WHEN SAYING LESS IS SOMETHING NEW: SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND FRAME-CONTRACTION PROCESSES*

Abstract

The framing strategies of social movements are typically characterized by movement actors conceptually and rhetorically expanding frames. We contend that movement actors also contract frames by deliberately excluding frame elements. We add the concept of contraction to the frame-alignment construct and show how frame contraction allows for enhanced theorizing about the dialectical and dynamic nature of social movements. We describe three distinct frame contraction processes, frame removal, frame minimization, and frame restriction, which characterize common frame contraction strategies. We illustrate frame contraction by examining the framing approaches used by the United Auto Workers as they bargained with automakers across two rounds of negotiations in 1945–46 and 1949–1950. We show how frame contraction articulates undertheorized complexities in changes to social movement frames. We also illustrate potential blind spots, biases, or distortions that may arise absent the frame contraction construct.