Where does the true value of a frame analysis approach lie? A Reply to van Dijk

Abstract

This paper addresses arguments raised by van Dijk in his critical appraisal of framing approaches to social movement research. In particular, the claim that frame analysis does not give sufficient attention to the intricate details of the interpretive process. In making this argument, van Dijk leans heavily on Goffman’s first category of frames (as individual acts of interpretation) at the expense of his second (relating more to inter-subjectively shared classes of schemata) used reflexively, for instance, by movements to embed a message of protest in wider value systems in the hope that it resonates sufficiently with the grounded experiences, grievances, beliefs, and cultural orientations of publics. This paper highlights how social movement frame research accounts for both categories of frames to illustrate how movements communicate across multiple levels of social interaction to maximize the societal impact of their message. When interpreted in these broader terms, the ‘how’ of interpretation, it will argue, is explained effectively by this research, contrary to van Dijk’s claim.

Introduction

In his contribution to this special issue, van Dijk correctly highlights the considerable variation that prevails across framing approaches to social movement research, not only in terms of how researchers account for the specific properties of social movement frames but, also, the level of detail provided. Conceding to van Dijk on these points, however, does not take from the central purpose of a framing approach to social movement research – to study not only the content of these actors’ communication efforts but also their relational functions (i.e. how frames are used to establish a communication with a wider cultural and social order). Second, to show how framing practices work across different contexts to enhance societal communication capacity (Goffman, 1974). With a focus on the relational purpose, as much as the content of frames, most framing approaches to social movement research depart significantly from traditional cognitive or discourse methods. Even so, van Dijk claims ‘one would expect a detailed account of the cognitive (and discursive) processes of how people go about understanding, comparing, negotiating, accepting’ or rejecting ‘the beliefs, goals, ideologies, etc., of social movements’. Without such a detailed analysis, the notion of frame, according to van Dijk, ‘disappears’ in the details of the text under review, leading the research exercise to become ‘analytically superfluous’ . The main problem with a frame analysis approach for Van Dijk (2023) is its lack of attention to how the interpretive process takes place:

Unfortunately, these frames are not spelled out in detail but informally described in terms of the discourses that articulate them. These are fundamentally different things, also because discourses, as forms of social interaction, are always adapted to the communicative context (see, also, Skillington, 2017).

Even if we accept the point raised by van Dijk here that a more rigorous analysis of the details of frames should be provided, this does not address the bigger issue raised by van Dijk’s appraisal – whilst discourse is always adapted to the communicative context, frames, as a ‘fundamentally different thing’ are not, according to van Dijk. As a product of strategic interpretive action, social movement frames are always adapted to the communicative context. They represent a type of practically informed knowledge of the world that is more than just descriptive content. They enable actors to connect to a social world in a meaningful and socially consequential manner (Strydom, 1999). For such reasons, frames must be assessed not only in terms of how they convey ideas, and opinions, etc. (one element of their function) but also in terms of their cohesive function, making participation in and connection to a social and cultural world possible. In making this argument, Strydom (1999) highlights the importance of Goffman’s second category of frame - the understanding of frames as components of a collectively shared, inter-subjective framework of interpretation or a ‘cognitive order’ (Strydom, 2007) with distinct rules as to how various ‘classes of schemata’ (Goffman, 1974: 27) ought to be applied. Van Dijk’s critique would appear to lean more on Goffman’s first category of frame (i.e. individual uses of frames to subjectively interpret the details of different social occasions). Undoubtedly, this first category is important but social movement frame analysts also draw heavily on Goffman’s second category of frames when highlighting how social movements creatively align their message of protest with components of a larger socio-cultural order. Strydom (2009) for instance, assesses how actors use various sociocultural forms of protest to connect their grievances with communicatively shared interpretations of wrongdoing and transgressions of normative rules (e.g. rights violations) (see, also, Skillington, 2017). Beyond their descriptive function, social movement frames are, therefore, understood as also serving an important critical normative function which van Dijk’s appraisal does not explore.

