Frames-as-Assemblages: Theorizing Frames in Contemporary Media

Networks

Simon Collister, Royal Holloway, University of London

October 9th, 2012

Paper delivered at ‘Caught in the Frame’ conference, University of Leicester,

Leicester, UK, 19th September, 2012

This is a work-in-progress. Please seek the author’s permission before citing or

quoting from this paper.

Simon Collister, Doctoral Candidate

New Political Communication Unit, Department of Politics and International

Relations, Royal Holloway, University of London.

Email: simon.collister.2010@rhul.ac.uk

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Abstract

This paper takes as its starting point the conference’s original call for papers that

asserted framing “continues to offer valuable insights into the relationship between

institutions, representations and audiences”. I want to contend that in light of the

contemporary networked media landscape such a claim needs to be revisited and

reconfigured from the perspective of both media and framing theory. Despite this

proposed reconfiguration I argue that framing still offers a powerful lens through

which to analyse mediated reality. I will begin by setting out how current media and

framing theories need rethinking in light of the increasingly online, networked and

material communications environment in which we live. I will then propose a

potential solution that undertakes a synthesis of Stephen Reese’s meta-theory of

framing with Manual DeLanda’s Assemblage Theory. This will allow me to outline

what I hope is a novel account of framing that I term frames-as-assemblages. Such a

model, I suggest, offers an analytical framework appropriate for the analysis of media

communications in the contemporary networked world.

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This paper addresses the conference’s claim that “[f]rame analysis continues to offer

valuable insights into the relationship between institutions, representations and

audiences”. Specifically, it raises the question of whether framing theory - a long

established and applied theory in media and communications research – remains fit

for purpose in the contemporary media environment characterized by the fluid

interaction of new and traditional media; informal and formal actors and the broader

disintermediation of institutions and institutional actors; dissolution of definable and

discrete audiences (Chadwick 2007; 2011a; 2011b) and the crisis of representation

brought about by the neo-materialist turn in communications research (Terranova

2004; Packer & Wiley 2012).

In response to this question the paper will propose a revised and renewed approach to

framing by reconnecting the theory's potent origins with the complex spaces of

mediation in which it now operates. This is achieved by synthesizing Reese's

definitional account of frames as “organizing principles that … structure the social

world” (Reese 2001, 11) and the concept of assemblages (Deleuze & Guattari 1987;

DeLanda 2006). Using Manuel DeLanda's (2006) schematic framework of

Assemblage Theory I will develop a cohesive yet dynamic model - tentatively termed

'frames-as-assemblages' - for the analysis of both representational and material

components and the dynamic organizing forces of territorialization and

deterritorialization. Such a collective arrangement, I argue, can be understood as one

way of reconfiguring the way in which frames are constituted and produced in the

contemporary networked media space. After offering a radical re-engagement with –

and, hopefully, contribution to - the conceptual debate surrounding one of the most

widely applied theories in the field of communication studies (Bryant & Miron 2004)

the paper will outline and briefly discuss some of the methodological challenges faced

by researchers seeking to apply the frames-as-assemblages model.

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Media Context 1: Networks & HybridityIt is a broadly uncontested notion that we live in an informational or post-industrial

media age marked by an ongoing seismic shift and conceptual break from the norms,

genres, practices and theoretical worldviews of the previous industrial media age. As

Chadwick and Stanyer (2011) – among many others - have observed, news and media

consumption habits are changing. In 2009, 58 per cent of the British public reported

reading the news online – nearly double the figure for 2007 (OXIS 2009, 32).

Meanwhile 75 per cent of internet users report sourcing news from non-newspaper

sources, such as blogs (OXIS 2009, 20). Furthermore, leading UK blogs draw broadly

comparable numbers of readers to their ‘mainstream’ media counterparts (Chadwick

and Stanyer 2011) whilst there is also an increasingly fluid and interactive flow of

information from a range of traditional and ‘new’ media sources dispersed through the

growing phenomenon of ‘networked journalism’ (Jarvis 2006; Beckett & Mansell

2008). The internet, then, is driving a radical transformation of the media landscape

characterized by convergent communication networks powered by individual users as

well as more traditional media institutions.

