Socio-Scientific Fundamentals
Sensemaking of an Emerging Concept
While the literature on framing has importantly expanded our understanding of frame
creation and contests from an interpretive point of view, previous studies have largely
neglected the structural contexts in which framing activities occur. In this study, we
propose extending the framing approach by incorporating insights from the literature on
sensemaking to examine how and when opportunities for meaning creation open up and
how this affects subsequent discursive processes. Connecting framing and sensemaking
better enables us to examine how structural factors prompt and bound discursive
processes, affecting when and where frame contests emerge. We demonstrate the utility of
this approach by examining changes in the discourse of globalization. Using qualitative
and quantitative analyses of newspaper articles and corporate press releases, we trace
the emergence of globalization discourse, its diffusion, and the increasing contention
that surrounds it. Our findings show how and where globalization discourse emerged in
response to greater U.S. involvement with the international economy, and how later
frame contests over the meaning of globalization have depended on the interests of the
actors involved.
H
ow major events are constructed in public
discourse continues to be a topic of inter-
est across disciplines. Particularly large-scale
transformations such as industrialization, the
Direct correspondence to Peer C. Fiss, Queen's
School of Business, 143 Union Street, Kingston,
Ontario, Canada K7L 3N6 ([email protected]
su.ca), or Paul M. Hirsch, Department of
Management and Organizations, Kellogg School of
Management, 2001 Sherida ...
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