Temporality and Frame Diffusion: The Case of the Creationist/Intelligent Design and Evolutionist Movements from 1925 to 2005

Stobaugh, James E.; Snow, David A.

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511761638.004

Cited by 22 publications

(22 citation statements)

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“…Religion is a problematic frame in American culture in general (Thomson ; Wuthnow ) and specifically in the struggle over ET (Binder ; Stobaugh and Snow ). In the discourse over ET, the religion frame is applied when actors use words (such as, God, faith, dogma, creator) that reference religious ideas.…”

Section: Religion As a Problematic Frame For Anti‐evolutionistsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the discourse over ET, the religion frame is applied when actors use words (such as, God, faith, dogma, creator) that reference religious ideas. Sociological research has shown how leaders of the anti‐evolutionist movement have sought to reduce the framing of their position as religious (Binder ; Stobaugh and Snow ). Stobaugh and Snow () document how the religion frame transformed from a legal asset to a legal liability for American anti‐evolutionists.…”

Section: Religion As a Problematic Frame For Anti‐evolutionistsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Sociological research has shown how leaders of the anti‐evolutionist movement have sought to reduce the framing of their position as religious (Binder ; Stobaugh and Snow ). Stobaugh and Snow () document how the religion frame transformed from a legal asset to a legal liability for American anti‐evolutionists. In a succession of lawsuits anti‐evolutionists have come to decreasingly identify their opposition to ET as religious while evolutionists have used the religion frame to undermine anti‐evolutionist claims.…”

Section: Religion As a Problematic Frame For Anti‐evolutionistsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Neutralizing Problematic Frames in the Culture Wars: Anti‐Evolutionists Grapple with Religion

Silva¹

2014

Symbolic Interaction

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This article contributes to the literature on culture wars work by examining how anti‐evolutionists neutralize the framing of their position as religious. Their efforts are uncovered by analyzing 570 letters to the editor published in American newspapers in the months surrounding a nationally covered 2005 federal judicial decision on the legality of the Dover PA, school board's decision to undermine evolutionary theory in the classroom. Anti‐evolutionists neutralized the framing of their position as religious through the processes of selective acknowledgement and disagreement with the problematic framing. These findings provide insights into the anti‐evolutionist movement, the nature of the culture wars, and the basic ways in which problematic frames are neutralized. First, it shows how public anti‐evolutionist discourse has not followed its leaders' efforts to minimize the religious motivations of the movement. Second, the wide variety of neutralizations partially explains the persistence of many cultural disputes. Third, this study calls attention to the under theorized role of disagreement and agreement in undoing problematic definitions of the situation.

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Section: Religion As a Problematic Frame For Anti‐evolutionistsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Religion As a Problematic Frame For Anti‐evolutionistsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Religion As a Problematic Frame For Anti‐evolutionistsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Neutralizing Problematic Frames in the Culture Wars: Anti‐Evolutionists Grapple with Religion

Silva¹

2014

Symbolic Interaction

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“…Scholars have employed Goffman's (1974) notion of "framing" to capture the communicative and interpretive processes that occur in contentious public discourse (see Benford and Snow 2000;Snow 2004). For example, Stobaugh and Snow (2010) identified how anti-evolutionists and evolutionists framed the conflict in Federal Court. Anti-evolutionists deployed a "protect religion" frame in Scopes v. State of Tennessee (1925) and Epperson v. State of Arkansas (1968).…”

Section: Stigma and Framingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stigmatization and Validation of Atheism, Literalism, and Non-Literalism in the Discourse over Evolutionary Theory

