Moral Framing Research Articles

Does a business-like approach to diversity in nonprofit organizations have a chilling effect on stakeholders?

Despite widespread commitment to promoting diversity in the nonprofit sector, increasing diversity poses a continued challenge for many nonprofits. Even nonprofits with explicit diversity statements often struggle to diversify their organizations. One potential impediment to achieving diversity may result from the framing and communication of diversity values within nonprofits. We evaluate the reactions of hypothetical stakeholders to two forms of diversity framing – instrumental and moral frames – focusing on potential divergence amongst racial-minority and White perspectives. Experiment 1 demonstrates that Black and Latino participants feel marginally more dehumanized and anticipate racial minorities will feel more devalued in an organization espousing the moral (compared to instrumental) diversity frame. In contrast, Whites feel less valued, more dehumanized, and perceive organizations as less authentically dedicated to diversity when viewing an organization that espouses the instrumental (compared to moral) frame. Experiment 2 extends these results demonstrating that Whites who are particularly concerned about their place in future job markets are more likely to feel devalued by instrumental frames to diversity. We discuss how these results diverge from existing findings of similar frames applied to business, rather than nonprofit, contexts. These findings extend our understanding of the implications of outcome-oriented versus moral frames within nonprofit organizations as well as informing understanding of how diversity frames may offer divergent signals to underrepresented and non-underrepresented stakeholders.

Persons With a Migration Background Caring for a Family Member With Dementia: Challenges to Shared Care.

Background and ObjectivesBy shedding light on the reasons why persons with a migration background (PwM) may take up the role of family caregiver of a person with dementia, and how this relates to gender norms, we aim to elucidate cultural and social dynamics that impede care sharing.Research Design and MethodsA qualitative study of 12 PwM who provide care, or have recently provided care, for a family member with dementia was conducted through semi-structured interviews. Identified themes and patterns were analyzed with the help of Hochschild’s interpretive framework of framing and feeling rules.FindingsOur findings illuminate how motivations to provide care are framed through two moral framing rules, reciprocal love and filial responsibility, and how these framing rules are accompanied by the feeling rule of moral superiority over non-caregiving family members. We show how shared dementia care is impeded though these moral framing and feeling rules, and how gender norms impact on an unequal distribution of care-tasks.ImplicationsHealthcare practitioners should identify the moral dialectics of caregiving. This means that, on the one hand, they should be aware that moral framing rules may pressure women into exclusive caregiving, and that this can lead to health problems in the long term. On the other, healthcare practitioners should recognize that providing care can create a deep sense of pride and moral superiority. Therefore, showing acknowledgement of the caregiver contribution is a crucial step in creating trust between the caregiver and healthcare practitioner. Furthermore, asking for support should be normalized. Governmental advertisements on care–support can achieve this.

The business case for CSR: A trump card against hypocrisy?

Why do many companies use a business case frame when referring to their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities? Two experiments (N = 1687) show that using a business case frame makes for a better impression management strategy than moral frames. By signaling that CSR activities are driven by instrumental reasons, and therefore not diagnostic of a company's moral character, a business case frame (and also a hybrid frame) suppresses accusations of hypocrisy. Consequently, when companies do not appear fully committed to CSR, using a business case frame makes them seem less hypocritical and elicits more favorable social evaluations, compared to using a moral frame. When companies appear committed to CSR, business case, hybrid and moral frames elicit similarly positive evaluations. These results support our theorizing that the rhetorical frames used when referring to CSR are not cheap talk, but constitute costly signals because they affect how companies are subsequently evaluated.

Choosing an equitable or efficient option: A distribution dilemma

We conducted a 3 × 3 × 2 experiment to verify the moral preference hypothesis and extend the boundary conditions of the moral frame effect. Participants played a trade-off game (TOG), in which they unilaterally choose between an equitable or efficient option. We manipulated the labeling of the options to describe the equitable versus efficient option as morally right, and controlled the amount of the stakes and division schemes in the TOG. We found there was a significant effect of moral frame when stakes were low in the TOG, and participants would choose a morally right option whether it was equitable or efficient. However, the effect of moral frame was nonsignificant when the stakes were high. In addition, the division schemes in the TOG had a great impact on the moral frame effect. Therefore, we found that when participants’ interest in the options remains the same or the changes are small, and other players’ interest changes greatly, the moral frame effect is not significant.