Second, movement frames are adapted to a communicative context in a manner that extends far beyond a classic speaker-listener framework. Social movement frames are ‘triply contingent’ as Strydom (2009) explains, in the sense that the third person point of view (public opinion) is always taken into account in the framing process. Even when the public is not a direct participant in discourse, it nonetheless exerts considerable influence over the framing strategies of movement actors due to its epistemic role in contemporary public communication. The institutional and technological infrastructure of contemporary communication is oriented increasingly toward the gaze of absent, anonymous and evermore transnationally dispersed publics (Strydom, 1999). As a crucial component of the generalized communication processes of contemporary global society (Habermas, 1992), such publics exercise considerable authority over the framing practices of social movement actors.

As third parties to communication episodes between actors, today’s observing publics are far from uniform or non-opinionated (Fraser, 1997: 75; Neidhardt and Rucht, 1991: 457), comprised as they are of opposing groups, bystanders, as much as sympathizers, supporters, social media followers, bloggers, influencers, etc. making the process of alignment with ‘public concerns’ all the more precarious and difficult for social movement actors today. Yet, as a constructionist frame analysis approach to social movement research understands, for reasons of pragmatic necessity, movement actors’ must continuously reference the interests of such publics in their framing efforts in the hope of strengthening their perceived societal relevance and forging new connections across common concerns. Climate justice campaigners, for instance, bring multiple experiences of crisis (environmental, race, class, generational inequalities) together in their signifying work and frame these as civil, social and political rights violations. To align its worldview and interests with those of such publics, Earth Guardians (2017), for example, emphasize a common desire globally to remake relations of inequality. Agency and leadership are framed here in terms of a collective ‘we’ empowerment (movement + public): ‘We are the ones we have been waiting for to lead projects, campaigns and collective actions all over the planet’ (see, also, Climate Generation, 2017; Skillington, 2019: 50–54).

The relational function of frames

To understand the meaning of these actors’ framing efforts, therefore, is to also understand that their words always serve a wider function (more than the descriptive). The framing efforts of social movement actors are always tailored to address these publics as much as those directly involved in a particular issue campaign (Donati, 1992: 159). The context in which social movement framing processes take place is thus relational on more than one level and to understand why movement issues are framed in the way that they are requires that these additional relational functions are also taken into consideration (the importance of establishing a relationship of resonance between a movement’s message of protest and wider public interests, lived experiences of environmental decline, frustrations, hardships, losses, a desire for change, etc. via various frame alignment processes). The relational setting of contemporary movement discourse reflects a patterned matrix of relations through which multiple social actors as well as power and organization are contingently connected and positioned. To succeed in its campaign, the movement actor must devote considerable energies to working out a communication strategy that will maximize its impact on these relations and increase its ‘communicative power’ (Habermas, 1977). Generated in heated debate between competing societal actors, communicative power is a crucial form of power that movements attempt to harness by ensuring their framing efforts are always geared toward the interests and concerns of publics.

Movement frames, therefore, can never be studied wholly in terms of their descriptive qualities or, at least, not to the same extent as more traditional cognitive or linguistic approaches might do. To focus only on the literal content of a movement’s message would be to risk producing an overly situational, asocial account of the meaning of movement actors’ interpretive position. Particularly problematic is the notion of frames as ‘things’ or free-standing entities whose precise meaning can be determined just by looking at the arrangement of words, sentences, action sequences, etc., within the text. Frame approaches to social movement research assess which themes, issues, events, discourses, actors are referenced in and across texts, how blame/responsibility is attributed and solutions defined in communication with a wider knowledge order. What elements of this knowledge order are referenced, norms of justice, ethical reasoning or historical memory, for instance, and what purpose do they serve? The ‘linear surface of the text’ is never considered sufficient to explain the full identity or meaning of social movements’ communication (Donati, 1992: 151). Van Dijk argues that the primary focus of a frame analysis approach to social movement research ought to be the cognitive and discursive aspects of social movements activities but, in truth, the interpretive dimensions of social movements are more than the properties of their discourse texts.

