A MULTIMETHOD APPROACH TO FRAMING DISPUTES: SAME-SEX MARRIAGE ON TRIAL IN OBERGEFELL V. HODGES*
Social movements scholars have widely used the framing perspective to analyze meaning-making related to social movements and contentious politics. Qualitative methods have helped to illuminate how activists frame social issues to combine meanings in strategic ways. By contrast, linear statistical modeling is ill-suited to analyze the interdependent and circuitous aspects of collective action frames. This study offers a multimethod approach that uses an abductive framework to combine techniques from computational text analysis and network modeling along with interpretive coding. I demonstrate this approach in the context of framing disputes through legal mobilization over the same-sex marriage in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges. By examining Court discourse and amicus briefs, I show the coordination of similarities and distinctions among opposing social movement groups and elite actors. Future research can expand this method for both case studies and comparative analyses of movements.
Contributor Notes
* This analysis was made possible by funding from an Interdisciplinary Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) grant on Network Science and Big Data at the University of California, Santa Barbara (National Science Foundation Grant Number DGE-1258507), as well as a Dean's Grant for Summer ICPSR (Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research) Training from the Broom Center for Demography at the University of California Santa Barbara. Earlier versions of this paper were presented for the 4th Annual LGBT Symposium (University of Illinois), After Marriage conference (Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, City University of New York), social movements workshop at the University of California Santa Barbara, and Network Science IGERT seminar. My gratitude to my thesis committee who provided feedback and guidance in the formation and execution of this project: Drs. Verta Taylor, John Mohr, Zakiya Luna, and Beth Schneider. Finally, thank you to Mario Espinoza-Kulick, MA, who provided editorial feedback and moral support.
† Alex Espinoza-Kulick, MA, is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.