Lecture 4

Question 1

Framing perspective

Answer 1

views social movements not merely as carriers of existing ideas and meanings but as important signifying agents engaged in meaning making

Meanings are not natural/automatic but rather arise through interpretive processes mediated by culture (The relationship between material conditions and mobilizing grievances is not automatic)
Some conditions are more likely than others to spread a MG, however you still need some kind of spark

The perspective of how we frame things vary
Ex: when a black person commits a crime, this event is framed one way but if a white person commits a crime, it is framed another way

Meanings associated with relevant events are contestable and negotiable; they are open to debate and differential interpretation
These grievances don’t emerge natural but rather are the result of interactable based interpretations. So situations are being framed as something that should be seen as a grievance.
Rather than people naturally feeling a way, you have an event being framed in a particular way to encourage this movement.
Ex. 9/11: we didn’t know what happened, so President Bush and police officers framed it as a terrorist attack so we could all understand it.
The very framing conceptualizes the activist, the leaders, that are constantly doing work to frame something in a particular way and it takes maintenance

Question 2

Framing and social movements

Answer 2

Meanings associated with relevant events are contestable and negotiable; they are open to debate and differential interpretation

Diagnostic framing
-Problematization: views an event as problemsome that needs change
_Blame: blames others to mobilize grievances

Framing is constrained by facts, you have to work with what is there.

Some framings really resist reframing.
Going to take such a long time to make a change

We like to think of framing as constrained by actually facts but sometimes facts are not as important as we want them to *****

When you believe in something it is hard to change your mind even when you’re presented with facts.

Question 3

Framing and mobilizing grievances

Answer 3

MG are not naturally occuring

MG are the result of interactively based interpretation. They are based on signifying work (memory work).

This signifying work is performed by social movement adherents on a regular basis

Frames are constrained by the cultural context in which they are emerging

Question 4

Constraints on framing

Answer 4

Empirical context/events:
actual facts what happened. What the problem is

Cultural context
Frames are constrained by cultural context in which the movement is emerging.

Cultural context provided the interpretative material, these are not direct relationship, these cultural contexts can be tapped and are used to frame existing social conditions that can produce a movement.