Frame Analysis of Newspapers’ Reports on Educational Policies in Korea, 2003~2018

이 연구는 노무현·이명박·박근혜·문재인 정부 16년 동안의 진보·보수 정권별 주요 교육정책을 살펴보고, 각 언론의 뉴스 보도 프레임이 정부별, 신문별로 왜, 어떻게 차이가 있는지를 분석하였다. 분석 대상은 조선일보·중앙일보·한국일보·한겨레 등 4개 종합일간지 기사 3,200건이다. 보도 프레임은 세멧코와 밸켄버그(2000)의 진술문 척도를 활용한 5가지 유형 모델을 적용해 분석했다. 연구결과 프레임별 비중은 책임귀인 프레임(53%), 갈등 프레임(42.6%), 인간적 흥미 프레임(26.3%), 도덕성 프레임(16%), 경제적 중요성 프레임(8.6%) 순이었다. 진보와 보수 정권별로 자사고, 수능, 국정교과서, 교육감 선거 등을 놓고 첨예한 갈등이 있었고, 언론사 성향별로도 동일 정책에 대한 보도 비중과 적용 프레임이 다양했던 것으로 나타났다. 특히 정책변동이 잦았던 노무현·이명박 정부시기에는 갈등과 책임귀인 프레임이, 수요자 의견 불출이 많았던 박근혜·문재인 정부시기에는 인간적 흥미 프레임 비중이 상대적으로 높았다. 이는 한국의 교육정책이 정부의 관점에 따라 변화해 왔고, 그런 정책을 보도하는 언론의 양상 또한 정부의 입장에 영향을 주는 중요한 요소임을 의미한다. 가치중립적이어야 할 교육이 정파적 속성에 따라 바뀌고 보도 되고 있다는 통시적 연구는 대한민국 교육정책의 일관성과 연속성에 문제가 있다는 중요한 시사점을 던져주고 있다.This study aims to analyze major educational policies implemented in Korea over 16 years under the Roh Moo-hyun, Lee Myung-bak, Park Geun-hye, Moon Jae-in governments and identify why the differences exist in the media reports on these policies. For this purpose, the author examined 3,200 articles written by four media outlets, Chosun Ilbo, JoongAng Ilbo, Hankook Ilbo, Hankyoreh and applied the five frames of media coverage discussed by Semetko and Valkenburg. The results of this study can be summarized as follows. First, the study found that 53 percent of the articles fit in the attribution of responsibility frame, 42.6 percent in the conflict frame, 26.3 percent in the human interest frame, 16 percent in the morality frame and 8.6 percent in the economic consequences frame. There was a severe conflict of interest between the progressive and conservative governments when it came to educational policies on autonomous private high schools, college entrance exams, national history textbooks and the election of local education superintendents. The frames of media coverage on these topics were also more varied. Second, conflict and responsibility frame were dominant under the Roh Moo-hyun and Lee Myung-bak regime. Also reversely, the portion of human interest frame rate were high under the Park Geun-hye and Moon Jae-in government. Third, the educational policies had been changed politically and the reporting frames of mass media were important factors influencing on people’s understanding. This means there were critical problems in the continuities and consistencies of educational policies in Korea.

