Topic 7 Framing processes and Social Movements

POLS1140(Mar 21)

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E.g. 1

“I’m anti-nuclear (coz) I’m a human being”

– Chi-Ling Lin, a Taiwanese artist

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E.g. 2

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E.g. 3aLong-term educational development for you, for us & for the future

Oppose the building of the luxurious houses & support the education for the betterment of the community

Q: Relevant to the parties within this University, as well as the community???

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E.g. 3bWhat is rezoning LWL Site?Relating to us based on seeing the banner? Associating with what? What do you feel? Will you joining it after seeing the banner?

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E.g. 4: Anti-National Education Movement

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E.g. 5: Promoting National Education

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Nature

• “Politics of signification” (Hall, 1982)– Production of mobilizing and counter-mobilizing

ideas and meanings (from the powerful & the powerless)

– Signifying agents actively engage in the production & maintenance of meaning for constituents, antagonists and bystanders or observers

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Nature

• Meaning construction: “an active, processual phenomenon that implies agency & contention at the level of reality construction” (p.614)– Active: something is being done– Processual: dynamic and evolving process– Agency: work of social movement organizations/movement

activists– Contentious: generating interpretive frames differing from,

and even challenging, the existing ones– Resultant products: collective action frames (CAF)

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Framing democracy…

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Framing democracy…

• Voting: institutional?• Majority/consensus?

• Sacrifice: being imprisoned, no freedom...?• Action: democracy is not granted?

• Contentious: push for changes?• Suicide: stimulate the public’s

awareness/emotion?

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Characteristic features of CAF

1. Enable individuals to locate, perceive, identify and label occurrences & events within their life span and the world at large (Goffman, 1974, p.21) meaningful organize experiences & guide action

2. Outcome of negotiating shared meaning (Gamson, 1992, p.111)

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Characteristic features of CAF

3. Core framing tasks: Action-oriented function– Shared understanding of some problematic

condition, issue or situation they define as in need of change,

– make attributions regarding who or what is to blame,

– articulate an alternative set of arrangements, &– urge others to act in concert to affect change

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Characteristic features of CAF

a) “injustice frames”– Identify the “victims” of the given injustice– Amplify their victimization– Define the actions of an authority as unjust– Advocate some form of political &/ economic

changes– Collective noncompliance, protest, and/or

rebellion

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Characteristic features of CAF

b) “boundary framing” and “adversarial framing”: Delineate the boundaries between “good” and “evil”

c) “counterframing”: refutations of a logic or efficacy of solutions advocated by opponents as well as a rationale for its own remedies– E.g., In the democracy movement of China, (1989, ref.

Topic 4): Students anticipated the state counterframings of student movement as “counterrevolutionary”, “turmoil”, “upheaval”. To deflect such counterframings, students fashioned and articulated reformist prognoses & employed a tactical repertoire (community devotion & self-sacrifice)

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Characteristic features of CAF

d) “Motivational framing”:– rationale for engaging in ameliorative collective

action – constructing appropriate vocabularies of motive:

Severity, urgency, efficacy, and propriety

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Characteristic features of CAF

4. Dynamic and ongoing process: continuously being constituted, contested, reproduced, transformed and/or replaced during the course of social movement activity

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Variable features of CAF

1. Problem identification & direction/locus of attribution– Accumulation of knowledge about movement framing

dynamics– E.g., HK Property hegemony = Alice Poon’s Land &

Ruling Class in HK + government-business collusion + extensive real-estate market + “Li Ka-shing’s force, …

2. Flexible & rigidity, inclusivity & exclusivity– In terms of the number of themes or ideas they

incorporate and articulate

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HK property hegemony

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Variable features of CAF

3. Variation in interpretive scope & influence– more common movement-specific collective

action frames: Limited to the interests of a particular group or to a set of related problems, or

– Broad in terms of scope: “Master frames” – E.g., HK: “anti-small circle Chief Executive

election frames” / “June 4th Massacre frames” / “July 1st Rally frames”… < “democracy frames”

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HK democratic mov’t > June 4 / July 1 / Anti-small circle CE election…

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Variable features of CAF

4. Resonance– Issue of the effectiveness or mobilizing potency of

proffered framing, thereby attending to the question of why some framings seem to be effective or “resonate” while other do not (Snow & Benford 1988)

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Variable features of CAF

– 3 factors affecting the credibility of framinga) Frame consistency:

• -ve. e.g., nonviolent direct action VS physical violence

b) Empirical credibility: apparent fit between the framings and events• The undemocratic CE election = scandals of Tang & Leung

c) Credibility of the frame articulators or claimsmakers• Speakers: more credible more persuasive• Status & knowledge about the issue in question

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Variable features of CAF

• Salience to targets of mobilizationa) centrality: how essential the beliefs, values and

ideas associated with movement frames are to lives of the targets of mobilization

b) Experimental commensurability:• Are movement framings congruent or resonant with the

personal, everyday experiences of the targets of mobilization? Or are the framings too abstract and distant from the lives & experiences of the targets?

c) Narrative fidelity (cultural resonance): “myths”, “domain assumption”, “inherent ideology”

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HK property hegemony

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HK property hegemony

• King’s Cube (YouTube) @ http://youtu.be/qKf08vWTkKA

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Framing consequences & implications

1. Political opportunity:– can constrain or facilitate collective action framing

processes, depending on how PO is framed • Inclusion (welcome more people with shared vision) VS exclusion

(eliminate those who have differences)

– an opportunity to affect social change exists, and the people are “potential agents of their own history”

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Framing consequences & implications

2. Individual and collective identity– Esp. for identity-based movements– Identity constructions are an inherent feature of the framing

process– Connection between identity & movement participation:

enlargement of personal identity for participation and offering fulfillment and realization of the self (i.e. empowerment)

– Correspondence between personal & collective identities3. Specific-movement outcomes

– Depend on movement goal and desired outcomes’ attachment