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Publication

Linking consensus to action

Journal Contribution - Journal Article

Subtitle:does frame alignment amongst sympathizers lead to protest participation?
Frame alignment theory has become a dominant perspective on how people get mobilized into social movement activities. Most theoretical accounts on micromobilization take individuals’ congruence with social movement organizations’ frames as a starting point. However, the positive effect of frame alignment on protest participation has mostly been approached as an assumption rather than as an empirical question. Additionally, measuring frame alignment and testing its effect on participation is methodologically challenging. As a result, it has remained unclear to what extent an individual’s degree of frame alignment increases the chance that he or she will participate in protest. Using panel survey data on a street demonstration organized in Belgium in 2016 (N = 2,646), we compare the frame components broadcasted by the organizers with the specific diagnostic and prognostic frame components held by both sympathizing participants and sympathizing non-participants. We test the effect of frame alignment on people’s intention to join a protest and on participation as such, while accounting for multiple alternative determinants of protest participation. Our results suggest that frame alignment affects the likelihood that a sympathizer will intend to participate, which in turn affects participation.
Journal: Social movement studies : journal of social, cultural and political protest
ISSN: 1474-2837
Volume: 99
Pages: 1 - 20
Publication year:2020
Keywords:A1 Journal article
BOF-keylabel:yes
Accessibility:Open