In light of this conference’s specific focus on framing theory – and in the interests of

brevity - I do not intend to provide a detailed exploration of the media transformations

currently taking place. However, it will be useful to provide a brief assessment of the

changing landscape offered by two scholars whose work has arguably been

foundational in the development of the contemporary networked media landscape.

Benkler (2006) offers a structural reinterpretation of this new media space as the

‘networked information economy’ whereby vast, global networks of empowered

individuals connect with each other to reimagine and co-create cultural, economic and

social goods through peer-production. Manuel Castells (2009), meanwhile,

distinguishes between processes of traditional mass mediation and socially mediated

communication, arguing for the new phenomenon of mass self-communication. Mass

self-communication, Castells asserts, “is mass communication because it can

potentially reach a global audience […] At the same time, it is self-communication

because the production of the message is self-generated, the definition of the potential

receiver(s) is self-directed, and the retrieval of specific messages or content from the

World Wide Web and electronic communication networks is self-selected” (Castells

2009, 55).

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Despite these seismic shifts in the communications landscape, I want to suggest much

media and communications research remains wedded to what Davis (2007, 2-3) terms

an “elite-mass media-audience” paradigm. Such a perspective, I believe, risks missing

the intricate and subtle details of how emergent peer-to-peer networks of mass self-

communication work to elide and problematize the traditional groups in Davis’

paradigm. Moreover, such a paradigm continues to act as an influential force in

ongoing research into networked media. Studies of Internet-enabled communication

continue to focus on traditional loci of institutional and mass media production and

consumption rather than seeking to investigate the communicative flows between

interstitial spaces. For example, research pertinent to mass media models continues to

result in the creation of studies examining whether the public sphere has been

strengthened or weakened by an increasingly pluralist mass self-communicated

landscape (Dahlgren, 2001; 2005; Sparks 2001; McNair, 2009; Papacharissi, 2009).

Conversely, critical studies continue to examine how economic and political elites

structure and limit the potential for truly pluralistic communication despite a peer-to-

peer communications infrastructure (Hargittai 2004; Mansell 2004; Dahlberg; 2005;

Hindman 2008; Karppinen, 2009).

In an attempt to move beyond these reductionist positions, Chadwick (2011a; 2011b)

puts forward the argument that the current media landscape is best described as

“hybridized”. That is:

“Old media, primarily television, radio, and newspapers, are still, given the size of their audiences and their centrality to the life of the nation, rightly referred to as “mainstream,” but the very nature of the mainstream is changing. While old media organizations are adapting, evolving and renewing their channels of delivery, working practices, and audiences, wholly new media, driven primarily by the spread of the Internet, are achieving popularity and becoming part of a new mainstream. Politicians, journalists, and the public are simultaneously creating and adapting to these new complexities.” (2011a, 5).

Applying this theoretical concept to analyses of the 2010 #Bullygate affair (Chadwick

2011a) involving the former British prime minister, Gordon Brown, and the Prime

Ministerial debates during the UK’s 2010 general election (Chadwick 2011b),

Chadwick demonstrates that relationships between traditional elite actors, media

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institutions and audiences in a hybrid media system are increasingly “built upon

interactions among old and new media and their associated technologies, genres,

norms, behaviors, and organizations.” That is, the emergent and networked ‘hybrid

media system’ challenges and undermines conventional notions of elites, institutional

actors, the mainstream media and the notion of a homogenous audience proposed by

the conference.

Media Context 2: The Materialist Turn

In addition to, and imbricated in, the increasing hybridization of the media I want to

suggest a further transformation of the communications environment - and

consequently the research agenda –as a result of the increasing importance of

materialism. The ‘materialist turn’ in communications and media research, while

arising relatively recently (Gumbrecht and Pfeiffer 1994; Terranova 2004; Adams

2009; Packer & Wiley 2012), draws on the intellectual legacy of Gilles Deleuze and

Felix Guattari’s vitalist philosophy (1987), critical sociology of actor-network theory

scholars, such as Bruno Latour (2005), and neo-realism of Manuel DeLanda (2006).

