Veranstaltungsprogramm der VHB Jahrestagung

Despite growing attention to framing contests as important discursive struggles in articulating societal challenges and their solutions, most research focuses on competition between different frames. The process of how macro-level frames themselves are subject to processes of meaning elaboration is less well understood, yet central for understanding field dynamics. In this paper, we focus on how a master frame—seen as relatively stable macro-level frame—can itself get co-opted, such that it is reinterpreted to support a logic of action that is contrary to the original usage. Using a mixed-methods approach, combining topic modeling with qualitative analysis to examine the German nuclear energy media debate between 1995 and 2016, we explore the hostile co-optation of the dominant security master frame by a coalition of nuclear energy proponents, reversing the frame’s meaning from a rationale against nuclear energy to one in favor of nuclear. We present a process model on frame co-optation, involving mechanisms of broadening, reassembling and overlaying of master frame meaning. We contribute to framing and social movement theory by unpacking the mechanisms and consequences of co-optation and by highlighting co-optation as a powerful discursive strategy to explain fundamental field-level change.

In dem Beitrag wird vorgeschlagen, dem Verhältnis von Organisation und Recht, bestimmt als Verhältnis rekursiver Konstittion, weit mehr als bisher organisationstheoretische Aufmerksamkeit zu wirdmen, besonders dem Einfluss von Organisationen auf die Setzung, Anwendung und Durchsetzung von Recht. Als exemplarische Felder dafür werden erörtert: corporate personhood, business judgment rule und forbearance à la Williamson und limited liability.