Political Frame Research Articles

Early twentieth-century Chinese travellers in Florence

ABSTRACT This article examines the image of Florence in the travel accounts of Sheng Cheng, Xu Zhimo, Zhu Ziqing and Zou Taofen, four different personalities, with quite different backgrounds and sensibilities, who visited Florence during the 1920s and 1930s. These authors present to their Chinese readers portraits of a thriving city with a vibrant atmosphere that, nonetheless, transcends its present to be crystallised in an exuberant eternal renaissance. The article argues that the authors are inspired by a specific idea of the Italian Renaissance that gained momentum in late nineteenth-century Europe. This idea strongly resonated with the Chinese intellectual elite of the early twentieth century, who found in it an inspiration to face China’s internal political challenges. However, the travel accounts seem to transcend any real political frame in describing the city, while instead fabricating a fantasy of Florence as the embodiment of modernity, beauty and elegance.

Asking, We Walk

Written collectively by six femme and queer scholars and artists, this piece is both a critical reflection and creative intervention into art residencies and Zapaturismo (political tourism) in Chiapas, Mexico. Drawing upon our embodied experiences of moving through the Lacandon jungle as part of a well-intentioned yet colonial-minded arts residency, we ruminate on the ethics, practices, and failures of solidarity between North American feminists, people of color, and queer people with Indigenous communities in Mexico under siege. We ask: what are we really searching for when we seek out the Zapatistas, and why participate in “activist art” residencies staged in the Global South? Each section of the article is a collaboratively written vignette that offers multiple vantage points to analyze our individual and collective experiences at the residency that occurred within and between three places in Chiapas: the city of San Cristobal de las Casas, a rural Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional or EZLN) caracol, and at a cooperative on the Tonalá shore. Utilizing personal and poetic reflections along with scholarly and political frames, we summon lessons gleaned that will continue to impact our ongoing work with our respective places and communities. To truly listen to the Zapatistas, we conclude, we must take very seriously their messages to our group given in a moment of crisis, to work from our own locations and to transform our own understanding and ethics of care and collectivity.

ARUS TOP-DOWN DAN BOTTOM-UP PADA GERAKAN DIALOG ANTAR AGAMA DI INDONESIA

The interfaith dialogue movement in the top-down current as described above, namely the movement originating from the state, was welcomed by various communities in Indonesia as a bottom-up current, namely the interfaith dialogue movement originating from the people. At least in this bottom-up flow, there are two communities, namely dialogue developed in academic institutions, and dialogue conducted or facilitated by civil society institutions, such as NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations), both focusing on dialogue and raising issues. -Other issues related to dialogue. In this research, the researcher focuses only on two groups, namely the state (top-down current) and academic institutions (bottom-up current) trying to examine religious movements in the realm of inter-religious dialogue using social movement theory. There are three key concepts in social movement theory which usually play a very important role in determining the success of collective action. The three concepts include (1) political opportunity structure, (2) mobilizing structures, and (3) framing of action.

PUBLIC POLICY MEETS PUBLIC SURVEILLANCE

This research examines cases of several ‘smart cities’ deploying camera technologies, particularly those augmented by AI and video data capture. Constituent groups including technology companies, city government employees, and a variety of citizen groups both directly and indirectly shape the policies for using these systems and the data they produce, presaging how society might deal with the escalating presence of the Internet of Things. The social shaping of technology approach contributes to the research's conceptual foundations while a political economy perspective frames a consideration of the ethical dynamics in play. The study investigates how seven urban communities frame and articulate the values and dangers of such systems operating in networked environments. Using archival data from official documents, the press, local and State ordinances, the study concludes that police interests have been significant drivers of these systems, alongside new environmental and management promises for improved cost savings. Public engagement practices vary, but in general are either nonexistent or anemic. Oversight practices likewise are under-developed. provides a descriptive picture of how cities view and experience this surveillance infrastructure and highlights of the policy problems associated with the city surveillance systems.

