Project Strategic Framing Approach - The Strategy Table

Considering the different drivers and constrains of each party within a Joint Venture, the strategy table is an effective tool that provides a structured workflow to guarantee objectives alignment and to maximize value creation for all the Stakeholders during a pre-feasibility study. Eni used this opportunity framing approach to define alternative project development strategy options with the aim to create value for all the stakeholders. Thanks to this guided and structured approach each party, within a Joint Venture, can present and compare his view with others. Using the strategy table tool, as framing approach, allows to identify alternative development strategies (bookends) as a combination of strategic options applicable for a given strategy theme. Furthermore, a clear objectives (what) and rationale (why) associated to each strategy will be defined to support the evaluation. The range of strategy themes identified helps to test the potential tradeoff between various fundamental objectives. Through a structured process, characterized by the definition, framing, evaluation and decision phases, it is possible to streamline the alternative strategy themes options and rank them in terms of value creation for the stakeholders. Using the strategy table tool, as framing approach, implies a decision-making process that allows to choose the strategy that best achieves our goal while also reducing our exposure to risks. Frequently the decision structure of a problem is complex, especially when the decision being considered relates to a large of scale project involving many sub-decisions. The Strategy Table helps the project management team to achieve an informed decision since it allows to evaluate what we are planning to achieve, understanding what our options are and considering how each option performs with reference to our objectives and project risks. Once the bookends for all the strategy themes are defined (i.e. selected strategic choices for each focus decision), a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis is performed to qualitatively assess the identified strategies against strategic objectives and a short-list of strategies on which focus on more in details is defined. The final outcome represents the most promising development strategies to be tested during pre-feasibility and feasibility studies.

Framing as a Social Movement’s Transnational Strategy: The Gülen Movement’s EU-Turkey Discourses in the Post-2016 Online Media

This paper focuses on framing as a social movement’s transnational strategy. Applying the cultural approach to framing analysis, it investigates how the Gülen movement, as a social group with restricted access to national gatekeepers, uses discourse to internationalise a domestic power struggle with a powerful opponent. Moving the struggle to the international arena presents a discursive opportunity that determines which ideas become visible and legitimate both internationally and nationally. The importance of such internationalization increases in times of conflict and the media play a vital role in this process. The paper argues that the editors of the pro-Gülen movement foreign online platforms established after the movement was forced into exile following the failed 2016 coup, use strategic framing to tailor their frames for the host context and culture. That increases the resonance of their frames and the potential of the discursive opportunity. The article confirms the previous findings that media are a crucial resource for transnational social movements because policymakers are sensitive to public opinion, which is shaped by media frames.

Strategic framing of genome editing in agriculture: an analysis of the debate in Germany in the run-up to the European Court of Justice ruling

New techniques in genome editing have led to a controversial debate about the opportunities and uncertainties they present for agricultural food production and consumption. In July 2018, the Court of Justice of the European Union defined genome editing as a new process of mutagenesis, which implies that the resulting organisms count as genetically modified and are subject, in principle, to the obligations of EU Directive 2001/18/EG. This paper examines how key protagonists from academia, politics, and the economy strategically framed the debate around genome editing in agriculture in Germany prior to its legal classification by the Court of Justice. It is based on an analysis of 96 official statements, including position papers, press releases, and information brochures. Our study reveals eight strategic frames used in the discourse on genome editing and uncovers the strategies used to disconnect from or connect with the previous discourse on green genetic engineering in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Building on competitive framing theory, the study provides explanations for the use and emergence of counter-framing strategies and their success or failure in the debate around genome editing.

Strategic Framing Matters But Varies: A Structural Topic Modeling Approach to Analyzing China’s Foreign Propaganda About the 2019 Hong Kong Protests on Twitter

Drawing upon the approach of strategic framing, this study investigated how China’s state-run media mobilize foreign propaganda machine and use specific patterns to describe the 2019 Hong Kong protests on Twitter. It also shed light on the heterogeneity of both production and reception of the strategic frames used by state media. Structural topic modeling was employed to analyze a large amount of Twitter content (i.e., 14,412 tweets) posted by 13 verified organizational accounts, and six strategic frames were identified as conflicts and violence, calling for stability and order, marginalizing protests, criticizing the West as accomplices, delegitimizing protests, and social and economic disruption. These frames highlighted insider–outsider and causes and consequences as two overarching communication strategies. The results also revealed that the bureaucratic rank of state media and the engagement rate of each tweet were closely associated with the content prevalence of various strategic frames. In addition to enhancing our understanding of the construction of “protest paradigm” against the social media context, these empirical findings uncover the often overlooked mobility and flexibility of China’s state media discourse as well as the communication ecology shaped and consolidated by the increasing importance state media communicators attach to online engagement metrics.

Reimagining the Medieval: The Utility of Ethnonational Symbols for Reactionary Transnational Social Movements

Scholars have explored the rise of far-right reactionary political parties in Europe over the last decade. However, social movements reflecting similar political orientations have rarely been conceptualized as “reactionary.” To better understand the political orientations of reactionary transnational social movements such as the Identitarians and the Defence Leagues, we explore how and why ethnonational symbols derived from the medieval period are utilized by adherents. This interdisciplinary investigation argues that, through processes of mediated political medievalism, ethnonational symbols are used as strategic framing devices to reimagine an idealized “golden age” of distinct European nations, to assign blame for the erosion of ethnonational identity through multiculturalism, immigration and “Islamization,” to establish an intergenerational struggle against the supposed incursion of Islam in Europe, and to proscribe and justify the use of violence as a means of re-establishing the primacy of European nations.

Beyond Clicktivism: What Makes Digitally Native Activism Effective? An Exploration of the Sleeping Giants Movement

This article explores how successful digitally native activism generates social change. Digitally native movements are initiated, organized, and coordinated online without any physical presence or pre-existing offline campaign. To do so, we explore the revelatory case of Sleeping Giants (SG)—an online movement that led more than 4,000 organizations to withdraw their programmatic advertising spend from Breitbart, a far-right publisher. Analyzing 3.5 million tweets related to the movement along with qualitative secondary data, we used a mixed method approach to investigate the conditions that favored SG emergence, the organizing and coordinating practices of the movement, and the strategic framing practices involved in the tuning of the movement’s language and rhetoric toward its targets. Overall, we contribute to research on online movements and shed light on the pivotal role of peer production work and of language in leading an impactful online movement that aimed to counter online disinformation and hate speech.