Discursive deadlock and the social (media) life of frames

Abstract

Disputes over complex social and political issues frequently reveal themselves in the use of contrasting frames. A policy on restricting gun ownership may be characterised by one side as “improving public safety” and by the other side as “curtailing individual rights”; one group may frame the construction of new homes on the greenbelt as “increasing the housing supply” while their opponents characterise it as “damaging the environment”; and so on. In recent work, J. L. Bermúdez argues that these kinds of alternative frames put agents in touch with distinct – and potentially conflicting – reasons for judgement and action. He diagnoses many cases of discursive deadlock as clashes of frames and he prescribes to agents a course of epistemic due diligence, whereby they adopt multiple alternative frames. In this paper, I argue that the analysis, while valuable, is importantly incomplete. Frames not only elucidate reasons but signal identities and affiliations—and that calls instead for structural changes to discursive environments.