About frame analysis

In order to study the complexities and ambiguities of planners’ meaning-making I need a methodology fit for the task. The immense focus on language in contemporary social sciences has provided me with a multitude of options. Most relevantly, in view of the aim of this thesis, is discourse analysis (Dryzek, 1997;

Foucault, 1979, 1982; Hajer, 2003; Laclau and Mouffe, 2001; Richardson, 2002) and frame analysis (Goffman, 1974; van Hulst and Yanow, 2016; Raitio, 2013;

Rein and Schön, 1996; Schön and Rein, 1994). I have come to choose the latter for studying the fine grains of the dynamic and power-laden meaning-making in planning practice.

The main reason for choosing to apply frame analysis instead of discourse analysis is due to the links between frame analysis and reflective practice (van Hulst and Yanow, 2016; Schön, 1983; Schön and Rein, 1994; Yanow and

Tsoukas, 2009). Working with frame analysis comes with the advantage of having a consistent terminology for both the empirical investigations and the practice I am aspiring to support.

Frame analysis has proven to be a valuable methodology for understanding policy processes and the actors who inhibit these (van Hulst and Yanow, 2016;

Schön and Rein, 1994). Donald Schön, with his colleague Martin Rein, made important contributions to developing frame analysis. There is a link between reflective practice (see Section 2.3) and frame analysis, which makes this methodology especially suitable for my thesis. Adding to the relevance of frame analysis is the work that more recently has been done by others interested in reflective practice, to develop frame analysis into a more “dynamic, process-oriented engagement that is politically nuanced and power-sensitive” (van Hulst and Yanow, 2016, p. 93).

Frame analysis traces back to the early contributions of Bateson (1973) and Mead (1934) who were interested in studying meaning-making as an interactive process, whereby humans define the situations they confront (van Hulst and Yanow, 2016). Following this tradition, Goffman (1974) made an influential contribution by conceptualising meaning-making through the concept frame. His early work has since been used to develop a heterogeneous set of analytical traditions with different ontological groundings and empirical interests, all of which are included in the family of approaches to frame analysis.

It is rather difficult to sort out how alternative approaches to frame analysis vary according to assumptions about the nature of frames. Dewulf et. al. (2009) have made a helpful distinction. First, there are approaches that are interested in frames as cognitive representations located in the individual mind (Neale and Bazerman, 1992; Tversky and Kahneman, 1981). Secondly, there are approaches which, in contrast, are interested in frames and framing as a way to conceptualise interactional meaning-making (van Hulst and Yanow, 2016;

Rein and Schön, 1996).

In the cognitive approaches, meaning is located “between the ears” of each individual and “ultimately depends on their private understandings and interpretations of information communicated and processed” (2009, p. 163). In contrast, in social constructivist accounts of frames and framing, meaning is located “between the noses” and is constructed through interactions. Following my social constructivist position, I have chosen to draw on the latter approaches to frame analysis.

Within the approaches focusing on frames as interactively constructed, I have chosen to work with the strand developed within policy analysis (Bacchi, 2009; van Hulst and Yanow, 2016; Raitio, 2008, 2013; Rein and Schön, 1991;

Rein and Schön, 1996; Schön and Rein, 1994). I have opted to do so since this

tradition has been developed to understand frames and framing in the kind of practice I am interested in: policy processes (in my terminology, planning processes). Additionally, this tradition of frame analysis is suitable due to its affiliation with reflective practice.

The basic metaphor in this analytical tradition is the frame. This metaphor is used to signify that there is a less visible foundation “that lies beneath the more visible surface of language or behaviour, determining its boundaries and giving it coherence.” (Rein and Schön, 1996, p. 88). The metaphor of a frame is generative since it allows us to see how people consciously or unconsciously, set a boundary within which they are able to focus on what is inside as distinct from what is outside. Thus frames select for attention certain features of reality and enable people to construct a coherent understanding of them (Raitio, 2013).

Thus, as Perri (2005, p. 94) explains, frames essentially perform two functions.