Undermining Justice: The Political Framing of Actors in the Independent Assessment Process

This article presents findings from a critical discourse analysis of House of Commons debates about the Independent Assessment Process (IAP), an out-of-court compensatory adjudication process intended to resolve claims of sexual and physical abuse that occurred at Indian Residential Schools and one of five key elements of the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement. Our analysis is guided by the question: What do elected officials’ discussions about the IAP reveal about the implementation of compensatory transitional justice mechanisms in settler colonial states, and about colonial relations (specifically attempts at reconciliation) more generally? Our study focuses on debates that took place between 2004 and 2019. We explored elected officials’ framing of both Survivors and the Canadian State in their discussions about the IAP. Our analysis reveals the limited reach of dialogue based in a partisan and antagonistic context and supports those scholars who assert that transitional justice is incompatible with reconciliation and decolonization. By way of contributing to the larger interdisciplinary study entitled Reconciling Perspectives and Building Public Memory: Learning from the Independent Assessment Process, of which this article is part, we reflect on what our findings mean not only for public memory but also for studying the IAP moving forward.

Romantyzm polityczny Jarosława Jakubowskiego albo przepisywanie Dziadów (na prawicy)

The article analyses two dramas by Jarosław Jakubowski: Dożynki and Nowy Legion (New legion), which their author designed as attempts at updating the political frame of Mickiewicz’s Dziady (Forefathers’ Eve), (especially ‘Warsaw salon’), read in the context of the ‘Smoleńsk romanticism.’ The right-wing approach to Mickiewicz’s archdrama offers a diagnosis of the social and political divide (‘two Poland’) in the aspect of the clash between two worldviews: left-wing and liberal versus right-wing. Mickiewicz’s authority is supposed to strengthen the right-wing diagnoses, hence it is easy to spot the numerous attempts at instrumental and anachronic reading of the romantic legacy. At the same time, the analysed dramas show the importance and the textual and ideological productivity of the romantic paradigm.

Exploring frames of environmental crises on Twitter and Weibo: Crisis communication about Hurricane Maria and haze.

There is limited knowledge about how crises are framed on different social media platforms specifically in a non-Western cultural context. This study compares how extreme environmental crises-Hurricane Maria and haze-were framed on Twitter and Weibo. Through word-cloud, co-occurrence, and thematic analyses with Hurricane Maria-related tweets, this study identified two major frames of this crisis: a disaster frame and a political frame. Similarly, by analyzing haze-related posts on Sina Weibo, two major frames emerged: an environmental frame and a health frame. Both crises were largely framed as environmental issues rather than health risks or crises. Such framing helps shape the existence of Hurricane Maria and haze as legitimate facts. The findings also reveal that cultural variances, eg, power distance, collectivist-individualist culture, and uncertainty avoidance, impact crisis framing. This study indicates the importance of designing culture-fit messages and incorporating social media strategies in crisis communication while developing emergency management plans and adds knowledge to the limited literature on social-mediated crisis communication in different cultural contexts. Such knowledge will provide theoretical and practical implications for crisis scholars, emergency management practitioners, and policymakers.

Iran's Regional Influence in Light of Its Security Concerns

AbstractDuring the past two decades, Iran has gained a prominent position in the Middle East. Its influence in Iraq has gradually increased following the US invasion in 2003, and in Syria after the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011. Many scholars and political analysts frame Iran's actions in the region as driven by the country's desire for expansionism. This article, however, demonstrates that Tehran's foreign policy rationale for exercising regional influence, especially in Iraq and Syria, has mainly been oriented around guaranteeing Iran's national security.

