broader movement and proposes an alternate conception of frame competition.

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.

In this paper, we demonstrate the linkages between humor and political and cultural opportunities and present an analysis of the importance of humor for collective identity and framing in the New Atheist Movement, a social movement focused on reducing the social stigma of atheism and enforcing the separation of church and state. Drawing on a qualitative analysis of interview, ethnographic, and web-based data, we show why the New Atheist Movement is able to use humor effectively in the political and cultural environment. We further demonstrate that humor is central to the development and maintenance of collective identity and to the framing strategies used by the New Atheist Movement. Through a diverse range of forms, including jokes, mockery, and satire, humor is a form of resistance and also can be harnessed to support the goals of social movements. We use this case study as a basic for advocating for greater attention to humor within social movement studies, and greater attention to social movements in humor studies.