Framing hate: Moral foundations, party cues, and (in)tolerance of offensive speech

One of the most controversial elements of political tolerance concerns support for hate speech. We argue that there are two factors that can reduce tolerance for hate speech: 1) moral foundations and 2) party cues. U.S. citizens’ tolerance of hate speech will be reduced when it is framed as a violation of a specific moral foundation, opposed by a political party, or when the morality violation is utilized by party elites. Using two survey experiments, we manipulated the target of hate speech (i.e. Muslims or the American flag), whether the speech violated a moral foundation (i.e. harm or loyalty), and which political party supported or opposed the hate speech in question. For flag burning, moral frames and party cues on their own reduced U.S. citizens’ tolerance relative to a non-political control, while moral frames and party cues were successful in reducing tolerance of anti-Muslim speech compared to a free speech appeal. Partisans were generally responsive to cues from the in-party. We also found instances of moral repackaging, where morally incongruent appeals from the in-party reduced tolerance of flag burning among Democrats. Among Republicans, harm morality decreased tolerance of anti-Muslim speech when invoked by the in-party, but increased tolerance when used by the out-party – an indication of the power of party cues to repackage moral arguments and to trigger backlash. These results provide a better understanding of what factors can affect tolerance for hate speech, providing political leaders and social justice advocates with a roadmap to alleviate this problem.

(Re)storying Sustainability: The Use of Story Cubes in Narrative Inquiries to Understand Individual Perceptions of Sustainability

Narratives represent storied ways of knowing and communicating. Therefore, storytelling, framing and narrative analyses have always been a key feature in media and communication research. In this paper, an innovative approach to narrative inquiries is introduced to capture reflections on individual experiences of sustainability over time. Storytelling is perceived as an act of problematization and, at the same time, as method of analysis. Using Rory’s Story Cubes® (dices with pictograms), we stimulated 35 interviewees from various cultural backgrounds (Asian, European, Anglo-American) to story life events that they relate to sustainability and put it into order and meaning. Our analysis and evaluation of the interviews focused on the story as a whole, which was then linked to the individual biographical background to understand motives and the moral frame(work) for problematizing (un)sustainable behavior. In particular, we focus on problematization as core process of storytelling and complement existing approaches coming from actor-network theory and Foucault’s discourse analysis with Entman’s concept of framing. In this paper, this innovative form of a narrative inquiry is put up for discussion for environmental communication research in order to create a better understanding of individual perceptions of sustainability and sustainability related issues.

Framing of the Great Famine (An Gorta Mor) in Ireland (1845-1849s) and Holodomor (1932-1933s) in Ukraine in the British Mainstream Press

The paper seeks to develop new avenues of the study of the British press regarding the coverage of mass famines in the former colonies of the UK and Russia (the Soviet Union), respectively: Ireland and Ukraine. For the first time ever, we employ a framing analysis (Semetko; Valkenburg, 2000) for the coverage of the Great Famine (An Gorta Mor) in Ireland (1845-1849s) and the Holodomor in Ukraine (1932-1933s) on the basis of the British press. Thus, this study is a pioneering transnational comparative research of press framing of the great famines in the world in a diachronic dimension. The research hypothesis of our study is that the British “elite” (quality press) and popular (“anti-establishment”) newspapers pursued divergent news framing in illuminating these famines. We argue that the British quality press pursued the common news framing by emphasizing “the economic consequences frame”. Specifically, these newspapers (and more specifically - “The Times”) accentuated the economic dimension, causes of the famines both in Ireland (in 1843-1847), and Ukraine (in 1932-1933s). On the contrary, the British anti-establishment press (specifically, “The Manchester Guardian” ) practiced “the morality frame” by appealing to moral responsibility of the respective political and economic stakeholders (specifically, “opinion leaders”, politicians and statesmen both in the UK and more broadly - in the West). Thus, they tried to draw attention of the Western politicians, stakeholders, “opinion leaders” to humanitarian dimension of these tragedies. Moreover, as we argue, these newspapers practiced victimization narrative in covering and analyzing this problematic. The British journalist (of the Welsh origin) Gareth Jones, the “Manchester Guardian” foreign correspondent, who uncovered “uncomfortable truth” about the Great Famine in Ukraine in 1932-1933s, epitomizes the latter pattern of “morality framing.” The findings of our transnational diachronic comparative research will provide a great insight into propaganda, media perceptions and portrayal of the stateless nations in the Western press in retrospective.