Such conceptual developments require new ways of thinking about the hitherto

representational focus of communications research and re-directing attention to the

“underlying constraints whose technological, material, procedural, and performative

potentials have been all too easily swallowed up by the interpretive habits" of earlier

researchers (Gumbrecht and Pfeiffer 1994, 12). Terranova (2004), for example,

accounts for a materialist theory of media that views the networked communications

environment as articulated through an “informational milieu” operating at both a

material and representational level (Terranova, 2004). Such an idea challenges the

fundamental idea that information has a direct link with what it represents. As a result,

communication becomes “less a question of meanings that are encoded and decoded

but as … new forms of knowledge and power” (ibid) constituted by an unstable,

complex set of physical states continually in flux that “can only describe a distribution

of probabilities rather than an essential property that defines a being” (ibid). Thus

communication traditionally interpreted as the distribution of representational

messages from sender to receiver is revealed as only accounting for one-half of the

mediation process. This “crisis of representation”, Terranova argues, undermines and

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challenges dominant interpretations of media research arising from traditional liberal,

cultural and critical perspectives (ibid). In their place it is possible to identify new

possibilities for communications research influenced by the demands of a

contemporary social plane increasingly shaped by shifting configurations of material

as well as representational assemblages. In this “control society” (Deleuze 1992),

constituted by technologies; the physical environment; bodies and communications

media, it is necessary to adopt multi-modal research approaches capable of identifying

and tracing the modulating interactions of communicative as well as material

discourses (Negri 1990).

The Framing Context: a Reductionist Theory

In response to this transformed media environment, I want to propose that one such

approach to communications research capable of analyzing the “collective

arrangement” of material and representational discourses is framing. Before outlining

how framing theory can be operationalized as a research method, however, it is

necessary to identify and address some of the limitations embedded in framing theory

and its adoption within the “interpretive habits” of communication research. It is

important to note that framing theory spans an extensive literature across the fields of

media and communications, psychology and sociology and there is not sufficient

space to give a detailed account of the field’s history. Rather I will identify what I

believe are some of the key challenges in operationalizing framing in a contemporary

media environment.

One of the key challenges of applying framing to the material-semiotic complexity of

the networked media environment arises as a result of the theory’s origins. Emerging

from the fields of sociology and psychology the theory has arguably drawn

subsequent research towards macro-social or micro-cognitive levels accordingly

(Tewksbury and Scheufele, 2009; Reese, 2001). Such a macro-micro reductionist

approach has become replicated in media and communications framing research. This

has occurred both paradigmatically, through research into media effects investigating

elite-mass media-audience interactions (Davis 2007, 2-3), and thematically, through

critical; cultural; and cognitive lenses (see Goffman 1974; Gamson and Modigliani

1989; Neuman, Just et al. 1992; Wicks 2005; Gorp 2007; Gorp 2010 for a selection of

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such perspectives). This thematic diversification of media framing research led to an

increasingly “casual” adoption of the theory (Entman 1993, 2) and as a response

generated by scholars to try to resolve framing’s lack of theoretical clarity by

undertaking a series of self-reflexive exercises to pin-down and (re)define the concept

(Tewksbury, 2011). Somewhat problematically, the development of these meta-

theories, notably Entman (1993), Scheufele (1999) and D’Angelo (2002), have not

only perpetuated macro-micro interpretations of framing but, moreover, have helped

cement this reductionism as a central pillar of framing’s over-arching research

agenda.

The consequences of locking micro-macro reductionist principles into framing’s

“general theory” (Entman 1993, 57) include a focus on neatly delineated and

unproblematic fields of frame analysis. For example, Entman’s (1993) “paradigmatic”

account outlines four key areas that have persisted in subsequent meta-theories of

framing: audience autonomy; journalistic objectivity; content analysis; and public

opinion. Furthermore these areas are often studied in isolation without acknowledging

even a basic inter-relation to other, potential, sites of mediation. Where process-

oriented models have been developed (e.g. Scheufele 1999; D’Angelo 2002; Entman

2003) such processes are invariably linear allowing for frames to flow between macro

and micro-level actors, or vice-versa. Where they allow for frames to be challenged

during mediation processes, any changes can only be accounted for through the direct,

causal influences of other formal mass media and institutional actors within the model

(D’Angelo and Kuypers 2010). Add to these limitations the fact that framing research

operates almost exclusively at the level of representation (described by Terranova

(2004) as only half of the communication process)1 and the result arguably presents

framing as offering only limited opportunities to adequately account for the

complexity, in-betweenness and inter-stitial flows of networked communication

characterized by the hybrid media system.