Institutional dimensions of post-flood recovery in war-affected Swat, Pakistan

Post-disaster recovery in war-torn societies is a complex and challenging task. Institutions play an important role in such recovery; yet, unequal power relations, within these institutions and within affected communities, often inhibit institutional capacities to minimize damage and harm. In this study, we used interviews, focus groups, and a survey to examine the role of formal and informal institutions during the recovery from the devastating 2010 flood in Swat, in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan. We focus explicitly on the operations of power and politics in the institutional setting as shaped by the Taliban insurgency. This novel lens allows us to assess the nuanced experiences of three case study communities, across different socio-economic group discussions and diverse geographical settings. Our findings demonstrate a strong institutional reliance on classic humanitarianism, defined by short-term, response-based strategies that, however, often remain blind to the contextual factors and power dynamics that can magnify vulnerability and reinforce disparities among marginalised populations in communities. Our findings reveal that a simplistic understanding of vulnerability, based predominantly on the quantification of material losses, serves to entrench the authority of well-off community members. Further, a political framing allows us to examine less understood social and political processes such as encroachment, land disputes, and exclusion of local actors. These processes are entangled with power and politics that have further complicated post-disaster recovery. Finally, our findings draw on the concept of disaster diplomacy, noting the proactive roles of the Jirga (assembly of elders) and the army, associated with regaining lost influence. We advocate for an approach of humanitarianism that also considers the role of resilience building, to foreground preventive rather than response-based strategies. Such an approach is well suited to align post-disaster and post-conflict recovery processes with policy and practice in order to foster good governance in a post-conflict environment.

Measles, Media and Memory: Journalism’s Role in Framing Collective Memory of Disease

Language used to describe measles in the press has altered significantly over the last sixty years, a shift that reflects changing perceptions of the disease within the medical community as well as broader changes in public health discourse. California, one of the most populous U.S. states and seat of the 2015 measles outbreak originating at Disneyland, presents an opportunity for observing these changes. This article offers a longitudinal case study of five decades of measles news coverage by the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, which represented two of the largest news markets in California when the measles vaccine was released, in 1963, and during the 2015 outbreak. Measles reporting during this period displays patterns pointing to an active role for journalists in shaping public understanding of health and medical matters, especially as they recede from public memory, through the employment of available and circulating political and cultural frames. Moreover, journalistic frames in this period of reporting incorporated presentist descriptions of the disease, which imposed present values on the medical past, and which were constructed of decontextualized historical references that supported prevailing contemporary notions of the disease. Framing and the tendency toward presentism, in the context of shifting public health discourse, had the effect of communicating an increasingly severe sounding disease over time, and of shifting blame for that disease’s spread from nature to government to individuals. Journalistic framing and causal stories have much power to shape public understanding of medical matters as they recede from public memory.

The Politics of Temporary Protection Schemes: The Role of Mexico’s TVRH in Reproducing Precarity among Central American Migrants

Using Mexico’s Tarjeta de Visitante por Razones Humanitarias (TVRH) as a primary case study, this article examines how states can use temporary protection schemes as border security measures while claiming to provide protection. Although the TVRH offers a legal pathway and status to move within Mexico, it equally restricts certain rights due to its temporary nature. It becomes a form of differential inclusion by which the state has the right to be able to “exclude and define the limits” of a particular population but also claim inclusion on humanitarian grounds. Despite the claim of protecting migrants, the application of this regular status can essentially become a form of interdiction, which sustains the political framing of migration as ultimately a “threat” that needs to be governed. On the ground, migrants with these temporary regular statuses occupy a liminal space and live a precarious existence similar to those migrants who do not possess a legal status at all. This power imbalance exists more often as states prefer to grant a temporary immigration status, which ensures less responsibility and support that accompanies more rights and protections. Based on policy analysis and field work, the article will examine the TVRH, the processes for obtaining this legal status, and the consequences for irregular migrants.