First, frames organize experience; that is to say, they enable people to recognize what is going on, they provide boundaries, define what counts as an event or a feature;

crucially, frames define what counts as relevant for attention and assessment.

Secondly, they bias for action; that is to say, they represent people’s worlds in ways that already call for particular styles of decision or of behavioural response.

Thereby, frames are often said to include two linked elements: a diagnosis element answering the question “what is going on” and an action bias element, which answers to the question “what should be done.” (Schön and Rein, 1994).

I use this distinction in the research because it is analytically useful, even if, in human interactions, these two elements are intertwined (van Hulst and Yanow, 2016).

In line with Dewulf (2009) and van Hulst and Yannow (2016), I separate frames, distinguishable thought styles and knowledge structures, from framing, the situated, dynamic and interactive process through which people make meaning of the situations they face. I find the distinction between frames and framing effective for my purposes. I will assume that the scholars, policy makers and planners, who’s meaning-making I study, engage in framing to understand phenomena associated with power, and that when doing so they, consciously or unconsciously, draw on shared generic narratives, knowledge structures and thought styles embedded in their practice, which usefully can be conceptualised as frames.

Notably, this is a different usage from Dewulf’s typology, since I do not assume that using frames instead of framing implies an assumption that these are located “between the ears”, which would be a cognitive approach. Instead, I use frames to recognise that it is not only interactions in the moment, which shape meaning-making, but also distinguishable collective narratives,

knowledge structures and thought styles created through historical interactions in planning practice (Healey, 1997).

According to van Hulst and Yannow (2016, p. 96) policy-focused frame analysis in the tradition of Schön and Rein is interested in the work frames and framing accomplish by: “(a) highlighting certain features of a situation, (b) ignoring or selecting out other features, and (c) binding the highlighted features together into a coherent and comprehensible pattern.” Since these situations often are far from easy to interpret, planners must rely upon simplification and previous experience.

Thereby: “framing provides a scaffolding for perceiving and articulating patterns among [a situation’s] disparate, and perhaps contending, elements”

(Ibid, pp. 97-98). It is in this way framing enables what Rein and Schön called

“a normative leap” between what is to what ought to be. van Hulst and Yannow (Ibid. p. 98) explain.

Framing enables actors to understand a situation as being of a certain kind […] and they can start to imagine what could or should happen next in light of prior notions concerning the ways certain problems can and should be handled.

In planning studies (Forester, 1999; Richardson, 2005; Throgmorton, 1992) as well as in frame analysis (van Hulst and Yanow, 2016; Rein and Schön, 1996) narratives, stories and storytelling are seen as important in frames and framing, since these serve to bind together the salient features of a situation. One might say that storytelling is a deeply human activity that serves to create order out of chaos. As van Hulst and Yannow (2016, p. 100) tell us, “Stories frame their subjects as they narrate them, explicitly naming their features, selecting and perhaps categorizing them as well, explaining to an audience what has been going on, what is going on, and, often, what needs to be done […].”

In this manner, strong and generic narratives guide both analysis and action in practical situations. In line with this, van Hulst and Yannow (Ibid.) draw attention to the work of selecting, naming and categorising that framing does.

Through all three of these [selecting, naming and categorising], policy actors draw disparate elements together in a pattern, selecting some things as relevant or important and discarding, backgrounding or ignoring others, occluding other ways of seeing (and acting), and thereby silencing them in policy discourse and ensuing action. (van Hulst and Yannow, 2016, p. 99)

Based on this understanding, in the analysis I pay attention to how this work of selecting, naming and categorising is done by actors employing generic narratives when they frame power relations. It is also this line of thought that leads me to pay attention to the stories planners tell about their practices (see Section 3.3).

In this tradition of frame analysis, and in line with my interpretative approach, frames and framing are situated in a specific context. Acknowledging this situatedness, I have chosen to locate the empirical investigations in Swedish planning policy and practice. I will elaborate on this choice in the coming Section 3.3.

