Frame Analysis
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Framing Concepts

Frame Viability

Narrative Fidelity

Generic Frames

Masterframes

Alignment Processes

Valence Framing

Useful Concepts for Frame Analyses

The identification of frames is, of course, not a theoretical end in itself, but aims to contribute to the explanation of cultural dynamics. A number of related theoretical concepts enhance framing theories in this respect. Several important add-ons of this kind are discussed below, namely:

Frame Viability

Not all frames have the same chances for catching on. Several mechanisms that render frames particularly viable have been suggested, most notably narrative fidelity and empirical credibility. Besides frames that comply with either of these two criteria or both, there also exist particularly frequent frames: Some of these "masterframes" evoke enduring cultural themes, which are culturally resonant regardless of their empirical adequacy. Other frames have been found to occur particularly frequently in media discourses. This section will first discuss aforementioned mechanisms and then present a typology of the most frequently occurring frames.

Narrative Fidelity and Empirical Credibility

One of the most important viability attributes of frames is their narrative fidelity, that is, the congruence of a frame with the life experience of its addressees (Gamson & Modigliani, 1989: 5; Oberschall, 1996: 99). For instance, inner-city residents faced with smog, will easily pick up on the notion that industrial development is threatening the "natural" balance of the ecosystem. In contrast, invisible risks such as radioactivity require a more elaborate mediation of the same framework, as they cannot be directly observed and play practically no role in the everyday life of most people.

Even if individuals cannot directly relate a frame to their personal experiences, empirical credibility — the fit between a frame and real world events — plays a major role in the acceptance of a frame (D'Anjou, 1996: 56; Neidhardt & Rucht, 1993: 309). Naturally, this credibility must not be interpreted as 'objective' empirical adequacy.  Rather, it denotes the ease with which audiences reconcile a frame with what they consider their — possibly mediated — experiences, which can even be derived from mass media discourses. With respect to the visibility of nuclear energy risks, for instance, the tragedy of Chernobyl has rendered the risk frame more credible, even with those audiences not directly affected by the disaster.

Some radical constructionists have criticized this concept as a reintroduction of positivism into framing theory, but the tenets of constructionism do not prohibit the assumption of the existence of an objective reality, but merely deny the possibility to directly access and verify that reality (Hacking, 1999).

Snow and his associates themselves have shifted their concept of narrative fidelity more towards the ideational realm. They contend that there are frames that 'resonate with cultural narration, that is with stories, myths, and folk tales that are part and parcel of one's cultural heritage.' (Snow & Benford, 1988: 210). These frames are based in metanarratives (Somers, 1995: 255-257), whose particular strength is their capacity to move beyond empirical scrutiny (Gamson et al., 1992). This type of narrative fidelity bridges concepts for frame viability with a typology of particularly viable frames that will be described in the following section.

A Frame Taxonomy

Besides these two mechanisms, there also are a number of frames whose recurrence cannot alone be explained by either narrative fidelity or empirical credibility.

These particularly frequent frames can be systematized with the help of a taxonomy that has been developed in recent framing studies. This taxonomy distinguishes "structural schemes" (Benford, 1997: 413) or "generic frames" (de Vreese, 2002: 27ff) from frames that focus more on "content".

Generic Frames (Journalistic Schemes)

Studies of journalistic practices have shown that the routinizing element of the profession have produced general patterns in news stories. These patterns are usually called "generic frames" or "structural themes", even though it is hard to tell, what distinguishes them analytically from other frequently occurring frames that have been termed "content frames". The label "journalistic schemes" might thus be more appropriate, but for the sake of terminological continuity, they will here be called "generic frames".

Three generic frames have been found to dominate media discourses, namely conflict, human interest, and economic consequences frames (e.g., Price et al., 1997: 484; de Vreese, 2002). Conflict frames depict conflict between individuals, groups, or institutions; human interest frames emphasize human life stories and emotivity; economic consequences frames couch issues in terms of thematerial benefits or costs they will have for individuals, groups, institutions, regions, or countries ( Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000: 95f).

Parallel to this typology, a distinction between episodic and issue-oriented framing exists (Iyengar, 1991). Issue-oriented frames embed issues in their wider context and focus on issues and policies. In contrast, episodic frames, which are far more common in news discourses, focus on events and persons and divorce issues from their wider context.

Masterframes and Metanarratives

If metanarratives are critical for identity building, the task of the researcher becomes to identify empirical instances of metanarratives, i.e. masterframes (McAdam, 1994: 41-43) or, more enduring cultural themes (Gamson, 1988: 220, 227). That is easier said than done, though.

Three themes reoccur so frequently in the literature, they might be considered masterframes: These are liberal individualism, ethno-nationalism, and harmony with nature.

Liberal Individualism

Today, liberal individualism is the dominant ideology of modern state and society throughout most parts of the world. The American Dream, democracy, market economy, the civil rights movement and the academy all have drawn on the liberalism frame. At the core of this masterframe is the image of humans as rationally acting individuals, which are endowed with freedom rights. Liberalism's strong emphasis of the individual as an ontological entity is probably a far more important cause for the current strife for identity than the modern organization of society. At the interface between group and individual, liberalism stresses freedom of association rights. In contrast, groups that are based on forced membership are emphatically illegitimate for liberalism. There is one exception, though, namely the ascriptive group.

