Framing and Social Movements

Abstract

Framing, within the context of social movements, refers to the signifying work or meaning construction engaged in by movement adherents (e.g., leaders, activists, and rank‐and‐file participants) and other actors (e.g., adversaries, institutional elites, media, countermovements) relevant to the interests of movements and the challenges they mount in pursuit of those interests. The concept of framing is borrowed from Erving Goffman's Frame Analysis (1974) and is rooted in the symbolic interactionist and constructionist principle that meanings do not naturally or automatically attach themselves to the objects, events, or experiences we encounter, but arise, instead, through interpretive processes mediated by culture. Applied to social movements, the idea of framing problematizes the meanings associated with relevant events, activities, places, and actors, suggesting that those meanings are typically contestable and negotiable and thus open to debate and differential interpretation. From this vantage point, mobilizing grievances are seen neither as naturally occurring sentiments nor as arising automatically from specifiable material conditions, but as the result of interactively based interpretation or signifying work. The verb “framing” conceptualizes this signifying work, which is one of the activities that social movement leaders and participants, as well as their adversaries, do on a regular basis.