Beginning of Essay
Benford’s recent critique of the framing perspective in the social movements literature posits the need for a sociology of framing processes (Benford 1997). The framing perspective was inspired by Erving Goffman’s (1974) notion of “invisible structures” ca ....

Middle of Essay
.... reified conceptualizations of social movements by recognizing the contribution of organized collective action to definitions of social problems and cultural knowledge in general (Eyerman and Jamison 1991; Sztompka 1993). As Benford (1997) explains, doing this entails focusing upon the framing process and providing an in-depth analysis of negotiation, conflict, and compromise in the development of the collective action frame. The framing perspective’s nodal point is frame alignment, what McAdam (1994, 37) calls "the efforts by which organizers seek to join the cognitive orientations of individuals with the of the social movement organization ....