1. Frames-as-Assemblages: Theorising Framing
in Contemporary Media Networks
simon collister
Royal Holloway, University of London
Full paper available. Email me at simon.collister@gmail.com
Twitter: @simoncollister | www.simoncollister.com

2. introduction
• “continues to offer valuable
insights into relationship
between institutions,
representations and audiences”
– But does it?
• Media and communication
theories need rethinking for
networked age
• Framing theory needs
reconfiguring to meet the
demands of this new

3. The Context

4. hybridity & networks
• Internet-enabled media
driving radical
transformation of
communications
• Much research wedded
to an, arguably, outdated
elite-mass media-
audience paradigm (Davis
2007)
• Media “hybridity”
proposed as conceptual
escape route (Chadwick

5. the material turn
• Media research influenced by
materialist turn in humanities
and social sciences, viz.
Deleuze & Guattari and
Actor-Network Theory
• Materialism can be
infrastructure & physical
space
• Terranova (2004) suggests
representation is only half of
communication

6. framing: limits of reductionism
• Framing origins led to macro-
micro reductionism
(Tewksbury & Scheufele
2009, 17)
• Reinforced by meta-
theoretical models (Entman
1993; Scheufele 1999;
D‟Angelo 2002)
• Pre-defined media actors;
linear communication
processes & limited
materialist considerations

7. The Argument

8. framing as organising principle
• Reese (2001; 2007)
asserts framing is “bridging
project”
• Dynamic “organising
principle” that structures
reality through “abstract
principles”
• Networks of signifying
moments that are always
in the process of gaining or

9. synthesising framing with assemblages
• Processes of assembly
operating on two
fundamental axes:
1. Territorialization <>
Deterritorialization
2. Material<>Expressive
• Offers dynamic and
materialist framework to
augment Reese‟s notion
of framing as
gaining/losing
organising value?

10. synthesising framing with assemblages
• Additional sub-processes
contest stability, identify &
durability of frames-as-
assemblages
• Exterior relations connect
assemblage parts creating
non-linear emergence
• Coding stabilises identity &
universal singularities structure
enduring frames-as-
assemblage‟s “long-term
tendencies”

11. analysing frames-as-assemblages
• “causal intervention” via
inductive exegesis of
discursive „flows‟ &
material infrastructures
frames-as-assemblages
• Achieved via discourse
analysis and participant
observation

12. conclusions & directions?
• Short-term: Analyse mediated
power by accounting for the
material & expressive
components territorializing and
coding frames-as-
assemblages
• Longer-term: identify & map
„ideal types‟ of frames-as-
assemblages or process of
production to gain insight into
longer-term tendencies behind
the hybrid media environment

13. Thanks. Questions?
simon collister
Royal Holloway, University of London
Full paper available. Email me at simon.collister@gmail.com
Twitter: @simoncollister | www.simoncollister.com