Press Ideology as an Epistemological Connector between Framing Theory and Social Representations Theory: An Analysis of Violence and Drug Trafficking in the Mexican Press.

The present paper explores the advantages of using framing theory, social representations theory and differences in ideology to analyze polarized issues in the press. Framing uncovers the structure/format of news articles and social representations explores their meanings. These two theoretical positions are connected through the concept of ideology - a set of beliefs that shape position taking regarding social issues. Using this integrated framework, we will analyze the highly polarized topic of violence and drug trafficking in two ideologically different newspapers in Sinaloa, Mexico - Noroeste (journalistic ideology) and El Debate (elite ideology) (total N = 547 articles). This will be accomplished using three steps - a descriptive analysis, application of the framing scale and submitting the articles to ALCESTE software. The results show differences in framing and social representations of violence and drug trafficking according to ideology. Each newspaper presented different news frames (journalistic - attribution of responsibility and conflict frames; elite - human-interest and morality frames). However, at the level of representations (content) there were ideological differences in the representation of violence but not of drug trafficking, suggesting a common element in these representations, beyond ideological differences. These findings contribute to (1) the clarification of the concept used and (2) towards an analytical framework of press analysis - analyzing format and content and considering differences in press ideology.

Organizational Culture and Ethical Decision-Making During Major Crises

By integrating various behavioral and ethical theories, such as Organizational Culture and the Social Construction of Knowledge, this research argues that emergency micro-cultures often emerge in times of crisis. Smaller, localized environments, permeated by this crisis culture, often produce an ethical myopia that corrupts wise decision-making. Unless insiders, either leaders or followers within a local setting, are able to meaningfully access ethical frames of reference existing outside the immediate context of the crisis culture, choices remain highly influenced by misaligned values distorted by proximate and introspective survival priorities with minimal regard for external or long-term ethical consequences. In this regard, Follett’s (1949) concept of “the invisible leader,” in which transcendent values for the “common purpose” of leadership are embodied, provides a potentially meaningful way forward in addressing this dilemma. Since social constructs significantly drive the values that influence decision-making (McLeod and Chaffee, 2017), respected, culturally rich, moral frames of reference that transcend the boundaries of the room emerge as important values clarifiers during important organizational decision-making, particularly in the midst of organizational crises.

The Media’s Construction of LGBT Pride Parades in Russia

This article analyses media representations of LGBT social movements, taking the case of Saint Petersburg LGBT pride parades. The analysis is developed through the use of framing theory, which views the media as an arena where interest groups promote their own interpretations of particular issues. Frames juxtapose elements of the text in such a way as to provide the audience with a scheme within which to perceive the message. Social movements are viewed as interest groups that introduce new frames in public debate. Two types of frames can be distinguished: collective action frames and status quo frames. In this study, the usage of two collective action frames (equality frame and victim frame), and two status quo frames (morality frame and propaganda promoting homosexuality frame) were examined. Additionally, the sources of quotes used in news stories were analyzed. The study focuses on articles dedicated to Saint Petersburg LGBT pride marches in the years 2010–2017 in the most popular local Internet websites. The analysis shows that the coverage of LGBT pride marches can be divided into two distinct periods: 2010–2013 and 2014–2017. In the first period, LGBT activists dominated the coverage, quoted about twice as much as government officials. Equality and victim frames were prevalent. In the second period, activists were cited significantly less often, with the propaganda promoting homosexuality frame dominating the discourse. However, contrary to findings of previous studies on social movement representation, across the whole period under consideration, LGBT activists were quoted more often than government representatives. This finding calls for a further exploration of the conditions which allowed for such coverage in the context of political heterosexism and homophobia.