Framing as Organizing Principle

1 Arguably, more recent experimental cognitive approaches to framing research (see Miu and Crişan (2011) and Maa, Fenga, et al. (2012) for indicative examples) address the material role played by the body and its physical processes, but these neuroscientific approaches are not generally incorporated into the wider canon of media framing research and isolate the material processes within a distinctly anthropomorphic ontology which contrasts with neo-materialist appropriations of the world’s material realms and functions.

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From this problematized position I will outline a way forward by developing a revised

interpretation of framing that is capable of adequately grasping and analyzing the

dynamic networked and material attributes of media communication. Central to this

effort is Reese’s (2001; 2007) definitional work on framing. Unlike other

metatheoretical approaches that reduce framing to a paradigmatic “general theory”

(Entman 1993) or multi-paradigmatic research project (D’Angelo 2002), Reese seeks

a more open-ended and productive engagement with framing. According to Reese,

framing operates as a “bridging project” where its "value … does not hinge on its

potential as a unified research domain but … as a provocative model that bridges parts

of the field [of study] that need to be in touch with each other” (Reese 2007, 148).

Such an approach positions frames as “organizing principles that are socially shared

and persistent over time and work symbolically to meaningfully structure the social

world’ (Reese 2001, 11).

This definition of framing is significant as it enables us to approach frames and

framing as dynamic processes that organize a set of abstract principles (as opposed to

media-content or news-texts which dominate earlier definitional theories) into a

coherent, yet fluid, account of social reality. Instead of focusing research on specific

mediated or mediating locations, frames become “moment[s] in the chain of

signification”. Moreover, these ‘chains’ break out of a linear logic by operating as a

relational, network-oriented process that “capture[s] more of the ‘‘network society’’

(Castells, 2000) paradigm than [framing theory’s] traditional sender–receiver,

message-effects model" (Reese, 2007). Furthermore, framing, Reese argues: “must

always be considered in the process of gaining or losing organising value” (ibid, 15)

as they construct and structure shared meaning. In summary, then, Reese offers us an

approach to framing that interprets it as a fluid, non-linear organizing process that

draws together symbolic or representational content expressed across micro-macro

levels.

I want to suggest that Reese’s interpretation of framing enables it to be bridged with a

broader theoretical framework that, while aligned with Reese’s potent - but loosely

defined - framing criteria, augments Reese’s theory by underpinning it with an

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additional set of mechanisms that facilitate analysis of networked, non-linear and

material communications. The result, I argue, will amount to a novel conceptual break

with conventional framing theory and research and will be achieved by synthesizing

Reese’s framing theory with Manuel DeLanda’s ‘Assemblage Theory’. I term this

theoretical development frames-as-assemblages.

Synthesizing Frames-as-Assemblages

The first step to achieving a workable synthesis of framing and assemblage theory is

to briefly explain assemblages and assemblage theory. The concept of the assemblage

emerges inconsistently throughout Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy (Deleuze and

Guattari, 1987; Deleuze, 1994; Deleuze, 2002), which results in a full explication or

application of the concept appearing only fleetingly. In the series of interviews

completed with Claire Parnet (2002), Deleuze addresses the concept of assemblage

directly, if opaquely:

What is an assemblage? It is a multiplicity which is made up of heterogeneous terms and which establishes liaisons, relations between them, across ages, sexes and reigns different natures. Thus the assemblage's only unity is that of a co-functioning: it is a symbiosis, a 'sympathy'. It is never filiations which are important, but alliances, alloys; these are not successions, lines of descent, but contagions, epidemics, the wind.

Elusive as this definition is, it does, however, begin to point to a set of features

constituting an assemblage that can be discerned through a close reading of sections

within Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus (1987). At a fundamental level,

assemblages are rhizomatic networks giving rise to continual dynamic processes of

organisation and, crucially, disorganisation (stratification and flight in Deleuze and

Guattari’s terminology) that shape reality and its component parts (Wiley 2005, 71).