Ethno-Nationalism

Ascriptive groups are at the core of the second masterframe, ethno-nationalism, which has become intertwined with liberalism over the last two centuries.

'Nationalism is the cultural framework of modernity; it is its main cultural mechanism of integration, and therefore, construction. It is the order-creating cognitive system which invests with meaning, and as a result shapes, our social reality, or the cognitive medium, the prism through which modern society sees this reality.'
(Greenfeld, 1999: 39)

Nationalism supposes the existence of primordial groups, which are viewed just as much as ontological as are liberalism's individuals. Nationalism thus has raised the legitimacy of all primordially coded groups.

As the 'dominant perception of the political context' constitutes a masterframe (Diani 1996: 1057), it should come as no surprise that ethno-nationalism and liberalism are such powerful masterframes. After all, with the rise of the modern nation-state primordialized national citizenship identity has become a masterframe instituted on state and inter-state level as well as in the scientific community. Once a primordialist identity for the organization that (by definition) shall override most other allegiances, namely the state and civil society as its presumed originator, is adopted, all primordially coded identities acquire a strong legitimatory advantage. Essentialist identity codes, obtained via 'frame transformation' or 'frame extension,' already have become prevalent in public discourse (Gitlin, 1994: 153). Queer and gender politics have become essentialized to an extent that is worth their comparison with the classic ethnicities (Kimmel, 1993).

Harmony with Nature

Finally, the harmony with nature frame assumes the existence of different realms of culture and nature and attributes to nature an intrinsic worth (d'Anjou and van Male, 1998; Eder, 1996: 191; Gamson, 1992: 136). In comparison to the other two masterframes, this frame is less frequently mentioned in the literature. The reasons for the relative underrepresentation of this masterframe might be twofold: For one, many data of framing studies draw on journalistic articles, which favor conflict frames, which are less conducive to harmony. Secondly, the bridging of the ethno-nationalist and harmony with nature frames into racist frames, which were popular in the first half of the XX century have become thoroughly discredited by the Holocaust.

The description of masterframes already contained several references to the interaction between frames. In the following section such interaction processes will be systematically discussed.

Frame Alignment Processes

Frames are never constructed from scratch, but always draw on already existing cultural codes (Gamson & Modigliani, 1989: 2; McAdam, 1994: 41-43; Snow & Benford, 1988: 204). In their seminal article, Snow et al. (1986)  distinguish four processes, through which frames become aligned among each other, frame amplification,  frame extension,  frame transformation and frame bridging.

Frame Amplification

The most basic frame alignment is called frame amplification. Frame amplification simply denotes 'the clarification and invigoration of an interpretive frame that bears on a particular issue, problem or set of events' (Snow et al., 1986: 469). Since frame amplification applies to already existing frames, it can only be utilized for frame maintenance, but not for the construction of new frames. Frame amplification can also fortify the identity of their targets by delivering a strong 'negative' identity (Gamson 1992: 135). Frame amplification, of course, can also be reversed, which would mean a blurring of a frame, or the display of its remoteness from particular issues, problems or events.

Frame Extension

Frame extension adds to a frame certain issues or dimensions, which hitherto were of no relevance for it. The main goal of frame extension is to make the frame more attractive to its potential adherents with different priorities. For instance, a group primarily concerned with environmental issues could include a platform against nuclear energy and frame its risks as environmental ones. Frame extension often comes at a cost, though, as it can weaken the appeal of a frame through clouding the essence of its contents (Snow & Benford, 1988: 478).

Frame Bridging

Similarly to frame extension,  frame bridging constitutes the 'linkage of two or more ideologically congruent, but structurally unconnected frames,' (Snow et al., 1986: 467). A typical example of frame bridging is the connection of the thematically fairly unrelated ecology, women's and queer movements into a single "New Social Movements" industry.

Frame Transformation

Finally, frame transformation refers to the process, in which a 'set of conventions by which a given act[s …], already meaningful in terms of some primary framework, is transformed into something patterned on this act[s] but seen by the participants to be quite something else.' (Goffman, 1974: 44). For frame transformations "new values may have to be planted and nurtured, old meanings or understandings jettisoned, and erroneous beliefs or 'misframings' reframed" (Tarrow, 1992: 188). An example of frame transformation is the adoption of the conservative conservationist movement into the more progressive environmentalist movement in the beginning of the 1970s.

Valence Framing

Unlike the mechanisms described above, which remain at the level of cultural dynamics, explaining the dynamics among frames and between frames and other cultural phenomena the last concept discussed here, valence framing focuses on behavioral effects of framings. While frame alignment processes have been a domain of social movement studies, and masterframes and related concepts have been mainly developed in media studies, valence framing until now has mainly been applied in management studies.

Valence framing assumes that the positive or negative couching of a phenomenon will generate behavioral effects. A typical example for valence framing is the description of a behavioral choice in terms of risk or gains(Kahneman & Tversky, 1979): An option that is framed in terms of 75% chance of a gain will be preferred over a situation is termed in a 25% chance of a loss of the same size, even though both situation are identical. The labeling of a product as 95% fat-free instead of 5% fat contents is a typical everyday example of this type of framing.

References

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