Toward a Historical Sociology of Social Situations

Abstract

In recent years there has been a growing call to historicize sociology by paying more attention to the contextual importance of time and place as well as to issues of process and contingency. Meeting this goal requires bringing historical sociology and interactionism into greater conversation via a historical theory of social situations. Toward this end, the authors of this article draw on Erving Goffman's work in Frame Analysis to conceptualize experience in social situations as grounded in multilayered cognitive frames and to demonstrate how such a framework helps illuminate historical changes in situated interaction.

Mechanisms of Organizational Commitment: Adding Frames to Greedy Institution Theory

“…Frames structure which parts of reality become noticed and what subjective meanings we assign to experiences and events. According to Gitlin's (:6) elaboration of the concept, “Frames are principles of selection, emphasis, and presentation composed of little tacit theories about what exists, what happens, and what matters.” Similarly, Diehl and McFarland's (:1717) assertion that frames “provide a powerful means for coordinated interaction by supplying a structure that allows actors to become aware of, and attend to, the same situational variables” highlights the capacity of frames to organize experience by focusing the attention and channeling the understanding of individuals within a given situation. Frames help us determine, for example, whether a punch to the arm is a gesture of fighting, play‐fighting, or a friendly “hello”; whether a kiss is a sexualized exchange or a routine gesture of greeting; and whether a disparaging comment made by a friend is to be taken seriously or as a joke.…”

“…In addition to potentially increasing our understanding of the “greedy” elements within organizations that have a tight grip on their members, the study of frames and framing processes within these organizations may bridge the theoretical and empirical gaps that have resulted from studies that conceptualize frames as actively selected and manufactured rather than, in Goffman's original formulation, socially pregiven and unconsciously used. Diehl and McFarland () characterize this gap as follows:

While Goffman saw frames as socially pregiven and culturally defined, social movements theory has treated them as consciously created and actively selected for by movements to gain recruits and public sympathy. The social movements use of “frame,” then, has glossed over Goffman's interest in the structure of shared experience and moved directly into the question of how these shared perceptions are strategically manipulated.

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“…Unlike framing processes within social movement groups and media organizations, in which frames may be deliberately selected, cued, and manipulated from “above” in ways that mobilize supporters and influence interpretation of a situation or event, frames within greedy organizations must be interactionally supported and reinforced by the shared structure of experience within the group if they are to foster commitment. That is, as Diehl and McFarland () point out, without support “on the ground” in face‐to‐face interactions among participants, deliberate framing attempts are likely to fall flat. Therefore, an investigation of frames within greedy organizations must focus on framing processes operating at both the discursive level and the interactional level—a dual focus that may lead to a more nuanced understanding of how discursive and strategic framing processes are supported or contested by participants' face‐to‐face interactions.…”

Framing environmental crises: Correlating action to outcomes for the 1969 Santa Barbara and 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spills.

“…• "interpretative schemata that simplifies and condenses the 'world out there'" (Robinson 2002;Hunt, Benford, and Snow 1994;Benford 1997;Mooney and Hunt 1996) • a means of "ordering information into a coherent story" (Ryan 1991, 53;Straus 2011); • "intersubjective constructs" that "must be maintained through actors[] constantly] monitoring and adjusting their behaviour" (Diehl andMcFarland 2010,1717); • issue constructs (Nelson and Kinder 1996); • definitions of policy problems and solutions corresponding to beliefs, perceptions, and arguments (Fuller 2010); • alternative means of definition (de Vreese 2005); and • "structures of meaning," which can itself be subdivided into a) the "concepts and the relationships among [them]" (Reese 2007, 140), b) their underlying beliefs, perceptions, and appreciations (Schon and Rein 1994), c) those boundaries and categories that "define some ideas as out and others in, and generally operate to snag related ideas in their net" (Reese 2007, 150), and/or d) "cultural structures with central ideas and more peripheral concepts" (Hertog and McLeod 2001).…”

“…(as Entman-esque denotations often seem to do through their reliance on such things as emphasis and exclusion) as "provide a powerful means for coordinated interaction by supplying the structure that allows actors to become aware of, and attend to, the same situational variables" (Diehl andMcFarland 2010, 1717; italics added).…”