Significantly, assemblages – despite their translated title2 - are not static units but

rather the processes of selection, organisation and disorganisation that give

2 The original French term used by Deleuze and Guattari is “agencement, usually translated as "putting together", "arrangement", "laying out", "layout" or "fitting' (Cousin et al. 1990: 9-10). It is important that agencement is not a static term; it is not the arrangement or organization but the process of arranging, organizing, fitting together.” This is opposed to the notion of “assemblage: that which is being assembled.” (Wise 2005, 77 in Stivale (ed.) 2005).

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consistency to their constituent components (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987; Wise, 2005,

77). Deleuze and Guattari distinguish two types of assemblages operating

symbiotically with each other: “machinic assemblages” and “collective assemblages

of enunciation”, constituted by material and semiotic forces (‘content’ and

‘expression’ in Deleuze and Guattari’s terminology) respectively. These two types of

assemblage account for one of the two axes along which assemblages operate, the

other axis enabling the forces of stratification or flight (or ‘territorialisation’ and

deterritorialization) - which drive the processes of organisation and disorganisation

respectively. This is explained in Deleuze and Guatarri’s terms, thus:

We may draw some general conclusions on the nature of Assemblages from this. On a first, horizontal, axis, an assemblage comprises two segments, one of content, the other of expression. On the one hand it is a machinic assemblage of bodies, of actions and passions, an intermingling of bodies reacting to one another; on the other hand it is a collective assemblage of enunciation, of acts and statements, of incorporeal transformations attributed to bodies. Then on a vertical axis, the assemblage has both territorial sides, or reterritorialized sides, which stabilize it, and cutting edges of deterritorialization, which carry it away (Deleuze and Guattari 1987, 88) [italics in original]

Taken as a combinatory concept, then, the machinic assemblages of material content

and collective assemblages of enunciation of semiotic and incorporeal elements and

the territorializing and deterritorializing forces operate through a “double articulation”

(Wiley, 2005, 71) to create “concrete assemblages” (Deleuze, 1987, 67).

While it is possible to locate and articulate key criteria of assemblages within Deleuze

and Guattari’s work, it can, however, be argued that the fleeting and diffuse account

of assemblages risks limiting the potential such a concept offers as an operational

analytical framework for investigating the networked media environment. In

Assemblage Theory: Towards a New Philosophy of Society, Manuel DeLanda (2006)

uses his own technical resources and vocabulary to distill and “reformulate” Deleuze

and Guattari’s work on assemblages into a distinct theory (Shaviro, 2007). DeLanda’s

assemblage theory “eliminates the need to engage in Deleuzian hermeneutics” and

outlines a comprehensible framework to account for and analyse the fluid and

dynamic “processes of assembly” that constitute reality (DeLanda, 2006, 3-4). As a

result, DeLanda’s theory codifies Deleuzian concrete assemblages into a robust and

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cohesive theory enabling a consistent analysis of the mediated environment

accounting for a “wide range of social entities” – both material and representative –

operating across macro and micro-levels of reality (ibid).

What follows is a brief overview of assemblage theory, highlighting the conceptual

overlap with framing theory and finally pointing towards how both theories can be

synthesised and operationalised for analysis of media in a networked environment. As

already identified, assemblages are not static units but, rather, processes of assembly.

This assembly takes place along two axes: 1) territorialisation-deterritorialisation and

2) material-expressive. Such a manoeuvre means that assemblages are constituted of

component parts that are both material as well as expressive – that is, representational

– and that these components are corralled into an assemblage through a series of

organizing processes that either stabilize (that is, ‘territorialise’) the identity of an

assemblage or destabilize (that is, deterritorialise) it. Territorialization occurs by

increasing the internal homogeneity of an assemblage or by increasing the clarity of

its boundaries. Conversely, deterritorialization occurs by increasing the heterogeneity

or weakening the boundaries of an assemblage. It should be possible, therefore, to

visualize how assemblages offer a conceptual alignment with Reese’s notion of

frames and framing, which “must always be considered in the process of gaining or

losing organizing value” (2001, 15). Moreover, it should also be evident that

assemblage theory provides a way of inculcating material as well as expressive

elements into an analytical framework thus accounting for the physicality of

communications as well as the purely symbolic.