“Swallowing the red pill”: the coronavirus pandemic and the political imaginary of stigmatized knowledge in the discourse of the far-right

Pandemic disease is not merely a biological reality but also a cognitive and socially constructed phenomenon which intensely mobilizes a multiplicity of political frames. Far-right political entrepreneurs are, despite their remoteness from actual decision-making processes, active stakeholders in the current crisis. Existential threats to societies breed a sense of urgency and heightened cultural warfare that is a hotbed for extremism. Our study seeks to map, compare and contrast the symbolic responses to the Coronavirus crisis articulated by various far-right actors in two established democracies in the transatlantic area: The United States and France. We aim to shed light on how entrenched far-right mythologies and tropes—which appear increasingly transatlantic—are channeled into a new synthesis as part of an “alternative” political epistemology. Infused with the mythos of resistance and insurgency, resolutely anti-systemic, this alternative epistemology can better be described, following Michael Barkun, as a form of “stigmatized knowledge”. Our study will employ a Critical Discourse Analysis framework to bring into focus, in the response of the Euro-American far-right to the COVID-19 crisis, the ideological semiotics of the current “infodemic”.

Jajasan “Pembaruan”: Propaganda discourse through its printed products

The purpose of this paper is to describe Jajasan “Pembaruan” as a publisher that produced printed materials in the form of magazines and books in Indonesia (1950-1966). This study might be categorized in the history of communication as a political frame. This article examines particularly on how Jajasan “Pembaruan” as a political agent carried out propaganda with printed material productions in the form of book and magazine publications. As an agent of trans-nationalism, through the content in the publication, Jajasan “Pembaruan” as well as being a medium in shaping the concept of identity politically and culturally through discourse politics. This research shows that the publications by Jajasan “Pembaruan” were agents of political propaganda pioneered by several young people (political activists and leftist thinkers), the Indonesian Communist Party. Thus, the productions by Jajasan “Pembaruan” were at the same time a strong foundation in providing theory, politics, and practices regarding the idea of a “new way”, especially among the cadres of the Indonesian Communist Party about Indonesian political identity. Propaganda spread through books or magazines published by Jajasan “Pembaruan” was one of the discourse efforts of “decolonialization” in spreading various communist political views. Production or printed materials by Jajasan “Pembaruan” received support in a fluid communication network between countries in the context of the cold war.

Housing Policy Reframed? How Conceptual Framing Affects Support for Social Housing Policies in Germany

Housing policy is a growing problem in many countries. Three online experiments were conducted to test framing effects in the context of housing policies in Germany. In experiment 1 (N = 303), urban growth was either described as ‘rural exodus’ or ‘influx’ of the rural population into urban areas. Experiment 2 (N = 300) focused on framing effects in the current expropriation debate in Germany. A reacquisition policy of private housing was either framed as a measure of ‘expropriation’ or ‘repurchase’. In experiment 3 (N = 311), a vacancy taxation was either labelled to ‘punish’ or ‘overcome’ actual problems with housing shortage. A mini meta-analysis across all three studies shows that conceptual framing affects policy support in a consistent way. The data supports our hypotheses that framing has the power to influence mental representations of policy and solutions. Moreover, moderation analyses were conducted to systematically test the influence of political ideology and perceived issue relevance on framing effects. Results indicate that participants’ ideological self-placement partly affects the effectiveness of linguistic framing in some contexts. Thus, the results expand existing knowledge about the effectiveness of political framing, by making visible not only the possibilities but also the boundaries of framing strategies.

Immigrant Integration Policies in Catalonia (1993-2017)

This article analyzes the political frames of Catalan integration policies that were developed from 1993 to 2017. It explores the way some of the major political issues and concepts surrounding immigration have been constructed in a minority nation. Based on qualitative analysis of the main political documents approved by the Generalitat de Catalunya, we suggest that Catalonia has developed a coherent and inclusive political discourse, based on the recognition of immigration as a constitutive part of its population. However, we detect a utilitarian view on immigration with some elements of its philosophy of integration being unclear.

Genealogi dan Gerakan Sosial Protes Taman Gezi

The Gezi Park Protest is the largest demonstration in the history of the AKP’s power in Turkey. This paper wants to see the protest not only from the surface but also from the roots of Turkish society. In an effort to meet this goal, the authors use theory, first, political cleavages and, second, social movements with a focus on collective challenges, political opportunity structures and framing. The method which used in this paper is qualitative research method, data collection using existing data methods. This study found that the PTG was not actually a protest against the urban planning policy of Taqsim Square, but rather a protest against the accumulated disappointment of the secular groups against Erdogan's government.

