4. E.g. 3a
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Long-term
educational
development for
you, for us & for
the future
Oppose the building of
the luxurious houses &
support the education for
the betterment of the
community
Q: Relevant to the
parties within this
University, as well as
the community???
5. E.g. 3b
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What is rezoning LWL Site?
Relating to us based on seeing the
banner? Associating with what?
What do you feel? Will you
joining it after seeing the banner?
8. Nature
• “Politics of signification” (Hall, 1982)
– Production of mobilizing and counter-mobilizing
ideas and meanings (from the powerful & the
powerless)
– Signifying agents actively engage in the production
& maintenance of meaning for constituents,
antagonists and bystanders or observers
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9. Nature
• Meaning construction: “an active, processual
phenomenon that implies agency & contention at
the level of reality construction” (p.614)
– Active: something is being done
– Processual: dynamic and evolving process
– Agency: work of social movement
organizations/movement activists
– Contentious: generating interpretive frames differing
from, and even challenging, the existing ones
– Resultant products: collective action frames (CAF)
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11. Framing democracy…
• Voting: institutional?
• Majority/consensus?
• Sacrifice: being imprisoned, no freedom...?
• Action: democracy is not granted?
• Contentious: push for changes?
• Suicide: stimulate the public’s
awareness/emotion?
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12. Characteristic features of CAF
1. Enable individuals to locate, perceive,
identify and label occurrences & events
within their life span and the world at large
(Goffman, 1974, p.21) meaningful
organize experiences & guide action
2. Outcome of negotiating shared meaning
(Gamson, 1992, p.111)
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13. Characteristic features of CAF
3. Core framing tasks: Action-oriented function
– Shared understanding of some problematic
condition, issue or situation they define as in
need of change,
– make attributions regarding who or what is to
blame,
– articulate an alternative set of arrangements, &
– urge others to act in concert to affect change
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14. Characteristic features of CAF
a) “injustice frames”
– Identify the “victims” of the given injustice
– Amplify their victimization
– Define the actions of an authority as unjust
– Advocate some form of political &/ economic
changes
– Collective noncompliance, protest, and/or
rebellion
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15. Characteristic features of CAF
b) “boundary framing” and “adversarial framing”:
Delineate the boundaries between “good” and “evil”
c) “counterframing”: refutations of a logic or efficacy of
solutions advocated by opponents as well as a
rationale for its own remedies
– E.g., In the democracy movement of China, (1989, ref.
Topic 4): Students anticipated the state counterframings of
student movement as “counterrevolutionary”, “turmoil”,
“upheaval”. To deflect such counterframings, students
fashioned and articulated reformist prognoses & employed
a tactical repertoire (community devotion & self-sacrifice)
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16. Characteristic features of CAF
d) “Motivational framing”:
– rationale for engaging in ameliorative collective
action
– constructing appropriate vocabularies of motive:
Severity, urgency, efficacy, and propriety
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17. Characteristic features of CAF
4. Dynamic and ongoing process: continuously
being constituted, contested, reproduced,
transformed and/or replaced during the
course of social movement activity
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18. Variable features of CAF
1. Problem identification & direction/locus of
attribution
– Accumulation of knowledge about movement framing
dynamics
– E.g., HK Property hegemony = Alice Poon’s Land &
Ruling Class in HK + government-business collusion +
extensive real-estate market + “Li Ka-shing’s force, …
2. Flexible & rigidity, inclusivity & exclusivity
– In terms of the number of themes or ideas they
incorporate and articulate
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20. Variable features of CAF
3. Variation in interpretive scope & influence
– more common movement-specific collective
action frames: Limited to the interests of a
particular group or to a set of related problems,
or
– Broad in terms of scope: “Master frames”
– E.g., HK: “anti-small circle Chief Executive
election frames” / “June 4th Massacre frames” /
“July 1st Rally frames”… < “democracy frames”
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21. HK democratic mov’t > June 4 / July 1 /
Anti-small circle CE election…
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22. Variable features of CAF
4. Resonance
– Issue of the effectiveness or mobilizing potency of
proffered framing, thereby attending to the
question of why some framings seem to be
effective or “resonate” while other do not (Snow
& Benford 1988)
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23. Variable features of CAF
– 3 factors affecting the credibility of framing
a) Frame consistency:
• -ve. e.g., nonviolent direct action VS physical violence
b) Empirical credibility: apparent fit between the
framings and events
• The undemocratic CE election = scandals of Tang &
Leung
c) Credibility of the frame articulators or
claimsmakers
• Speakers: more credible more persuasive
• Status & knowledge about the issue in question
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24. Variable features of CAF
• Salience to targets of mobilization
a) centrality: how essential the beliefs, values and
ideas associated with movement frames are to
lives of the targets of mobilization
b) Experimental commensurability:
• Are movement framings congruent or resonant with
the personal, everyday experiences of the targets of
mobilization? Or are the framings too abstract and
distant from the lives & experiences of the targets?
c) Narrative fidelity (cultural resonance): “myths”,
“domain assumption”, “inherent ideology”
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27. Framing consequences & implications
1. Political opportunity:
– can constrain or facilitate collective action framing
processes, depending on how PO is framed
• Inclusion (welcome more people with shared vision) VS exclusion
(eliminate those who have differences)
– an opportunity to affect social change exists, and the
people are “potential agents of their own history”
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28. Framing consequences & implications
2. Individual and collective identity
– Esp. for identity-based movements
– Identity constructions are an inherent feature of the
framing process
– Connection between identity & movement participation:
enlargement of personal identity for participation and
offering fulfillment and realization of the self (i.e.
empowerment)
– Correspondence between personal & collective identities
3. Specific-movement outcomes
– Depend on movement goal and desired outcomes’
attachment
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