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Network-Activated Frames
(NAF), Redefining Framing in
a New Digital Era
Natalia Aruguete
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y
Técnicas (Conicet) & Universidad Nacional de
Quilmes (UNQ), Buenos Aires, Argentina
Introduction
The terms framing and frame are key concepts in
political communication, even though researchers
in other disciplines coined both terms. Framing
Theory recognizes its origins in cognitive psy-
chology and interpretative sociology, with the
earliest explorations of the concept published by
students of symbolic interactionism, phenomenol-
ogy, and ethnomethodology.
In 1955, anthropologist Gregory Bateson
(2000) proposed the concept of framework as a
tool of the psyche that explains why people focus
their attention on some stylized aspects of reality
and not others. Twenty years later, sociologist
Erving Goffman (1974) redefined the concept of
frame in its social context. Unable to understand
the world as a whole, Goffman proposed, individ-
uals classify, interpret, and define situations
according to frames. That is, according to orga-
nizing principles that “govern events”as well as
the subjective relationship between events and
individuals.
The field of communication defines framing as
a dynamic, interactive, and integral process that
cuts across all locations of the communication
process: the communicator, the text, the receiver,
and the culture (Entman 1993). Framing and
frame are two sides of the same coin. The former
refers to the integral and active process of produc-
tion, circulation, and reproduction of socially
shared and persistent meanings over time. The
latter is present in the different stages of the com-
munication process. Frames are integral to cul-
tural phenomena; they guide the strategic
communication of political actors and organiza-
tions; affect the cognitive structures of journalists
as well as their criteria for the selection of infor-
mation; are expressed in the corpus of news; and
interact with the cognitive competence and attitu-
dinal capacities of the members of an audience.
For Stephen Reese (2001, p. 11), frames are
“organizing principles that are socially shared
and persistent over time that work symbolically
to meaningfully structure the social world”. Iden-
tifying them as organizing principles means that
frames are patterns of understanding, perception,
and definition of the social situations underlying
the story of the topic in a discourse. Frames are co-
I appreciate the valuable comments that researchers
Ernesto Calvo, Yanina Welp, Nadia Koziner, and
Bernadette Califano have made to a first version of this
work; they are exempted from any responsibility regarding
the errors and omissions that may exist.
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019
M. A. Peters, R. Heraud (eds.), Encyclopedia of Educational Innovation,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2262-4_55-1
constructed in public affairs, both by those who
offer them and by those who interpret them, in
what is a dynamic and interactive process. Within
the subset of existing thought patterns, the human
mind categorizes those which are stimulated in
contact with the frames present in a message.
The importance of framing in the field of polit-
ical communication and the impact of digital
media on the relationship between political elite,
media, and public have sparked interest in know-
ing the variables that are involved in the produc-
tion, circulation, and reproduction process of
sense. The concept of Network-Activated Frames
(Aruguete and Calvo 2018) is especially pertinent
because it updates the notion of integrality of the
framing process. Network-activated frames
(NAF) take into account the dynamics of frame
propagation in a communication ecosystem where
digital media and virtual social networks have a
prime role in the circulation of speeches that
structure the social world.
Framing as a Comprehensive and
Multiparadigmatic Program
We may analyze framing from the three founda-
tional paradigms in communication research –the
cognitive, the constructionist, and the critical par-
adigms –with the purpose of achieving four
empirical objectives. First, to identify frames as
semantic, rhetorical, and sequential units. Second,
to investigate under what conditions frames are
produced. Third, to examine the extent to which
frames activate and interact with an individual’s
prior knowledge by affecting their interpretations,
evaluations, and decision-making. Finally, fourth,
to analyze in a holistic way the social processes of
formation of worldviews that surround political
issues.
The cognitive paradigm seeks to understand
how the frames present in a message alter the
individual’s“train of thought”(Price et al.
1997). In the processes of issue perception and
interpretation, the individuals access information
through activation of elements of their prior
knowledge, integrated by semantic structures
and arranged in the memory through schemes.
Frames are the result of an interaction between
the stimulus driven by the discourse and the indi-
vidual’s schemes that underlie the power of texts.
Narrative devices interact with prior knowledge,
allowing an individual to update and/or modify
their existing schemes.
In the critical paradigm, frames are persistent
patterns of cognition, interpretation, and presen-
tation that organize the world for both journalists
and for those of us who read their reports (Gitlin
2003). To understand the power of discourses, it is
necessary to attend to the political and sociocul-
tural context in which these frames are born and
develop, as well as the traces left in the text. The
studies inscribed in this paradigm seek to know
the process of frame-building by focusing on the
relationship between governments, elites outside
the administration, and the media, following from
theories of hegemony, indexing, and the cascad-
ing activation model (Entman 2003,2004). The
first two perspectives perceive the media as enti-
ties subordinated to governments and other polit-
ical elites. Ergo, the range of topics and
information sources will be structured within the
limits set by the dominant vision of governments
on an issue. The cascading activation model stud-
ies what the hegemony and the indexing theories
neglect. That is, what do the actors that intervene
in the production and circulation of meaning do
when there are discrepancies within the political
elites?
