Social movement frames are very important to the success of the entire movement. When social movements fail, the whole social movement suffers. Framing efforts must give the relevant audience a problem that they associate with, specify who is responsible, and then motivate the audience to act (199). If the audience is not motivated, there will be no collective action and, therefore, no social movement. A good social movement frame is necessary for a social movement to prosper.
There are various different types of framing processes: 1) frame bridging; 2) frame amplification; 3) frame extension; and, 4) frame transformation (467). Frame bridges is the linking of the ideology of a social movements to the ideology of the relevant audience (467). Frame amplification is the invigoration that a social movement frame inspires (469). By extending a frame, a social movement broadens its scope to encompass the ideology of the relevant audience (472). Also, when frames fail, movements can undergo frame transformation by either transforming the domain specific or global interpretive frames (474). Social movements change the domain when dealing with changes in the environment of the social movement and the social movement must update its frame (474). Social movements change their global interpretive frames, they widen their scope to create a more inclusive environment (475).
The framing perspective complements the political process model. First of all, like the political process model, the framing perspective recognizes the strength of social movement resources that are produced within the movement. The framing process is something valuable that the social movement provides as an excellent recruitment tool. Cognitive liberation is one of the key aspects to a social movement’s success in the political process model. It is social movement frames that provide cognitive liberation. Frames are what motivate a person to act and feel like change can occur.
As stated earlier, framing is important. When framing efforts fail, so will the social movement since framing is what inspires collective action (223). Snow and Corrigall-Brown reported the major framing problems practiced by social movements: 1) the problem of misalignment; 2) the problem of scope; 3) the problem of exhaustion; and, 3) the problem of relevance. The problem of misalignment occurs when social movements do not relate to the relevant audience (26). Social movements often have a problem with scope. If the social movement’s frame is too narrow, the social movement will not attract as many volunteers (227). Also, some social movement frames become exhausted and overused and loose their meaning. The final problem that Snow and Corrigall-Brown describe is the problem of relevance. Relevance of a frame consists of the movements credibility and salience to the relevant audience (232). If a movement fails to align, creates a narrow scope, exhausts a particular frame, o fail to appear relevant, the social frame will fail.
Frames are difficult to empirically measure since they are abstract. Snow and Benford state that the ideal frame will consist of all of the following: 1) diagnostic framing; 2) prognostic framing; and, 3) motivational framing (200-201). One way to measure the effectiveness of frames is by seeing which of those framing criteria a social movement uses in the frame versus the number of members. It would be an interesting way to see which characteristics of the frame have a higher correlation with the member size.