Planning processes can be understood as struggles over meaning (Mouffe, 2000), where actors drawing on alternative frames compete to shape understanding and action. With the language of frames, these struggles are frame contests where certain institutions “sponsor” certain frames. In frame analysis it is acknowledged how such frame contests are not merely individual endeavours, but also take shape through application of alternative “institutional” frames, which are linked to the role that different organisations have in a given practice (Schön and Rein, 1994). This understanding leads to an empirical interest in the different kinds of organisations that operate within planning practice (see Section 3.3).

Frame analysis has been accused of neglecting processes of power by favoring individual meaning-making (Carragee and Roefs, 2004; van Hulst and Yanow, 2016). Recognising the validity of this critique, I have drawn on the work of van Hulst and Yanow (2016), who have taken on the task of theorising framing as a political and power-laden activity. By viewing frames as embedded in practices and systems of meaning, rather than constructed by autonomous individuals, I have taken this critique into account.

There are different views on the intentionality of framers. In media studies and in social movements studies frames are often seen as strategic devices that actors use rhetorically to get their message across (Dewulf et al., 2009). Whereas in policy analysis, it has been revealed that actors might use certain frames rhetorically without being immediately aware of how their behaviour is actually shaped by other underlying generic frames (Schön and Rein, 1994). Therefore, I recognise that analysing frames will require me to go beneath actors’ texts and speech to search for the underlying knowledge structures and thought styles.

How this is concretely done in the research is explained in Section 3.3.

As van Hulst and Yannow (Ibid.) show, framing in policy processes has an intersubjective aspect, which takes shape through direct and indirect interactions between actors. These interactions include talk, gestures and other modes of nonverbal communication, as well as non-human elements that are called

“things” in Reckwitz’s (2002) practice theory. Thus, framing “draw[s] on more, or other, than cognitive ways of knowing alone” (van Hulst and Yanow, 2016, p. 98). As discussed previously, I have chosen to acknowledge that these other ways of knowing exist, but I have not gone in depth with analysing them.

A related feature of framing, in my usage, is that the meaning of the situation lies not in the acts, events or frames actors supposedly carry in their heads.

Instead, it arises in the course of actors’ interactions with those acts, events, and things. As van Hulst and Yannow (2016, p. 98) argue, “Grasping framing’s dynamism rests on understanding that actors act toward things on the basis of the meanings things acquire for them in the course of that sense-making […]”.

van Hulst and Yannow further explain how it is fruitful to see framing as a conversation with the situation. Through this “conversation” actors attribute some initial meaning to the situation at hand and look at what happens as a result.

In this way van Hulst and Yannow (2016, p. 98) see framing as “an interactive and iterative process, in which details and generalities inform one another, a clearer idea of what is going on develops, and meanings ‘emerge’”.

Due to my interest in analysing notions of power through frame analysis, I will refrain from attempting to capture all the complexities of frames and framing discussed in the previous paragraphs. Hence, I do not aspire to analyse framing as dynamic and contingent meaning-making. Instead, I focus on explicating notions of power embedded in participatory planning through frame analysis. This is in line with the aim I have set for this thesis.

So, frames and framing work by making certain features of a situation salient and drawing them together into a coherent narrative. But what is it that framing frames? I follow Dewulf et al. (2009) and van Hulst and Yannow (2016) to argue that framing in policy processes can frame three kinds of “entities” (which I call frame topics): the substantive content of the policy issue, the identities of actors in the policy process and the policy process itself.

When content is framed actors pay attention to the meanings attached to agenda items, events or problems in planning processes. Whereas when identities are framed the focus is on the meanings about oneself and one’s relationships with a counterpart(s). Process frames refer to the interpretations that actors assign to the “policy process itself”. In my investigations, I direct interest towards how actors frame power in participatory planning, which is process framing and how they frame planners’ roles in power relations, which is identity framing.

After having explained my general view of frame analysis, I now discuss more specifically how frame analysis is applied in this thesis.