Keywords and Cultural Change : Frame Analysis of Business Model Public Talk , 1975 – 2000

s from these journal categories. The final sample contained 507 abstracts: the complete set of 166 abstracts from the period 1975 to 1994 and the 341 randomly sampled from 1995 to 2000. Dependent Variable: Business Model Frames We use frame analysis for systematic evidence on the keyword business model.6 Frames are “underlying structures or organizing principles that bind and give coherence to diverse arrays of symbols and idea elements that make up . . . packages of meaning” (Creed et al., 2002:481). Frames manifest in the presence or absence of concepts and phrases in the context of use (Entman, 1991; Gamson, 1992). As Gamson (1992) explains, “[L]ike a picture frame, a frame directs our attention to what is relevant; . . . like the frame of a house, it is an . . . infrastructure that holds together different rooms and gives shape to the edifices of meaning” (quoted in Creed et al., 2002:481). Frame analysis is useful for studying the global-local tension in a discursive context for at least two reasons. First, frame analysis directs attention to the organization of “cultural building blocks” (Creed et al., 2002:479) that can provide clues for how to stabilize the global-local tension. Frame analysis also helps to “diagnose and evaluate” (Gamson, 1992) discursive complexity by “persistent selection, emphasis, and exclusion” (Gitlin, 1980:7) of these cultural building blocks that highlight how keywords take on various meanings. It is an effective methodological strategy to “locate, perceive, identify, and label” (Goffman, 1974:21) the flow of information, paying special attention to connections between the meanings of a keyword and the diverse communities of discourse that use them. Creed et al. (2002:480–81) contend that “framing defines the social arena, including the players and their interests, [and] how players and interests are related.” Consistent with Wuthnow, we focus on struggles over the organization of these frames by different communities of discourse. Following work in social movement and communication studies (c.f., Creed et al., 2002; Entman, 1991; Gamson, 1992; Gamson and Lasch, 1983; Miller, 1997), we detected frames by asking two questions after reading each article abstract: (1) What core concept(s) unify the central ideas in the abstract? (2) How do the concept(s) motivate meaning and/or application of the keyword business model? Core concepts were 6Goffman’s (1974) original usage of frame analysis has been modified and extended by generations of social movement, communication, and organization scholars (Babb, 1996; Creed et al., 2002; Entman, 1991, 1993; Gamson and Modigliani, 1989; Gitlin, 1980; Snow and Benford, 1988; Snow et al., 1986; Williams and Benford, 1996). Although this process has involved controversy, we follow the current conventions in the literature.