The Evolution of Morality Policy Debate: Moralization and Demoralization

Abstract Scholars of morality policy have built an extensive literature surrounding these issues, which often are associated with unusual political behavior. Early studies aimed at explaining this behavior but avoided defining a “morality policy” explicitly, typically by focusing on issues that appeared obviously to pertain to morality, like abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. Drawing on the existing morality policy scholarship and classic theories of public policy, we argue that no public policy is inherently moral. Rather, policies may be “moralized” or “demoralized” over time, not due to any intrinsic characteristic, but because the prominent policy frames in their debate have changed. Public opinion and its proxies, along with certain exogenous shocks, may be important in determining when a morality frame will be more prevalent. Because the distinctiveness of morality policy lies in the discourse surrounding it, scholars should examine the behavior and attitudes of relevant advocates in these debates, rather than relying on aggregate data and making assumptions about intrinsic policy characteristics.

Greening the poor: the trap of moralization.

This article uses ethnographic data to engage a critical reflection on the tension between individual responsibility for the environment and inequality. While research has shown that the majority of sustainable consumers are middle and upper class, educated and white individuals, the study explores how the ethical injunction to ecological sustainability is being introduced to lower-income neighbourhoods in France. It draws on the observation of a national programme which aims at supporting inhabitants of public housing estates in the process of greening their lifestyle in order to fight climate change and fuel poverty. The paper analyses how environmental responsibilization is specific in that it calls upon a responsibility towards others, towards the common good. Using the Foucauldian concept of 'subjectivation', it describes and analyses the moral work implied by such behaviour change programmes. It demonstrates that a negative representation of poor households and a moral framing of the responsibility for the environment lead to a moralization of their lifestyle under the heading of 'eco-friendly behaviours'. A paradoxical result of such endeavours is that the social group with the least impactful lifestyle on the environment is the one which is moralized in the most intrusive and resolute manner. The article shows, however, that the tenants manage to resist the normalizing discourse on sustainable living, for reasons which are not anti-environmentalist. This piece thus provides interesting results for sustainability studies as well as for the sociology of the regulation of underprivileged neighbourhoods.

Social Media for Political Campaigns: An Examination of Trump’s and Clinton’s Frame Building and Its Effect on Audience Engagement

This study investigates cross-platform differences in social media by analyzing the contending candidates who represent different political ideology during the 2016 presidential election. Borrowing the frame-building and frame-effect perspectives, it examines the ways in which the two contending candidates (Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton) built their message frames in two different social platforms—Twitter ( N = 3,805) and Facebook ( N = 655)—and how the frame differences affected audience engagement in each platform. The results showed that Trump’s messages presented more variety in frame selection than Clinton’s, focusing on conflict and negative emotional frames on Twitter while displaying frequent positive emotional frames on Facebook. Clinton’s strategy relied heavily on conflict and positive emotional frames on both Twitter and Facebook. The results also suggested that for both Trump and Clinton followers on Twitter, conflict and morality frames consistently attracted retweeting behaviors and emotional frames attracted favoriting behaviors. However, Facebook engagement behaviors did not show a consistent pattern between the followers of the two candidates.

Representation of Symbolic Violence in Women's Body In Online Media (Case Study at Tribunnews in Covering the Case of Online Prostitution by Artist Vanessa Angel)

The research aims to explain the form of symbolic violence against a woman as a victim of online prostitution crime in the online news framing. It took an example of news on the victim of online prostitution crime Vanessa Angle case on Tribunnews published during January 2019. There are three findings from the research include news frames of the victim of online prostitution crime victims, 3 form of symbolic violence and the factors affecting the process of news framing. The result of data analyses found two of news frame, in the form of (a) economic frame (b) law and morality frame. The realization of symbolic violence contained in both of frames, include: (a) gender bias of affecting the framing process by Tribunnews found in this research are: (a) patriarchy and misogyny ideologies (b) benefit of business interest and (c) vision and mission of editorial.

