Membership in a social movement organization (SMO) and membership discourse provide space for participants to name and reconstitute their experiences, bodies, and self-images through an embodiment of organizational frames. This reconstitution is especially affirmed in the interaction of marginalized groups, such as individuals with disabilities, whom make up disability focused organizations and social movements. As a group with multiple intersectionalities, as well as an even smaller subsection of various marginalized populations, individuals with blindness face unique barriers when consideration of participants' identities and self-understandings is central in understanding entry as well as ongoing participation in organizations. Disability based organizations, represented by the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), must carefully frame the organizational membership of certain individuals whom could threaten cohesion through differing understanding of identities, not revolving around disability. This thesis is an examination of the organizational discourse and the "membership meetness" of participating persons in the NFB. Goffman’s notion of “breaking frame” theoretically informs this analysis of organizational discourse produced by the 'collective blind' in one of the oldest American disability social movement organizations to date. The NFB’s attempt to mitigate the “broken frame” introduced by the incorporation of members whom are not seemingly suitable and do not self identify as blind, into an overwhelmingly blindness based enterprise is to strategically mend existing frames to reinterpret extant social norms. The purpose of this thesis is to use a grounded theory approach, to tease out how membership is framed. In the NFB, frame alignment is accomplished by: framing blindness through allies transformed as friends, framing blindness as a characteristic, framing blindness as respectability, and framing blindness through rhetorical humor in narrative. The above four frames to disability based social movements offers researchers the opportunity to understand how groups attempt to integrate into their activities members who lack “membership meetness” while simultaneously garnering support and advancing interests within the larger movement. / text

Despite the wealth of interest in South Mexico’s Ejercito Zapatista Liberacion Nacional (EZLN), few studies have attempted to deconstruct the discourse of the Zapatistas according to its component parts. Most scholars have so far addressed the Zapatistas from the standpoint of political theory, international relations or anthropology, and in so doing have tended to engage primarily with broader polemical agendas. Furthermore, in their determination to typologise the Zapatistas as ‘this’ or ‘that’ sort of movement, scholars have overlooked the nuances and shades of meaning that exist within the Zapatista discourse, as well as the evolution of those meanings over time. As a result, the content and ongoing construction of the Zapatistas’ message has been eclipsed by a more encompassing, contested, and ultimately chimeric quest to reify the movement’s ‘essence’ or ‘truth’. This thesis represents an empirical analysis of the EZLN’s collective discourse that focuses on the content and constructed nature of their collective action frames. Combining three strands of social movement frame analysis, it avers to draw-out the ever-changing detail of the EZLN’s discursive output and so add value to the debates that surround the Zapatistas. It also makes several theoretical contributions to social movement frame analysis.

Thesis advisor: Paul Gray / Over the past half-century, the percentage of U.S. Catholic secondary school teachers that are laypeople has skyrocketed from approximately 10% in the 1950s to more than 90% in 2006. With this change comes many important issues that beg to be studied in terms of labor relations between these lay employees and the Roman Catholic Church. While the Church has repeatedly made statements in support of labor unions such as in Laborem Exercens, the relations between lay teacher associations and Catholic dioceses in the U.S. have not always mirrored these ideals. This dissertation investigates the case of one organization, the Catholic Teachers Union (CTU), which represents over two-hundred lay teachers at eight high schools in the diocese of Camden, NJ. Using interviews, content analysis, and archival analysis, the investigator found that the union overcame diocesan opposition by deliberately framing (through media outlets and direct communication) their movement and message as strongly connected to Catholic doctrine, Catholic Social Thought, and Church teachings. This "moral framing" helped the union gain support from the parent-consumers sending their children to these schools, which contributed greatly to the union's recognition in 1984 and then their negotiation of nine contracts for diocesan lay teachers. Incorporating Erving Goffman's Frame Analysis, Johnston and Noakes schema for Social Movement Framing, James Coleman and Thomas Hoffer's concept of Social Capital and Intergenerational Closure, and the concept of Community Unionism, the author concludes that CTU can be considered a leader in lay teacher-Catholic Church labor relations and that its tactic of moral framing can inform other unions and the larger labor movement. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