Silva

2018

Secularism and Nonreligion

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This article explores how atheism, literalism, and non-literalism are validated and stigmatized in public discourse over evolutionary theory. Through an ethnographic content analysis of 1,028 letters to the editor, I examine how authors frame the relationship between acceptance of evolutionary theory and religious faith. I find there are four ways of doing so: 1) implicit polarization, obliquely denies any compatibility between religion and evolution; 2) distancing, separates one's position from that of another; 3) articulation, weaves evolution and faith together; and 4) combinations of polarization, distancing, and articulation. Each framing results in some mixture of stigmatization and validation of atheism, literalism, and non-literalism. Implicit polarization stigmatizes and validates atheism and literalism. Implicit polarization stigmatizes non-literalism through unacknowledgment. Distancing can validate and stigmatize literalism and non-literalism, while it also results in literalism and atheism being stigmatized by putative allies. Articulation validates non-literalism by representing it in the public sphere and it stigmatizes atheism and literalism through unacknowledgment. IntroductionMuch scholarship demonstrates the stigma experienced by unbelievers (Cragun et al. 2012;Edgell, Gerteis, and Hartmann 2006; Hammer et al. 2012). The American conflict over how to teach biological evolution is one place where this stigma is constructed and contested. The discourse on evolution serves to, perhaps inadvertently, define the relationship between science and religion. For example, Elsdon-Baker (2015) has demonstrated how the wording of survey questionnaires elides the diversity of perspectives and, thus, unintentionally categorizes certain respondents as opponents of evolutionary theory. This study will show how pro-evolution and anti-evolution statements 1 support and undermine atheism, literalism, and non-literalism.2 Analyzing the controversy over evolution allows us to pick up on the implicit and oblique framings of faith and faithlessness that occur when the existence of God is not the only topic of conversation.In what follows, I contextualize the conflict over teaching evolution and argue that examining it can uncover stigmatization processes. I then outline how I drew on the concept of framing to analyze 1,028 letters to the editor before presenting the results of this analysis. I find that there are four processes for framing the compatibility between faith and evolution. Finally, I conclude with a discussion of specific ways that atheism, literalism, and non-literalism are both stigmatized and validated by the discourse on evolutionary theory.

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“…Epperson v. Arkansas in 1968 and culminating most recently in the 2005 Kitsmiller v. Dover Area School District ruling that intelligent design is not science, the creationist/intelligent design movement has been rendered comparatively impotent at the national level (Binder 2002;Stobaugh and Snow 2010). But the battle over curricula control and its canonical status is still being waged at the local and state levels, where school boards exercise considerable control over textbook content and adoption (see, e.g., McKinley 2010).…”

Section: Utility For Understanding the Practice Of Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

Libraries, Social Movements, and Cultural Change

2014

Self Cite

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While sociological conceptualizations of culture span a wide range of metaphors, from codes to elephants to toolkits, they are often insufficiently attuned to the processes through which cultural challenges are advanced by individual and collective actors, and the place of political and institutional power in constraining or nurturing these challenges. Drawing from relevant institutional and cultural theories, this article advances an alternative conceptualization of cultural systems as a vast and interconnected network of libraries. This new conceptualization offers three strengths over existing cultural approaches. First, libraries are viewed as dynamic repositories for cultural materials, containing vast holdings that may be accessed, used, and interpreted in unpredictable ways. Second, libraries are not neutral collection points but rather are enmeshed in a broad complex of forces that both organize and legitimate cultural resources through processes of selective acquisition, categorization, and preservation. Third, because of their entanglement in political and institutional power relations, libraries are often focal points for cultural contestation over the legitimate interpretations and uses of cultural resources. We focus on processes of cultural revitalization, fabrication, and canonization to illustrate the relationship between libraries and power relations, and provide examples of cultural challenges, from antiquity to the present day, via these contestational processes.

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Temporality and Frame Diffusion: The Case of the Creationist/Intelligent Design and Evolutionist Movements from 1925 to 2005

Cited by 22 publications

References 0 publications

Neutralizing Problematic Frames in the Culture Wars: Anti‐Evolutionists Grapple with Religion

Neutralizing Problematic Frames in the Culture Wars: Anti‐Evolutionists Grapple with Religion

Stigmatization and Validation of Atheism, Literalism, and Non-Literalism in the Discourse over Evolutionary Theory

Libraries, Social Movements, and Cultural Change

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