Browsing by Subject "framing"
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Item Framing Change: Social Movement Framing in University Living Wage Movements(2010-01-14) Metcalf, Laurie D.In recent years, living wage movements have developed around the United States. In addition to advocating for living wage ordinances and laws in cities, living wage movements have developed to advocate for living wage policies at universities across the country. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine living wage movements at two universities to understand how they use communication to frame the wage issue and to push for the implementation of living wage policies. To develop an understanding of these living wage movements, two cases, Texas A&M University and Georgetown University, were selected for this study to examine through the lens of the social movement framing perspective. Data for the cases included interviews with activists and administrators, media reports, video documentaries, and internal documents. Results showed that the living wage campaign in each case prioritized the components of collective action frames, diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framing, differently. The Texas A&M living wage campaign focused heavily on developing the problem at an emotional level and offering a clear solution to the problem. The Georgetown living wage campaign focused heavily on laying blame for the problem. Each case also exhibited elements of master framing which linked its campaign to preexisting values. Most notably, in both cases, the existing university values and culture were used as a basis for master framing. The results also showed that the campaign targeted different constituencies, with the Texas A&M campaign attempting to gain popular support and the Georgetown campaign focusing on the university?s administration. This, along with the degree to which each campaign was willing to accept compromise, had a large impact on the campaigns? overall strategies. Overall, the results of this study show how communication related to an issue affects the course of a social movement and how a social movement approach can be used to create organizational change.Item Race, Gender, and Media Practices: A Critical Framing Analysis of the Media?s Coverage of USDA Worker Shirley Sherrod(2013-05-03) McGovney-Ingram, RebeccaOn July 19, 2010, conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart posted a story on his website claiming USDA worker Shirley Sherrod was racist in her work with farmers. The edited video included with the story as proof, showed Sherrod speaking at an NAACP banquet. Sherrod was subsequently vilified in the media and fired from her job, only to be exonerated and rehired later that week. Although the media claims their routine writing and reporting practices (such as newsworthiness, source selection, objectivity, and perpetual news cycle) make the industry better, researchers have shown that these practices lead to the use of shortcuts and stereotypes. This is especially detrimental to Black women because of the double-dose of stereotyping they are subject to when they are portrayed in the media. The purpose of this study was to understand how media practices influenced the framing of race and gender in the media coverage of Sherrod. In order to integrate key elements of critical theory (i.e. activism, intersectionality, speaking position, subjectivity) I chose a mixed-methods approach for my framing analysis. This included open-ended reading of the news stories, constant comparative analysis of possible frames, quantitative coding sheet, analysis of statistics in SPSS, and inclusion of qualitative examples. I analyzed a total of 93 news articles from 12 news sources for this study. Most of the news stories came from newer, online publications (n=67, 72.0%) and over half came from new sources with a liberal philosophy (n=47, 50.5%). I found three frames that were used to describe Sherrod in terms of race and gender: victim, good woman, and above her place. I also found that these frames were closely aligned with news values that help determine a story?s newsworthiness. I found seven sources were used repetitively and selectively associated with the frames. I also found differences in frames by news source type and philosophy. Finally, I found that the frames followed an identifiable news cycle. The results of this study show that the media do indeed utilize negative stereotypes of Black women in their products and that media?s use of routine writing and reporting practices exacerbate this problem.Item Rhetorical Response to the Homeless Movement: Adopting Discursive Units in Counter-Frames(2010-07-14) Mathe, Kristin S.American cities have a combination of policies that both provide emergency services and restrict the movements and activities of homeless people. These policies are the product of active public debates that construct narratives that explain the causes of homelessness and characterize homeless people. I identify both the policy opportunities and limits created by the way interest groups talk about homelessness by weaving together framing theory with analysis of discursive units employed in the public discussions about homelessness published in the St. Petersburg Times, in Pinellas County, Florida. This county is representative of other metropolitan regions that experienced rapid growth, gentrification, and are now seeing skyrocketing rates of foreclosures. I situate this local debate within the nationally circulated publications referring to homelessness to identify underlying assumptions that shape the outcomes in Pinellas County and set the stage for similar discussions across the United States. I examine how these narratives function in collective action frames of homelessness, the resulting opposing views of who should respond, and how the issue of homelessness should be treated given the legal division between public and private property in our capitalistic society. Frames must be considered rhetoric because they are employed to advance persuasive arguments. The various issue and collective action frames used to shape city policies each form an argument about homelessness. Discursive units are the building blocks of these arguments. Hence, I examine the place of the discursive units of thematic values, anecdotal narratives, and characterizations within these frames. I find that the city council responds to the competing interest group frames by selectively adopting different discursive units from each group in order to frame the situation of homelessness in the region as a crisis. While maintaining the use of the same thematic values and anecdotal narratives, the government is able to transcend competing characterizations of the homeless, creating space for their new policies to pass and succeed with the support of constituents from opposed interest groups.Item THE 2008 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES‘ USE OF FRAMES IN PRESS RELEASES(2012-01-10) McCauley, Ericka; Ryan, Michael P.; Jowett, Garth; Murray, Richard W.The public relations techniques applied in the 2008 presidential election campaigns reflect the important role public relations plays in providing strategic counsel to American political campaigns. As one public relations tool, framing helps public relations practitioners evaluate and influence the political spectacle. This study analyzes the types and frequency of frames used by the Barack Obama and John McCain presidential campaigns during the 2008 general election. Specifically, this study expands upon and operationalizes three frames from Hallahan‘s seven framing models that are applicable to public relations. These frames—those most common to political communication—include the attribute, issue and responsibility frames. An examination of these frames occurs within the context Web news releases and offers insights into the types of frames commonly employed by the 2008 presidential candidates. The findings suggest that both campaigns employed the issue frame more frequently than the attribute or responsibility frames. This is not surprising given the variability and intensity of the types of issues covered in 2008. What is surprising, however, is that both candidates focused heavily on issue frames in June and July of 2008—the first two campaign months before the general election between Obama and McCain—and not in September or October 2008 when the country experienced economic turmoil.Item When Do Their Casualties Count? Exploring Wartime Decisions that Pit Security Against Harm(2011-02-22) Roblyer, Dwight AndrewThis dissertation offers a new understanding about wartime decision making in the face of likely, but unintended, harm to foreign civilians. It empirically identifies conditions under which leaders in democratic nations are more or less likely to choose to attack a target when confronted with a dilemma between pursuing national security objectives and avoiding civilian casualties. An innovative targeting decision model was constructed that described both the theorized structure of the decisions inputs and the process by which these inputs are assembled into a choice. The model went beyond the normal target benefit and civilian casualty cost considerations of proportionality to also include the contextual input of prospect frame. Decision makers were expected to address the same benefit and cost differently depending on whether they were winning or losing the conflict. This was because the prospect frame would influence their risk attitudes, as predicted by prospect theory. This model was then tested via two decision-making experiments that used military officers and defense civilians as participants. Additionally, a statistical analysis of data collected from an extended period of the second Intifada was done to seek evidence that the model also applied in actual wartime decision making. All three tests supported portions of the targeting decision model. Higher target benefit and lower civilian casualty estimates increased support for the planned attack. Prospect frame influenced decisions in the cases where both target value and the civilian casualty estimates were high and the resulting dilemma was very difficult. In these situations, those told that their forces were losing the conflict were less sensitive to humanitarian harm and more likely to support the attack than when they were told their side was winning. Furthermore, the Intifada data analysis of attacks approved by Israeli officials against Palestinians found this same effect of prospect frame held generally across all six years of observations.