Activists’ Strategic Communication in an Authoritarian Setting: Integrating Social Movement Framing into Issues Management

ABSTRACT

Triangulating 18 in-depth interviews with activists and campaign participants, news coverage, and social media content related to the campaign “6,700 people for 6,700 trees,” this study integrates social movement framing theory and issues management framework to examine activists’ strategic communications in an authoritarian setting. Results indicate activists’ sophisticated use of framing strategies following different stages of the issue life cycle to legitimately form an issue and successfully manage the issue in order to achieve their goals. This study offers meaningful theoretical implications for examining strategic communication in social movement campaigns. It also discusses practical lessons for applying these strategies to foster social change in similar contexts.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Professor María Len-Ríos at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Georgia, for her comments and suggestions on the early drafts of the manuscript. We thank Dr. Kelly Werder, editor of this journal, and three anonymous reviewers for their insightful suggestions for improving our work. We are also grateful to Kathy Matulys, Joel Matulys, and Chuck Searcy for their careful reading and detailed feedback on the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.