To adopt a framing approach is to study meaning making as a process of social construction (between text and context), a communication with wider meaning systems, events and new challenges as they arise, as Van Dijk (2009) himself has observed in other settings. Frames allow movement actors to form a coherent position within a series of wider conversations where the actions of all is oriented to the performance of others – ‘reacting, projecting, transforming, anticipating the discourse’ of other voices (Mehan et al., 1990: 135). Frames, therefore, capture the creative dimensions of a communication process occurring on several levels (the cultural, social and political, as much as linguistic level). Indeed, this is a distinct quality of the framing approach, as Goffman (1974) emphasized in his references to Schutz’s (1962) on the importance of the ‘provinces of meaning’ or Bateson (1972) account of how reality is meaningfully framed in interaction. It is these qualities that make a frame analysis approach to social movement research more appealing than discourse or linguistic approaches that purport to know how domination or ideologies work just by looking at the surface of the text (e.g. Sinclair and Coulthard’s (1975) analysis of the interpretive rules applied to various discourse ‘units’).

Amongst those most fervent in their criticisms of traditional cognitive or linguistic approaches to text analysis are discourse psychologist Billig (1999) and language specialist Fairclough (1989, 1993). Frustrated by the limitations of previous approaches, Fairclough developed his own three dimensional model, taking insights from a range of additional critical thinkers, including Foucault (1972, 1979), Marx and Engels (1975), Gramsci (1971), and Kristeva (1986). Fairclough’s approach takes account of the usual analytical activities of discourse analysis (description and interpretation) but sees these activities also as media for the play of power between participants and their material or ideological interests (Fairclough, 1992: 81–88). For Fairclough, wording choice, sequential position, sentence structure and other analytical devices serve a range of larger social functions than just the illocutionary, roles that find material expression in the institutional arrangements of wider society. Van Dijk expresses disappointment that exponents of the framing tradition have not similarly drawn on other types of analytic research (from the disciplines of cognitive, social psychology and socio-linguistics) in the way exponents of CDA have, especially ‘work [that] is directly relevant for the study of various social movements’.

Even those that do incorporate aspects of a critical discourse analysis approach or neighboring traditions into their study of frames (e.g. Hall and White, 2008) do not escape criticism. The explanatory capacities of these approaches are still said to be limited. In previous frame analysis research (Skillington, 1997, 1998), I have also attempted to combine a framing approach (e.g. Snow et al., 1986 on frame bridging, frame transformation, frame extension), with elements of Fairclough’s (1992, 1989) three-dimensional discourse analysis and Foucault’s assessments of the impact of extra-discursive tendencies and power relations (Foucault, 1972). In this way, wording, sentence structure, discourse strategies (e.g. generalization, nominalization, objectification, personalization, intertexuality, etc.) and discourse types (e.g. environmental protection, economic growth) are not ‘glossed over’ but assessed in conjunction with a study of which frames are used by actors to advance their ideological interests, as much as a message of protest.

However, many other framing studies which incorporate insights drawn from other traditions are not referenced by van Dijk. For instance, Klaus Eder’s frame analysis of contemporary processes of ecological communication. The latter incorporates prominent aspects of a discourse analysis approach to advance the empirical relevance of Habermas, 1984 [1981]) theory of communicative action (validity claims) and ‘knowledge interests’ (Habermas, 1968). All are integrated into Eder’s research with a view to clarifying what and how various framing devices are used by societal actors in episodes of public communication on ecological issues. Eder’s interest is in showing how frames are employed practically in the communication process and second, considering the societal impact of these frames. Eder (1996: 174) notes the presence of three cognitive framing devices in particular that reappear consistently across ecological communication: (1) the moral responsibility of humanity toward nature; (2) empirical objectivity or scientific observations of the current state of nature; and (3) esthetic evaluations of human kind’s expressive relationship with nature. All three framing devices are said to be used by actors to explore at least two standard frames – ethical and identity frames (Eder, 1996: 183).

Social movement adherents construct collective identity frames explaining ‘who are we’ and ‘what we aim to achieve’ on the basis of an ongoing communication with available empirical, moral and esthetic knowledge, changes occurring in environmental conditions, institutional arrangements and social interaction more generally. Movements’ ethical frames, on the other hand, explore what an ecologically responsible society might look like. In this setting, projecting a ‘green identity’ and demonstrating sufficient ethical appreciation for nature’s value become compulsory elements of contemporary societal communication (Eder, 1996: 183), quite apart from the ‘facts’ of present levels of ecological destruction. Eder’s chief concern is the ‘signifying work’ (Snow et al., 1986) involved in this process, the making sense of happenings in the world with the aid of existing interpretive tools, ethical norms, and broadly shared cultural understandings. Similar to Snow and colleagues, Eder’s analysis of frames is focused as much on the work of frame producers as it is on frames as the end product of their interpretive efforts. For that reason, Eder’s frame analysis emphasizes the importance of the action component of framing processes, where concern is with the dynamic, social element of meaning construction. An overly detailed, literal interpretation of the properties of frames (essentially contestable meaning constructs) is, therefore, deliberately avoided.

