Corporate Frame Failure and the Erosion of Elite Legitimacy

Abstract

Extant research on official frames centers on state campaigns, yet nonstate entities also utilize their own official frames. We extend the existing social movement literature by examining the unsuccessful framing efforts of a uranium mill in Cañon City, Colorado. Despite a history of environmental contamination and resultant health problems, the corporation deployed an official frame to reestablish the company's legitimacy and justify their actions following the controversy. Our data included newspaper coverage, archival documents, in‐depth interviews, and direct observation. Findings highlight critical factors that can undermine corporate official frames, and show that failed framing efforts can ultimately erode elite legitimacy.

Challenging Extractive Industries

“…The same can be said of corporations that are revealed to be guilty of social or environmental malfeasance. In their study of a uranium processing facility guilty of toxic contamination, Chris M. Messer, Alison E. Adams, and Thomas E. Shriver (2012) found that protestors were able to erode the corporate polluter’s legitimacy by exposing inconsistencies and histories of deception perpetuated by the corporation. States can also mandate acceptable levels of types of protest by law, whereas corporations and other institutions cannot prevent protest or challenge the same way.…”

“…The environmentalists executed a variety of direct action tactics designed to both stop the demolition of Libkovice buildings and to garner attention and erode the legitimacy of the coal company in the eyes of the public (see Messer et al 2012; Walker et al 2008). They started by forming blockades to obstruct the demolition workers in December of 1992.…”

Elite Cultural Work and Discursive Obstruction of Human Rights Activism

“…However, this power is not unlimited. State official frames that fail to resonate with the populace may backfire, potentially leading to public outrage and increased support for activists (Messer, Adams, and Shriver 2012; Nepstad and Kenney 2018). Furthermore, challengers are not powerless, but draw on their own social and cultural resources to contest state elites and generate support.…”

Free market ideology and deregulation in Colorado’s oil fields: Evidence for triple movement activism?

“…In a study of Pennsylvania farmers with natural gas leases, Malin (2014a) found that farm operators displayed economic rationality akin to Block and Somers’ market fundamentalism through a neoliberalized discursive framing that normalized the rapid expansion of local drilling. More broadly, controversies around potentially risky industrial or extractive facilities are often tempered by strong free market ideologies, which use economic outcomes like jobs and economic growth as carrots incentivizing growth (Shriver and Kennedy 2005; Messer, Adams and Shriver 2012; Ladd 2014). Thus, orthodox Polanyian theory ignores the power and durability of neoliberalized market fundamentalism (Block and Somers 2014), particularly in environmental contexts.…”