“External Framing”: A Theoretical Conceptualization Based on Black Millennial Perceptions of Black Lives Matter

• In Event: Collective Behavior and Social Movements Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 11: Framing for the 21st Century

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to establish the concepts of "external framing" and "external frames" as missing pieces of the existing framing perspective of the social movements literature. I define external framing as the processes through which members of society independently construct meanings about social movements based on their identities, experiences, existing knowledge about the world, and information from myriad sources. This process results in external frames, which are socially constructed meanings that extramovement actors attach to social movements and their activities from the outside looking in. To illustrate these concepts, I draw on data from interviews with thirty-six Black millennials about their perspectives on the Black Lives Matter movement in the U.S. Analysis revealed four salient external frames about BLM. First, they frame the movement as a discursive intervention to affirm the value of Black life. Second, they characterize the movement as an effort to call out the persistence of racism, and specifically anti-Blackness. Third, BLM was understood to be an effort to relieve Black people from suffering under the burden of living with the state-sanctioned violence. Finally, participants perceived BLM to be in pursuit of wide-sweeping political and structural changes designed to achieve Black liberation and eradicate racial inequality in America. These concepts offer a new theoretical pathway toward understanding the extent to which intramovement actors successfully achieve frame resonance through their framing and frame alignment processes; how members of society construct meanings about movements in based on their own identities, views, and experiences, rather than only in direct response to movement messaging; and how externally constructed meanings influence the way adherents, beneficiaries, opponents, and elites respond to movements in ways that either promote or stymie their efforts.

Author

• Simone Nicole Durham, Morgan State University