Hank Johnston - Frames of Protest: Social Movements and the Framing Perspective

John A. Noakes and Hank Johnston

One of the earliest and most important lessons a student of social movements must learn is that there is no simple relationship between injustice and mobilization. Injustice is much more common and much more persistent than collective efforts to oppose it. There are many political movements, William Gamson (1992a: 6) reminds us, that try in vain to activate people who, in terms of some allegedly objective interests, ought to be up in arms. Social movement scholars have identified several factors affecting the rise of social movements. At the macro level, movements are considered more likely to occur when broad forces of social change (e.g., industrialization, war, and cultural contact) upset existing power relations. Under these circumstances, a faction of elites may break from the ruling consensus and sponsor challenging groups, or state policies may open political opportunities and facilitate challenges to the ruling group (Jenkins and Perrow 1977; McAdam 1982; Skocpol 1979). At the meso or organizational level, there is broad agreement that mobilization is more likely when challenging groups have more resources at their disposal. Also, studies have shown that the likelihood of mobilization increases as social networks among potential participants and social movement activists become denser (Gould 1991; McAdam and Paulsen 1993; Mueller 1994).

In contrast, this chapter and the others in this book focus mostly on the micro level of social construction processes and their relation to social movement participation. This is because the other levels cannot explaineither by themselves or in combination with each otherthe occurrence of protests or the rise of social movements. Within movements there are often debates over both what constitutes an opportunity and whether a particular moment is ripe for action (Gamson and Meyer 1996). If a movement fails to recognize an opportunity as such, it is lost (Barker and Lavalette 2002). The flip side of this is that social movement organizers regularly exaggerate the opportunities present in a particular situation in an effort to mobilize people to act (Gamson and Meyer 1996). On more than one occasion, a strongly held belief that change is possible has inspired collective action, even when objective evidence suggests only a slim chance of success (Kenney, this volume; Kurzman 1996; Casquette 1996). In short, mobilizing people to action always has a subjective component, and in recent years this subjective componentthe element of perception or consciousnesshas been conceptualized as a social-psychological process called framing. Understanding social movement mobilization requires attention to how collective processes of interpretation, attribution, and social construction ... mediate between opportunity and action (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996b: 2). Before anyone leaves the house to go protest in the streets, there are processes of cognition and interpretation that invariably occur. These intervene between the objective pressures and opportunities that are shaped by social-structural relations and the decision to protest or to join a social movement.

In the simplest of terms, framing functions in much the same way as a frame around a picture: attention gets focused on what is relevant and important and away from extraneous items in the field of view. Even when oppression is intense or when leaders tactics open up clear opportunities for action, individuals must be convinced that an injustice has occurred, persuaded that collective action is called for, and motivated to act if a social movement is to occur (see Walgrave and Manssenss chapter and Valocchis chapter, both in this volume). Moreover, collective action frames not only must indicate what is going on and why its important, but must do it in a convincing way. Successful frames must not only analyze events and identify who is responsible but also ring true with an audienceor resonate. This imparts a strategic, rational quality to social movement framing activities that have been widely researched (see Oliver and Johnstons chapter and Westbys chapter in this volume for full discussions of strategic framing).

The process of defining what is going on in a situation in order to encourage protest is referred to as the forging of collective action frames-or framing proc esses. Over the last two decades it has been one of the three broad focus areas dominating social movement research, along with the study of political opportunities and organizational resources. This introductory chapter reviews the core concepts of frames and framing processes. It is intended as an introduction and broad overview of the perspective for nonspecialists and students. Our goal is to provide a road map of the framing perspective by bringing together and synthesizing the research and theoretical work on frames and framing of the past twenty years. To date, this material remains widely dispersed among journal articles, monographs, and edited volumes. We will review the most important empirical research on how frames are constructed and communicated, how they shape and are shaped by other aspects of social movements, how they resonate, and how different frames are promoted by different parties vying for the peoples hearts and mindsincluding social movement entrepreneurs, countermovements, the state, and the media.