A Methodology Analyzing for Frame Dynamics: The Grammar of Keying Battles in Palestinian Nationalism

Abstract

This article develops a methodological approach that draws on Goffman's original framing concepts of "primary frameworks," "keying processes," and "frame rims" to capture the influence of fundamental cultural templates in framing dynamics, and how framing develops sequentially among different SMOs in the dynamics of political contention. We propose that frames can be analyzed in terms of three fundamental components: collective identity (the subject), the collective action of the subject (the verb), and who or what the target of those actions is (the object). We use this structure to approximate primary frameworks of contention for two key players in the Palestinian national movement, and then trace changes in the subject-verb-object grammar as part of the keying process by which the movement, overall, increasingly embraced radical Islam. Our analysis traces the internal consistency of subject-verb-object elements of the radical Islamist collective action frame according to changing political opportunities and threats.