While this double articulation is at the core of assemblage theory, there are other

significant features of assemblage theory that further strive to balance the forces

continually at work to stabilise or destabilise the identity of an assemblage. From the

perspective of mediation these features are perhaps most usefully understood as those

that 1) yield an identifiable structure to a frame-as-assemblage – however temporary –

through stabilizing it and 2) undercut the emergence of a frame-as-assemblage

through processes of destabilization. Firstly, the features of assemblage theory

challenging the establishment of a stable and identifiable structure in frames-as-

assemblage include ‘relations of exteriority’ and ‘non-linear causality’ (DeLanda

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2006, 12-14) and can be interpreted as follows. Exterior relations are an integral

structural component of the rhizomatically-networked processes constituting

assemblages. Exterior relations are opposed to interior relations whose relations give

rise to networks created through mutually dependent reciprocal connections between

constituent parts. Such relations produce objects with a cohesive, unified identify or

essence premised solely on an aggregation of its parts. Exterior relations, however,

ensure that an object can only be defined by the interaction of its constituent parts

with other constituting parts. Unlike the mutual dependency of interior relations,

exterior relations are premised solely on a mutual independency or autonomy.

This creates a conceptual as well as a functional distinction between structures created

by interior versus exterior relations. The former are formed of identifiable properties

identifiable and known in advance whereas the latter are generated through the

capacity of their components to become transformed when they become connected to

new or different components. Thus rendering the identity and function of the structure

unidentifiable and unknowable in advance. Meaning, and subsequently, understanding

is entirely contingent on the connections between the constituting components at any

specific point in time. Any structures constituted through relations of exteriority,

similarly, are determined by their inherent capacity to transform their identity and

purpose when connected to different objects in different contexts. This produces a

situation whereby the fundamental structure of an assemblage is premised on

processes of continual emergence and transformation. Seen from Terranova’s

perspective, each part of a frame-as-assemblage exists in a virtual “probabilistic,

discontinuous, and mutable […] milieu” (2004, 66) that can never be fully known or

yield meaning or consequences until it is connected to other parts within the milieu.

Relations of exteriority, then, are significant to a discussion of frames-as-assemblages

for two reasons: 1) they raise methodological challenges (discussed later) and 2) they

generate and analytically account for a non-linear functionality or non-linear causality

through processes of emergence. Given this endless flow of unpredictable

transformations, how can frames-as-assemblages be analysed?

One possible solution to this limitation lies within the role played by two sub-

functions of the assembling process: coding and universal singularities. DeLanda

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outlines an additional process of assembly that he terms ‘coding’. This meta-process

gives rise to “a highly territorialized and coded assemblage” (DeLanda 2006, 14-16).

That is, an assemblage that becomes so persistent and consistent in its function that it

gains a superficial identity beyond its constituent parts. I propose that when this

happens we see frames-as-assemblages transform into recognisable, issue frames that

dominate public discourse and practice. Notable examples from earlier framing

research could include Gamson and Modigliani’s enduring nuclear power frame

(1989); Entman’s (2004) ‘Cold War’ frame; or Reese’s (2010) ‘War on Terror’

frame.3

If coding contributes to the strengthening of frames-as-assemblage identities, then the

concept of universal singularities further helps strengthen the functional durability of

frames-as-assemblages. Theoretically, assemblages can organise their constitutive

material and expressive components from a seemingly endless set of probable

sources, owing to the concept of exterior relations and the Deleuzian ontology

underpinning assemblage theory.4 DeLanda asserts, however, that in actuality

‘universal singularities’ limit the potentially endless development of an assemblage5

by accounting for invariability in the patterns of distribution of an assemblage’s

individual parts. As a result, while theoretically open to continual transformation

through processes of (de)territorialisation, an enduring assemblage will likely adopt

an identifiable long-term structure determined by its universal singularities. This is

understood as “the inherent or intrinsic long-term tendencies of a system, the states

which the system will spontaneously tend to adopt in the long run provided it is not

constrained by other forces.” (DeLanda, 2002, 15) [italics in original]. While the

presence of universal singularities originates - and is thus more advanced - in the