Neighboring schools of research

Van Dijk concludes his appraisal of a framing approach to social movement research with the view that the latter brings no ‘additional insights to otherwise often interesting social (and sometimes cognitive) analysis’ (p. 25). Social movement research, therefore, should ‘abandon’ a framing approach and make use instead of ‘more precise theoretical and methodological concepts’ such as those offered by ‘neighboring disciplines’ (ibid, p. 2). Assessing the theoretical and methodological rigor of one such neighboring discipline, Conversational Analysis (CA), Billig (1999) identifies major weaknesses in this approach. The latter, Billig argues, wrongly assumes, unlike other, more critical approaches, that it does not impose a priori biases and specialist terminology on the object of analysis but rather takes ‘seriously the object of inquiry in its own terms’ (Schegloff, 1997: 171, 167) and bases its findings only on the words used by the participants in observed segments of conversation. As Billig notes, CA uses a range of ‘highly technical’ terms to describe the elements of a conversation, in a manner similar to a Frame Analysis or Critical Discourse Analysis approach. Whilst the intention is to study participants ‘in their own terms’ (Billig, 1999: 546), CA does not, in fact, avoid imposing its own language of interpretation (e.g. turn taking, sequential organization, etc.). Indeed, so extensive is its specialized tools of investigation, it is said to ‘disattend to the particular topic’ of participants’ conversation (Billig, 1999: 547) and demonstrates a notable ‘vagueness about what exactly is a ‘conversation’’ (Billig, 1999: 550).

Billig’s accusations against Schelgoff’s approach to CA are similar to those made by van Dijk against a framing approach. In particular, the claim that it does not provide a sufficiently detailed account of how frames are used by movement actors. However, it could be argued, equally, that a degree of vagueness is also present in CDA’s diagnostic accounts of how power operates through discourse, or how specific ideologies, beliefs, and values are present in the discourse text. Distinct levels of meaning construction have to be bridged to come to such conclusions, not always in ways that are fully persuasive. For Billig (1994), vagueness characterizes all text analysis on account of its focus on processes of meaning making that are essentially in a state of movement and heavily contested. Indeed, one could argue an element of ‘vagueness’ is unavoidable when accounting for meaning making practices that are always open to alternative interpretation, depending on the interests of the researcher and the context of production. As a form of rational inquiry, text analysis might seek to reduce this vagueness but it can never dispel it entirely (Peirce, 1902), no matter what method is applied.

The importance of reflexivity in the framing approach

Noting how one of the original authors of the 1986 Snow et al. paper has since conceded that some aspects of their proposed theoretical and methodological framework require further elaboration, Van Dijk concludes this framing approach should be ‘abandoned’. Such a concession, however, might also be viewed as an important indication of openness to reflexive learning. Knowledge of the framing process may be seen as in a state of growth, with practitioners adding to the research tradition on the basis of an ongoing dialog with new empirical insights. Noting that further and more specific work is needed on the details of frame types or frame alignment processes is not the same as saying this method is of no use. Indeed, it is this reflexive capacity on the part of practitioners of the framing approach that enables a framing approach to social movement research to continue to flourish and inspire new thinking. Fleshing out the details of movement frame alignment processes, assessing their generative function, or relationship to the properties of a wider knowledge order continue to be important elements of the frame research legacy (Polletta and Kai Ho, 2009; Snow et al., 2019). Discarding the scientific merit of this work is counterproductive, especially as it continues to provide important insights on the relationship between culture, knowledge and agency (Strydom, 2009). In particular, the contribution of the social actor and their framing efforts to the articulation, disarticulation and re-articulation of the categorical structures of a shared knowledge order and public space of reason.