Mathematical Morality Tales: Mathematics Education in Canadian Newspapers

Media reporting about mathematics education includes descriptions of different aspects of mathematics teaching, learning, curriculum and policies. As with any media reporting, such descriptions are not neutral. They reflect on and portray specific discourses and agendas about mathematics education, with quotations or experiences of different stakeholders such as parents, students and teachers. Using the concept of morality framing, in this paper, we examined the implicit moral dimension of such reporting. We analysed news content of a corpus of news articles on mathematics education published from September 2013 to March 2014, in three Canadian national English-language print publications. We found that the narratives and storylines depicted in these articles carry a particular set of moral values and a particular idea about the teaching, learning and assessment of mathematics in Canadian schools. In particular, we noticed that moral values attached to the ‘discovery’ method are negative and relate to the mathematical well-being of students and the nation as a whole. The moral values ascribed to the ‘back-to-basics’ method of teaching mathematics are predominantly positive, and are related to future prosperity.

Patrones de cobertura periodística: frames genéricos y frames de nivel en las elecciones presidenciales peruanas del 2016

This text reviews the literature on frame analysis, paying attention to the relationship between frames and politics in electoral processes. The studies on level frames and on generic frames are discussed. The types of frames are analyzed: level frames and generic frames. The use of both frames is compared in the Peruvian elections of 2014 and 2016, emphasizing the presidential elections of 2016. Likewise, it is analyzed if the use of these frames show differences between the types of media. The study was based on the analysis of 5112 electoral news from 20 programs and radio, press and television news spaces. The findings show that there is a pattern of coverage of the use of frames that persists from one election to another. But, there are differences in the use of frames from the first phase to the second round of the electoral campaign. Like the studies on coverage in other countries, in the Peruvian case the use of “conflict frames” is common, However, it differs from the international pattern because in the Peruvian case there is a more frequent use of the “frame of morality”. This is a particular feature of Peruvian newspaper coverage. Therefore, the coverage of the Peruvian media follows globalized production patterns together with schemes typical of the national journalistic culture, generating a hybridation of news production patterns.

Wizerunek Festiwalu „Łódź Czterech Kultur” w łódzkich dziennikach w perspektywie framing analysis

The article aims at presenting an image of „Łodź of Four Cultures” Festival in the regional dailies of Łodź: „Dziennik Łodzki” and „Express Ilustrowany” (2010–2014). The author used the framing analysis to examine the ways in which this cultural event related was reported in line with presenting history of Łodź and supporting multiculturalism. The press analysis was conducted by using the following frames: “the frame of conflict”, “the frame of human affairs”, “the frame of responsibility”, “the frame of morality” and “the frame of economy”.

Wizerunek Festiwalu „Łódź Czterech Kultur” w łódzkich dziennikach w perspektywie framing analysis

The article aims at presenting an image of „Łódź of Four Cultures” Festival in the regional dailies of Łódź: „Dziennik Łódzki” and „Express Ilustrowany” (2010–2014). The author used the framing analysis to examine the ways in which this cultural event related was reported in line with presenting history of Łódź and supporting multiculturalism. The press analysis was conducted by using the following frames: “the frame of conflict”, “the frame of human affairs”, “the frame of responsibility”, “the frame of morality” and “the frame of economy”.

Children’s crying in play conflicts

The study examines young children's play and adults' responses to children's peer play conflicts (in preschools in Sweden) that result in crying. It shows how educators' participation in the resolution of children's play conflicts constitutes socialization practices that focus on moral and emotional aspects of children's conduct. Children's crying has previously been investigated primarily from psychological perspectives. Interactional studies have highlighted that children use different communicative resources in their play interactions and conflicts. Crying, however, has not been investigated in an educational context and not in its own right. The present study adopts social interactional and sociocultural perspectives on children's development and learning. The study is based on video ethnography from a Swedish preschool for children aged 1-4 years. The findings demonstrate that young children use crying as a communicative act that invites educators' active response to a moral transgression committed by a peer. The children use crying to position themselves as victims or perpetrators in a conflict that educators are called upon to resolve, while at the same time mediating between children. The analysis shows that children configure their crying as an embodied and publicly visible act to be noticed by educators, whose responses then accomplish the moral framing of play conflict.