With the increased social attention to active shooting events in the United States, news outlets are featuring news briefs through social media platforms like Twitter. Using this method of information sharing, news organizations can instantly reach consumers as events unfold in real time. With character limitations with Twitter, one may assume news organizations use words carefully and succinctly to report vital information to the public. By implementing a content analysis of news organization Twitter contributions, messages provided by both legacy and digital native news outlets were evaluated. Using Department of Justice reports specifically covering active shooting events, 32 specific incidents covering the years of 2014-2018 were selected for analysis. This resulted in the identification of over 14,000 individual Tweets. These Tweets were then analyzed using a content analysis to identify overarching themes. Apparent from the onset was the clear priority of news organizations to report on the perpetrators of active shooting events while focusing noticeably less on the victims of these violent events. Further, policy advocation or calls to change current policy was noticeably absent from Twitter discussions. The focus of this paper is to explore the characteristics of emphasized by legacy and digital native news media outlets. This analysis has direct implications on the culture of gun violence, as well as market models which influence the news production process when reporting on active shooting incidents in the United States. / Doctor of Philosophy / Social media has increased in popularity in recent history. The incorporation of social media into a variety of topics, including reporting the news, has also increased. This aim of this study is to evaluate the types of contributions made by news media outlets on the social media platform Twitter. Specifically, this research is focused on Twitter contributions pertaining to active shooting events in the United States between 2014-2018. 32 active shooting events were identified over this period, which includes a collection of more than 14,000 Tweets by news outlets. Priorities of news media outlets were identified by analyzing the content of Tweets. Analysis revealed a significant portion of Tweets characterizing the offender's personal identity, background, and actions while providing sparse reporting on victims in these events. This research provides critical insight into how Twitter is used to report on criminal justice events. Additionally, this study illustrates the ways in which social media is being used to report the news, and how this may differ from traditional methods of news dissemination.

This study examined the self-perceived leadership orientations of headmasters of independent schools. This research expanded the current body of work that supports Bolman and Deal's (2003) multi-frame explanation that leaders use different orientations (frames) to understand their roles, clarify organizational situations, and make decisions. Using the four-frame model (structural, human resource, political, and symbolic) by Bolman and Deal, this study sought to identify common leadership orientations employed by headmasters of Independent Schools Association of the Southwest (ISAS), Southern Association of Independent Schools (SAIS), and the Association of Independent Schools of Greater Washington (AISGW) member Schools. The study also identified how many frames headmasters use and to what extent the self-perceived orientations relate to the headmasters' self-perceived overall effectiveness as managers and leaders. The Leadership Orientations (Self) survey developed by Bolman and Deal (1990) was revised, validated, and reliability was established before being sent to 272 headmasters of member schools of ISAS, SAIS, and AISGW. Data were collected from 94 respondents. The ISAS, SAIS, and AISGW are non-profit, voluntary membership organizations of independent schools located mostly in the southeastern and southwestern United States, as well as the greater Washington, DC metro area. The ISAS, SAIS, and AISGW are also members of good standing of the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) Commission on Accreditation. An analysis of the data revealed, through descriptive statistics, that all four frames are used by the headmasters and most headmasters report using more than one frame. Data analysis suggests that specific relationships exist between the headmasters' self-reported frame use and their perceived effectiveness as managers and as leaders. In addition, differences were observed between frame usage and teacher certification and frame usage and years of administrative experience.

This thesis explores the perceptions of Palestinian university students on topics of peace with Israel and armed or violent conflict engagement strategies. By relying on Frame Analysis literature, this research describes how respondents currently frame these issues and what has influenced the formation of these frames. Using data gathered over a period of three months through a survey and focus group interviews, I identify four dominant frames of peace expressed by respondents. Data were collected from 260 survey respondents and 160 interviewees. I use the data to show different levels of desire for peace with Israel and support for armed conflict engagement based on the way that individuals defined peace. Respondents were pessimistic about peace with Israel and supportive of violent engagement with Israel. Participants who defined peace negatively expressed these sentiments more frequently. Interviewees expressed several grievances against Israeli policies that influence their opinions on peace and violence.

