Different pathways to identify moral framing from media content: A response to Hopp and Weber

Abstract

ABSTRACT Moral framing is a mobilizing strategy in digital activism to raise awareness of a social issue. This essay discussed the strengths and weaknesses of multiple methods of extracting moral framing from media content. Two issues were highlighted from crowd-coding and automated coding using computational approaches: context sensitivity and the handling of coding discrepancies. We compared results from manual content coding and automated analysis using the eMFD, urging scholars to incorporate multiple methods to uncover the meanings behind each moral value. We argued that crowdcoding, computational approaches and manual coding are not exclusive of one another, and encouraged scholars to diversify their methodological toolbox and choose what to use based on the research context.