Constructing Policy Narratives in 140 Characters or Less: The Case of Gun Policy Organizations

Abstract

This study examines interest groups’ framing of gun policy issues via an analysis of nearly 10,000 tweets by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the National Rifle Association spanning from 2009 to 2014. Utilizing the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF), I investigate the extent to which interest groups use social media to construct policy narratives. This research shows that much can be conveyed in 140 characters; both gun control and gun rights organizations used Twitter to identify victims, blame “villains,” commend “heroes,” and offer policy solutions. This research sheds light on the politics of gun control by revealing trends over time in groups’ framing and suggests refinements for hypotheses of the NPF. Finally, this work underscores the importance of social media for public policy scholarship.

Narrative Strategies in the Gun Policy Debate: Exploring Proximity and Social Construction

“…Future work should explore how race plays into the portrayal of other characters and examine other communication forums to determine how narrative strategies vary across media. With respect to the former, previous research utilizing the NPF has found that gun policy groups rarely discuss the perpetrators of gun violence (see Merry, ). In a study of news coverage of mass shootings, however, Parham‐Payne () found that white assailants are often portrayed as mentally ill, suggesting that race is indeed relevant to the characterization of perpetrators.…”

“…First, they presuppose that one can easily situate political actors on the winning or losing side of a policy debate. In some policy areas, such as gun policy, the winners and losers may trade places over time, making it difficult to consistently classify policy actors (see Merry, ). Second, groups may choose to frame themselves as either winning or losing regardless of their actual political advantage.…”

“…While one might characterize gun rights proponents as generally on the winning side, the Obama administration clearly did not support their interests and, in fact, issued a number of executive orders tightening the regulation of firearms . Further, previous research examining social media posts by gun policy organizations found that gun rights groups utilized narrative techniques associated with conflict expansion, such as emphasizing the threat of robberies and home invasions (see Merry, ). Given the lack of clarity on the narrative strategy of gun rights organizations, I develop expectations for both scenarios—conflict expansion and containment—and allow the data to indicate which strategy is dominant.…”

Bounded Stories

“…In both framing and NPF studies writ large, the focus is on how external (e.g., news media, advocacy groups, political officials) communication influences individual opinions, attitudes, and beliefs. The NPF has proved successful at understanding how narrative elements and strategies operate within and across externally communicated narratives at the meso level (e.g., Merry, ; Schlaufer, ; Shanahan et al, ), as well as how these externally communicated meso‐level policy narratives influence micro‐level individual beliefs and opinions (e.g., Jones, ; Lybecker, McBeth, & Stoutenborough, ; Shanahan et al, ). However, the NPF has largely left unexamined the internal cognition associated with external realities.…”

“…However, NPF scholarship has been imprecise in distinguishing frames from narratives, at times referring to “policy narrative frames” (McBeth, Shanahan, Arnell, & Hathaway, , pp. 94–95), equating core policy values with frames (e.g., biocentric and anthropogenic frames in McBeth, Shanahan, & Jones, ), or simply equating frames and narratives (e.g., Merry, ). While some NPF work has sought to distinguish narratives from frames (e.g., Crow & Lawlor, ; Jones & Song, ; McBeth, Shanahan, Hathaway, Tigert, & Sampson, ), framing concepts and narrative concepts remain largely confounded.…”