Finally, the constructivist paradigm of framing
theory is the most interactive of the three. Framed
in their productive routines, journalists and other
press workers process information and, in doing
so, create “interpretive packages”(D’Angelo
2002) with which active audiences interact during
their perception and interpretation of public
issues. According to this paradigm, culture and
context function as frames stores that operate on
communicators –both on the individual values of
journalists and on the institutional interests of the
media –and on their publics.
2 Network-Activated Frames (NAF), Redefining Framing in a New Digital Era
Cascading Activation. A Bridge to the
Framing Process in the New Media
Environment
Focusing on the relationship between govern-
ments and the media, cascading activation
(Entman 2003,2004) is one of the most successful
efforts to clarify the framing from an integrative
perspective. Its contribution lies in analyzing to
what extent the media manages to hinder or render
visible the rise of an opposition within the elite
(Entman 2003). We could imagine cascading acti-
vation as a Rube Goldberg machine, where the
falling pieces selectively activate some of the
available pieces of domino to create a particular
sequence. These key pieces structure some fram-
ing elements to create a counter-frame. In a recent
work, Entman and Usher (2018) reassess the pro-
cesses that produce, distribute, assimilate, and
activate information. The new media scenario
prompts them to revise the initial model in favor
of a Cascading Network Activation Model, which
describes the characteristics of digitalization on
the symbolic relations of power between elites,
traditional media, and citizens.
In Projection of Power, Robert Entman (2004)
analyzes the ability of certain powerful actors to
propagate and spread frames in a stratified com-
munication system. “The metaphor of the cascade
was chosen in part to emphasize that the ability to
promote the spread of frames is stratified”
(Entman 2004, p. 9). They start in the govern-
ments, go through the network of non-
administrative elites and follow their course
through the news companies and their texts to
stay in the public perception schemes. Entman
asks if the frames expressed in the highest stratum
of that system do manage to arrive intact to the
social base or if, instead, alternative interpreta-
tions from the bottom level back up to
policymakers to challenge the governmental
frame.
One of the cases narrated by Entman describes
the frame proposed by George Bush (h.) after 11-
S, who would approach that event as an “act of
war by the demonic Osama bin Laden.”The state-
ment proposed by The White House sought to
unite the country by presenting a framework that
qualified the events of 11-S and the mystical char-
acter of Bin Laden. But given that each stratum of
the metaphorical cascade makes its contribution to
the mixture and flow of ideas, interpretations, and
definitions of social reality, the reluctance of the
traditional media to publish the official version in
its entirety altered the message delivered to the
lower levels.
For Entman, framing means defining effects or
conditions as problematic, identifying causes,
conveying a moral judgment, and promoting rem-
edies or improvements. When the interpretive
framework of a message matches the habitual
schemes of a reader, the words and images it
articulates become remarkable,understandable,
memorable, and emotionally resonant. For a
frame to have resonance, the presence of at least
two of the basic functions in covering political
events, issue and actors is essential. The first of
these functions is the definition of the situation,
which activates the other two components of the
frame (transmitting the implicit causes of the
problem and the moral judgment), and the lastone
is the future remedy or improvement (Entman
2004).
To create a counterframe, certain actors hold
enough power to block contents (ideas) in their
transit from the government to the public percep-
tion; such is the case of traditional media or of
nonadministrative elites. Now, questioning a
framing with badly digested and scattered bits of
information does not seem enough. It is indispens-
able to promote words and images that are cultur-
ally resonant and reach a sufficient magnitude and
relevance to be internalized as a sensible and
coherent alternative to the interpretive frame
they challenge (Entman 2004).
In Entman’s analysis of 11-S, the selective
activation of certain frames elements and the con-
sequent contest to official interpretation run in a
hierarchical communication system, composed of
levels. But compared to the maturation of social
networks, Entman and Usher (2018) propose
revising this linear model. The authors wonder if
digital “pump-valves”(platforms, analytics, algo-
rithms, ideological media, and rogue actors or
trolls) democratize the flow of communication
by eroding hierarchies in the control of
Network-Activated Frames (NAF), Redefining Framing in a New Digital Era 3
information or, on the contrary, they strengthen
dominant structures consolidating social fragmen-
tation and political polarization.
Although the new communication ecosystem
reinforces the capacity of the elites to start the
framing process, the dynamics of circulation of
frames in social networks does not work
according to the stratified logic previously
described by the authors.
Network-Activated Frames
The interaction between users in virtual social
networks is structured as a network. Thereby,
everything is connected to everything else,
although things that are closer will be more
connected to each other than those that are further
away. The exchanges of information between the
actors that live there –the political parties and
their candidates, public officials, interest groups,
the mass media, journalists, and plebeian users –
allow us to know the ideological positioning of
the elites and that of his followers.