3 Crucially, these over-coded frames shouldn’t be mistaken as representative or permanently fixed, rather as representational shorthand for dominant and enduring frames-as-assemblages. Indeed, as Reese has shown (2010) even over-coded frames such as the War on Terror is open to challenge and rethinking when the complex processes of informational organization are analyzed in detail.4 Deleuze’s ‘ontology of difference’ is premised on an immanent reality from within which events are ‘actualized’ from a ‘virtual’, probabilistic state depending on the constituting configuration of elements at work at any particular moment. See May (2005) for a comprehensive and readable overview. 5 Although DeLanda adopts the term ‘universal singularities’ in Assemblage Theory, a more detailed account is outlined in his earlier work, Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy (2002) owing to the scientific origins of the term. Here DeLanda addresses two primary forms of attractors that define distribution of singularities in assemblages, ‘steady-state’ and ‘limit-cycle’, that tend towards a final state and a state of oscillation respectively (2002, 15).

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fields of chemistry and physics (DeLanda, 2002; DeLanda 2006, 29) DeLanda

suggests that a socially-embedded example is identifiable in Max Weber’s ‘ideal

types’ of organisations, e.g. sacred tradition; ratio-legal bureaucracies; charismatic

leadership. DeLanda is clear, however, that ‘ideal’ in this sense should not be

mistaken as essence-bound or essentialist concepts and should be interpreted not as

logical differentiation but historical differentiation (DeLanda 2006, 29-30). From the

perspective of frames-as-assemblages, universal singularities could be seen to account

for hitherto dominant process of framing and frame construction in a much more

open-ended and potentially transformable way. For example, the routinized practices

and enduring normative values of professionalism identified by Tuchman (1978)

could be seen to account for the “long-term tendencies” of frame-building and setting

within the traditional news-gathering and news-making processes. However, as

DeLanda has cautioned, such norms or ideal processes should not be taken as

archetypal, rather ideal iterations of a fundamentally fluid set of practices open to

transformative at any point. Accounting for such universal singularities within the

dynamic and complex hybrid media environment and how they influence the

durability of frames-as-assemblages needs further exploration.

Analysing Frames-as-AssemblagesThe next question that needs to be posed is how do we attempt to analyse frames-as-

assemblages? How do we begin to identify and investigate dynamic organizational

processes that draw together material as well as expressive components which are

bound together in productive and non-linear; non-representational relationships?

Firstly, DeLanda suggests that any analysis must involve “causal intervention” to

allow the complexity operating within assemblages to be “carefully disentangled”.

Such interventions I suggest are broadly consistent with research methodologies

currently used in the nascent fields of rhetorical and interpretive framing (Hertog,

2001; Kuypers, 2010; Reese, 2007; Reese, 2010). Here analysis that places the

researcher subjectively within the framing process is undertaken to facilitate critical

interpretation and resist any requirement of “a priori assumptions … grounded in

quantitative assumptions” (Kuypers, 2010, 287; 305). Furthermore, such an approach

supports the integration of material components within the frame-as-assemblage.

Hertog and McLeod assert that an interventionist, interpretive methodology requires

“study of the means used to frame and reframe” events (2001 151) [my emphasis].

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Thus, opening up the analyst’s operationalisation of “means” to include material as

well as expressive components.

But the unanswered question remains: “how is it to be done?” This area of my work is

currently under development, but it is possible at least to outline an initial set of ideas

and map potential approaches. Wiley, et al (2012) present a methodological approach

for the analysis of the role assemblages play in the construction of subjective social

space. Such a process, they argue, shifts the understanding and interpretation of

communication from “the transmission of meaning” to “the production of a common

social territory in which geography, mobility, and economic relations play as much a

role as the circulation of information and the sharing of language and cultural

practices” (Wiley et al. 2012, 183). To adequately conceive of, account for and

analyse such complex processes of assembly, Wiley et al return to Deleuze and

Guattari’s “hydraulic” (Deleuze, 1987, 361-364) - or in Wiley et al.’s terms,

“hydrological” model – which enables them to “discover the contours of social space”

and “follow the flows that reveal the connections and relationships” of components

and processes within frames-as-assemblages (Wiley et al. 2012, 183) [italics in

original]. This methodological model is mapped out in Wiley et al (2010) and helps

delineate a number of vital methodological categories for use in undertaking a

rigorous analysis of frames-as-assemblages. These include a set of social,

geographical and media ‘milieux’, that is, the underlying probabilistic states or