Thesis advisor: Marilyn Cochran-Smith / Since the 1990s, many countries have used accountability mechanisms in teacher preparation. Aligned with this trend, the Chilean Ministry of Education has created national policies, which include national standards and an exit test for student teachers, grants for teacher education programs, and university scholarships for prospective teachers. These policies have been implemented in Chile, within the context of high social segregation and inequality, where accountability and deregulation work together. The purpose of this study is to explore how teaching and teacher education are constructed in national teacher education policy and university-based programs in Chile by unpacking assumptions about teaching, teacher education, and justice using frame analysis. This study analyzes national policy documents related to initial teacher education in Chile as well as semi-structured interviews and university and course documents from two teacher preparation programs. This dissertation argues that the influence of Chile’s national teacher education policies on local teacher preparation programs was not uniform across the programs. Rather both national and local frames were influenced by international organizations and universities. This overarching argument is based on four related propositions: 1) teacher preparation programs have different conceptions of practice-based teacher education and teaching while they have similar conceptions of justice; 2) the differences among faculties’ conceptions are shaped by different narratives, based on participants’ view of themselves and their programs, conceptions of teaching knowledge, participation in policies, and alignment and articulation; 3) national policies and teacher preparation programs have different conceptions of teaching and teacher education, but they have similar conceptions of justice; and, 4) Chilean national policies are influenced by international discourses even though they use different narratives to promote their changes. This study has implications for research, policy, practice, and activism. Building on the study’s findings, I constructed a framework that expands the notion of the policy web, incorporating the connection between local and international discourses in teacher education. This framework also identifies four dimensions that shape university’s faculty conceptions and explain the differences among programs. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a technology that is developed with the aim of decreasing the emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) in order to mitigate global climate change. However, citizens strongly oppose the technology in areas where carbon storages are supposed to be constructed. With the help of framing theory, this work analyzes four German anti-CCS citizens’ initiatives. Qualitatively studying publicly available material from their websites, their diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational frames on the issue are reconstructed. Guided by a first research question about what frames on CCS are constructed by the citizens’ initiatives, the frames are then compared to each other, showing that political opportunity structures as well as local factors regarding particularly the prevalent type of energy production are taken up to some extent. Systematically retracing the arguments, this study aims on investigating into the connections between local and global issues and interests around CCS. This entails potential for generalization regarding the decision-making process in the area of conflict when society, environment, technology, economic and political actors are involved. Afterwards, a second research question is taken up – the frames’ relation to sustainability. They are discussed in the wider context of sustainable development because of the close connection between the climate change and the sustainability discourse. Moreover, proponents as well as opponents use parts of the sustainability concept for their arguments. This highlights the difficulties of a sustainable decision-making process in which a variety of interests are interwoven and partly contradicting each other. It is concluded that both, comprehensive information and transparent communication, between all actors are the first steps towards a more sustainable decision-making process but that structurally as well as technically more than this is required, especially regarding the acceptance of the outcome. Research on sustainability as an increasingly influential paradigm can pave the way in this regard.

Alternate reality games (ARG) are a relatively new type of game that distributes game content across several media without explicitly identifying that content as part of a game. While players benefit from this aesthetically immersive experience the type of game has the potential to cause confusion over the status of its dispersed content as real or as part of a game. This thesis offers a case study of the 2012 game. The case is contextualized within the disciplines of media studies and games studies, in a wider digital culture where the ubiquity of technology converges to user experience design. A theoretical framework based on Charles S. Peirce’s semiotic, supplemented by Erving Goffman’s frame analysis and James J. Liszka’s transvaluation theory is used to explain the ARG’s problematic relation to the experience of reality.

Chatelaine, Canada’s longest running women’s magazine (1928-present), has seen various changes in relation to women’s presence in society, specifically women’s health and bodies. The purpose of this study is to investigate the framing methods employed in the presentation of health content in relation to the evolution of feminism throughout this publication’s existence. Drawing upon Michel Foucault’s (1979; 1980) investigation of power, the body, and sexuality; Susan Bordo’s (1993b) feminist theorizing on the cultural meanings of the female body; Erving Goffman’s (1974) Frame Analysis; and further theoretical foundations of frame analysis by scholars in media and communication studies, this thesis examines the ways which health knowledge in Chatelaine aids in the empowerment and modernization of women. The research design of this thesis employs a quantitative media content analysis and qualitative semi-structured in-depth interviews to explore the presence and production of health content in this publication between 1928 and 2010. Findings demonstrate Chatelaine’s interaction with the feminist movement in Canada—as feminist initiatives and activism in Canada flourish, Chatelaine covers an increasingly broad and diverse body of health topics. The analyses reveal the sophistication in Chatelaine’s health content, which is evidenced in the employment of various journalistic techniques that aid in the development of an increasingly pervasive media text. In doing so, Chatelaine demonstrates its ability to empower women through current, clear, and concise health knowledge.