Gateways and Anchor Points: The Use of Frames to Amplify Marginalized Voices in Disability Policy Deliberations

This essay analyzes the rhetorical framing tactics of a group of disability activists to understand how they use key words, topic shifts, and other framing maneuvers to amplify marginalized voices in public debates. Focusing on a town hall meeting and a legislator update meeting between activists an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inWritten communication Vol. 41; no. 3; pp. 513 - 538
Main Author Kamperman, Sean
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.07.2024
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
People with disabilities
Persuasion
Public policy
Topics
deliberative rhetoric
persuasion
framing strategies
inclusion
advocacy writing
intellectual disability
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Summary:This essay analyzes the rhetorical framing tactics of a group of disability activists to understand how they use key words, topic shifts, and other framing maneuvers to amplify marginalized voices in public debates. Focusing on a town hall meeting and a legislator update meeting between activists and lawmakers, the author uses stasis theory to analyze how these maneuvers (1) create gateways for marginalized voices to enter the discussion and (2) anchor deliberations around topics of importance to the disabled community. This suggests a more complex role for framing in face-to-face deliberative contexts than studies of framing strategies in written texts have traditionally considered. I argue that a multidimensional view of framing uniting consideration of word choice with attention to interactive dynamics is necessary to appreciate how framing maneuvers can not only shape the content of debates but amplify the voices of people excluded by the tacit rules of democratic deliberation.
ISSN:0741-0883
1552-8472
DOI:10.1177/07410883241242109