Three decades of the framing perspective on social movements: Changing trends and continuities

Abstract

This article reviews the development of the framing perspective on social movements since its emergence over three decades ago. The review led to three conclusions. During this period, the impact of the perspective has increased, its conceptual development has continued, and the types of the studies have shown major changes and continuities. For example, the initial predominance of descriptive and static studies has changed with the development of a significant number of explanatory studies on both framing and frame transformations, as well as on the consequences of their characteristics for the social movement. However, studies on frame structure or the emotions they evoke are still rare.