“virtual articulations … actualized through activities or practices”6 (Wiley et al. 2012,

189). These milieu, while identified specifically to support Wiley, Becerra et al.’s

research into the subjective creation of social space, broadly reflect the three

dominant lenses through which assemblages are interpreted in Deleuze and Guattari’s

original assertion:

An assemblage, in its multiplicity, necessarily acts on semiotic flows, material flows, and social flows simultaneously […] There is no longer a tripartite division between a field of reality (the world) and a field of representation […] and a field of subjectivity […] Rather, an assemblage establishes connections between certain multiplicities drawn from each of these orders” (Deleuze and Guattari 1987, 23)

By synthesizing and simplifying Deleuze and Guattari’s account Wiley, Becerra et al.

outline a set of basic categories for use in analyzing the expressive, material and

6 Adopted in the Deleuzian sense. See Wiley, Becerra, et al (2012, 193: n. 3)

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subjective components of assemblages.7 For simplicity, I have distilled and

reproduced Wiley et al.’s model in Table 1:

Table 1 – Key attributes of assemblages governing reproduction of social space

Milieu Type Network Type

Constitutive attributes

Expressive components

Articulatorypractices

Social / subjective Social People; interpersonal communications

Narratives; spatial frames

Inter-personal interaction

Geographical Place Places; paths; means of transport

Physical channelling; spatial expression

Practices of emplacement & displacement; flows of mobility

Media Media Media; media contents

Agendas; narratives; spatial frames

Media use

While specific to their own particular research, such a model offers a number of

potential benefits for the development of a robust methodology for analyzing frames-

as-assemblages. For example, Wiley et al.’s identification of the subjective,

geographical and media milieux and their actualization through corresponding

rhizomatic networks provides a suitable top-level set of categories for the basis of an

analysis of frames-as-assemblages. Consequently, their model further makes a useful

distinction between the representational content produced and the material practices

articulating each network. Finally, using examples specific to their research, Wiley et

al. potentially identify a set of constituting actors – both material (organic and man-

made) and human. Although the final material practices and expressive content

relevant to my analysis can only be confirmed following initial research, Wiley et al.

offer, I believe, a tentative indicator of how a model for the analysis of frames-as-

assemblages might be realized.

While the detail of how such a model for analyzing frames-as-assemblages can be

fully articulated and operationalized remains to be fully developed, it is hopefully

clear that adopting such an approach can move the investigation and analysis of

frames-as-assemblages closer, however slightly, to a practical reality. While this

7 It is important to note that because assemblage components and processes must be ‘discovered’ (Wiley, Becerra et al 2010; Wiley, Sutko, et al 2012) through “causal intervention” (‘DeLanda 2006, 31) the categories given here are primarily related to Wiley, Becerra et al’s research. While useful as a guide to identify potential features and attributes in other studies, can only act as proxy or potential indicators.

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process is still underway, I would suggest that a final working methodology would

provide media and communications researchers with a better understanding of the

mediated power struggles being played out in contemporary networked environments

in two distinct ways. Firstly, such analyses would potentially enable researchers to

identify and account for the interaction between material & expressive components

stabilizing, territorializing and coding frames-as-assemblages – as well as

deterritorializing them. Secondly, such research would also offer the opportunity to

conduct more in-depth analysis of specific frames-as-assemblages by mapping their

more enduring influences and constitutive features. This, potentially could yield the

identification and thus further analysis of frames-as-assemblages’ ‘ideal types’ in

order to gain insights into the “longer-term tendencies” of the materially and

expressively mediated assembly processes.

Returning to the conference’s original call for papers, I want to conclude that framing

does indeed continue to offer “valuable insights” into relations between mediated and

mediating actors. But framing – as I have hopefully demonstrated – only remains a

valid theory inasmuch as it is able to become reconfigured to account for the wider

network and materialist oriented transformations taking place. Revitalizing framing

through the conceptual and methodological model of frames-as-assemblages, I

believe, offers researchers the opportunity to assess adequately the emerging

processes of mediation within networked, hybrid media environment.

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