Pablo Barberá (2015) states that people tend to
integrate into networks that are locally homoge-
neous. They join communities with which they
share values and join organizations and social
groups to avoid the dilemma of living in intellec-
tual isolation. These patterns of homophilic asso-
ciation produce structure at the local level. This, in
turn, conditions the behavior of users. On Twitter,
in particular, its inhabitants choose to follow high-
ranking users whose location in the ideological
spectrum is similar to their own. Hence, the for-
mation of communities –and within these, the
activations of local frames –is explained by the
organic logic of the network (network topology)
as well as by the subjective behavior of users
(cognitive dissonance).
The topological functioning of these platforms
expresses the way in which users (nodes) are
interconnected by edges (retuit, reply, like),
which model the relationship between them. In
social networks, node B is related to node A
through an activity (like, reply, retuit) that links
them. At the subjective level, the proximity
between users results from the attitudes of
individuals who, with varying probability, con-
nect with others who share similar interests and
life histories.
In every social network there is selective atten-
tion, to the extent that we pay attention to some
users and topics, to the detriment of other users we
could follow and countless issues with which we
would have an opportunity to interact. This selec-
tive attention becomes an echo chamber, that is,
virtual algorithms systematize our decisions,
identify the trending topics and deliver messages
that are politically and ideologically consistent
with our ideas and preferences. In short, they
educate the echo chamber. The act of liking and
sharing on Twitter exposes a greater number of
users to the preferred content of their virtual
friends. The filter bubbles (Pariser 2011) express
the process by which the preferences of the users
that live in the same region of the network become
locally homogeneous. They publish, validate, and
share contents that resemble those of their
connected peers.
In this relationship map, the decision of one
subject to follow another has subjective costs and
topological consequences. If the content to which
a person is exposed challenges their beliefs, it can
create cognitive dissonance and weaken the struc-
ture of the local network to which it belongs. At
the same time, this dissonance can generate
opportunity costs by reducing the probability of
being exposed to other types of messages. In other
words, those who are ideologically closer will also
be virtually connected to each other. In those
cases, the primary network of connections
between users forms communities: it distin-
guishes groups according to their political posi-
tioning and connects the main actors with the
universe of low-ranking users that surround them.
Within communities, the words, rhetorical
resources, and images that make up a frame are
distinguished by their ability to vivify feelings of
support or disagreement in the context of a polit-
ical conflict. The more resonance and visibility a
frame has, the more likely it is to evoke similar
thoughts among its interlocutors.
No user can view all the information circulat-
ing on the network; just access a small portion.
Unlike what happens in scenarios where people
4 Network-Activated Frames (NAF), Redefining Framing in a New Digital Era
are exposed to competing frames, interpretive
frames in social networks are formed collectively
within communities, based on the decision to
share the publications of those to whom they are
connected. These are homogeneous frames at the
local level that arise from the acceptance of con-
tents congruent with the dominant values in a
community. Hence, messages that do not coincide
with such schemes far from being activated will
be blocked and, therefore, their diffusion will be
discouraged in that region of the network.
Conclusion
From the NAF cascade activation is conceived as
a process of collective composition of frames that
results from the virtual reactions of users
connected to a network. It is a dynamic model
that allows us to observe which elements of a
frame are accepted and activated by cognitive
congruence and which are ignored due to the
dissonance they produce.
By accepting and republishing certain content
and ignoring others, we alter the frequency with
which we observe images, words, links, and
hashtags, while making them visible on the wall
of our connected peers. In turn, the hierarchical
structure makes the frame elements with which we
have affinity be over-represented among our
immediate contacts and, consequently, spread
with less resistance.
In different regions of the network, the confor-
mation of frames will depend on whether we acti-
vate messages that are offered –not imposed –by
the authorities (these are high-ranking users whose
original posts reach a high level of propagation due
to the large number of followers they have). The
discursive world that we share keeps coherence
from the moment in which the contacts we enable
to transmit information communicate contents that
are consistent with each other and, even more,
compatible with our preferences and beliefs.
What was originally selective attention, eventually
becomes interpretative framework and community
of information.
By virtue of the topological functioning of
social networks, the network-activated frames
model allows, on the one hand, to explain how a
local frame is structured in a dynamic and reticular
way and, on the other hand, to warn that framings
do not descend nor are they disputed in vertical
communication systems but they are built collec-
tively from individual decisions, conditioned by
organic structures, to accept or ignore contents
insofar as they have cultural resonance with their
virtual worlds of life.
Cross-References
▶Academies of Political Innovation
▶Hashtags in Educational Social Media
▶Learning Spaces and Digital Learning
▶Online Consultation
▶Teaching Democratic Norms and Values with
Analogue Games
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