Abstract
In the last decade the framing perspective has gained increasing popularity among social movement researchers and theorists. Surprisingly, there has been no critical assessment of this growing body of literature. Though the perspective has made significant contributions to the movements literature, it suffers from several shortcomings. These include neglect of systematic empirical studies, descriptive bias, static tendencies, reification, reductionism, elite bias, and monolithic tendencies. In addition to a critique of extant movement framing literature, I offer several remedies and illustrate them with recent work. The articles by Francesca Polletta, John H. Evans, Sharon Erickson Nepstad, and Ira Silver in this special section address several of the concerns raised in this critique and, in so doing, contribute to the integration of structural and cultural approaches to social movements.
Keywords
Framing (construction)SociologyEpistemologyPopularitySocial movementInsiderReductionismNeglectEliteExtant taxonReification (Marxism)Social sciencePositive economicsSocial psychologyPolitical sciencePsychologyLawPolitics
Affiliated Institutions
Related Publications
Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness
How behavior and institutions are affected by social relations is one of the classic questions of social theory. This paper concerns the extent to which economic action is embed...
The Wretched of the Earth
A distinguished psychiatrist from Martinique who took part in the Algerian Nationalist Movement, Frantz Fanon was one of the most important theorists of revolutionary struggle, ...
Toward an Agenda for Evaluation of Qualitative Research
Evaluation is essential for research quality and development, but the diversity of traditions that characterize qualitative research suggests that general checklists or shared c...
Human Migration and the Marginal Man
Migrations, with all the incidental collision, conflicts, and fusions of peoples and of cultures which they occasion, have been accounted among the decisive forces in history. E...
Sex and Involvement in Deviance/Crime: A Quantitative Review of the Empirical Literature
Forty-four studies reporting data on the relationship between sex and indicators of deviance/criminality are reduced to a single data base. Contingency tables (1,118) are genera...
Publication Info
- Year
- 1997
- Type
- article
- Volume
- 67
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 409-430
- Citations
- 860
- Access
- Closed
External Links
Social Impact
Altmetric
PlumX Metrics
Social media, news, blog, policy document mentions
Citation Metrics
860
OpenAlex
Cite This
Robert D. Benford
(1997).
An Insider's Critique of the Social Movement Framing Perspective*.
Sociological Inquiry
, 67
(4)
, 409-430.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-682x.1997.tb00445.x
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.1111/j.1475-682x.1997.tb00445.x