Using Emotions to Frame Issues and Identities in Conflict: Farmer Movements on Social Media

Abstract

Polarization and group formation processes on social media networks have received ample academic attention, but few studies have looked into the discursive interactions on social media through which intergroup conflicts develop. In this comparative case study, we analyzed two social media conflicts between farmers and animal right advocates to understand how conflicts establish, escalate, and return dormant through issue and identity framing and the discursive use of emotions. The results show that the two groups used the same set of frames throughout the three phases. We identify this as a symmetric conflict framing repertoire. The groups both use a dominant moral frame (animal welfare is of absolute value), but express distinct views on policy solutions. This triggers a contestation of credibility (who knows best and who cares most for animals) in which the two groups use the same set of issue and identity frames to directly oppose each other. The binary opposition is initially established through issue framing but escalates into an identity conflict that involves group labeling and blaming. The discursive use of emotion reinforces this escalation in two ways. First, it reinforces a vicious cycle in the contestation of credibility: While emotions are implicitly used to frame oneself as caring and trustworthy, emotion is explicitly used to frame the other party as deceptive and irrational. Second, disputants use collective emotions as a response to the other group's offensive actions (blaming) and as a justification of one's own collective actions. We discuss how this conflict differs from previously studied conflicts to provide plausible explanations for these findings.

Fellow cows and conflicting farmers: Public perceptions of dairy farming uncovered through frame analysis

“…Framing is often used deliberately to convey meaning or position an issue in a particular light, making it more important how something is communicated rather than what is communicated [e.g., ( 14 , 33 ). However, frames have also been examined reflectively to understand how people utilize former interactions, experiences, memories, feelings, associations, and other fragments of information to either make sense of a situation or stimulus (“cognitive frames”) or to guide a context-specific interaction (“interactional frames”) ( 34 , 35 ).…”

“…Despite this, the farming industry and external audiences continue to diverge over how farm animals should be kept ( 2 ), with public dissatisfaction about current methods expressed through a range of vehicles including survey results ( 3 , 4 ), online campaigns ( 5 , 6 ), government policy ( 7 , 8 ), and product development ( 9 , 10 ). However, there is evidence that farmers and veterinarians dismiss such concerns on grounds of the public being uninformed about farming ( 11 – 14 ), unaware of the realities of livestock production ( 15 , 16 ), influenced by animal rights advocates ( 11 , 12 , 17 ), prone to anthropomorphism ( 11 ), or naïve about the economic impacts of changing practices ( 18 ). As well as this, farmers and farm industry representatives have expressed frustration across a variety of public media about “being told how to farm” by those they believe lack knowledge of the industry or its technicalities ( 19 – 21 ).…”

Meaning-making on the ground: an empirical study on interactional framing in environmental conflicts

“…A large volume of published studies describe the role of interactional framing in environmental conflicts (among others, Donahue et al, 2011;Stevens et al, 2021;Reinecke and Ansari, 2021;Brummans et al, 2008;Lewicki et al, 2003, Shmueli et al, 2006Ravazzani and Maier, 2017;Dewulf and Bouwen, 2012). The major sensitizing concepts deployed in this strand of research are presented in the following paragraphs and serve to formulate three sub-questions regarding frames and framing activities in the environmental conflict.…”

“…Conflict research suggests that most conflicts are emotionally created and driven processes (Stevens et al, 2021). There has been rich literature in public relations and conflict communication on emotions.…”

“…Identity frames are about "the meanings about oneself and others, and are inherently relational in intergroup conflicts" (Stevens, 2021, p. 77). When one's identity frame is challenged, it generally produces defensive reactions and can easily trigger emotional arousal because it is felt as an attack on the core of one's self-image (Stevens et al, 2021).…”