The Northern Sea Route in Political and Economic Frame of Reference in the 17th and Early 20th Century

The article considers the influence of economic and political factors on development of the state policy on the Northern Sea Route and its effective use. The success that Russia reached in the foreign policy, has determined the cautiousness or openness of its actions in the Arctic Seas. The article briefly describes the navigational and hydrographical traffic conditions in the Arctic Seas, the dangerous areas for sailing are noted in the text, as well as the new attempts that Russia made to establish navigation in the area. The intense activity in the North Polar Region, including research activity, was determined by economic interests, such as opportunities for maritime trade and transport routes development, as well as political interests, which include defense of own territories and development of new lands. The research is based on valuable sources of information on the North Polar Region, one of which is European and Russian geographical maps of the18th and 19th centuries, which managed to cover many blank spots, that resulted in delineating a clearer Arctic shoreline of Russia. Although the Northern Sea Route could hardly become a major transport channel due to the severe natural conditions, Russia tried to sustain its influence and defend its territories, especially when real threats to its national interests in the Arctic region arose.

Exploitation Opportunities for Distant Crises: Political Framings of Brexit in the Czech Republic and Hungary

ABSTRACT Brexit has been a major crisis facing the European integration process. The paper examines how Brexit was framed and exploited by two EU member state governments, Czechia and Hungary. We conceptualize Brexit as a “distant crisis” for these two countries: although it is likely to have significant impacts, these are uncertain and not immediate. Building on the crisis-framing literature, we apply frame analysis to examine governmental rhetoric and find that both governments have instrumentalized Brexit for internal purposes by pragmatically adapting their discursive positions on it to fit their political calculus on both domestic and European issues.

Political frames of public health crises: Discussing the opioid epidemic in the US Congress

When and how do politicians talk about public health crises? Using evidence from the opioid crisis in the United States, this paper assembles and analyzes novel data on Congressional statements to explore the conditions under which politicians (1) issue public statements about opioids and (2) frame the opioid crisis as a predominantly public health or law enforcement problem. We examined 3.8 million Congressional floor speeches and 111,000 public statements to identify (1) floor speeches about drug crises in the 97th to 114th Congresses (1981–2017) and (2) public statements about the opioid crisis in the 116th Congress (2019–2020). Moderate ideology, women, greater overdose deaths, and larger white populations are associated with significantly higher frequencies of opioid statements. Using a dictionary-based text analysis approach, we find that ideologically liberal and African American legislators are more likely to use public health framing, while ideologically conservative members are more likely to use law enforcement framing and refer to national borders or foreign countries in opioid statements. Democrats/liberals more often referenced medication treatment for opioids. These findings imply two broader conclusions about the nature of political discourse in public health crises. First, that political extremists are least likely to talk about opioids suggests that increasing partisan polarization may result in less discussion, emphasis, and expertise in public health issues. Second, the tenor of discourse about opioids and other public health crises is likely to change with partisan electoral waves, potentially hindering long term planning of public health capacity.

Not even a word: Politics of speech and silence in Palestinian memories

This article explores the memories of female Palestinian former political prisoners, via a rethinking of the interrogation moment as liminal space. This arena reveals and triggers productive processes of recognition of self and other, construction of meaning, and resistance strategies by reproducing a mode of remembering that can transcend the yoke of “victimisation” and defeat. I aim to acknowledge the terminology that prisoners use – or refuse – to describe themselves and their “being-in-the-world” and to explore the wide range of meanings involved. In this context silence, the act of not confessing during the interrogation, can be read as a microcosm of values that is not reducible to traumatic discourses, a categorisation that risks obscuring the social, cultural and political frame in which it is shaped.