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 authors 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

Abstract This paper takes as its starting point the conferences 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 Reeses meta-theory of framing with Manual DeLandas 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.

This paper addresses the conferences 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.

Media Context 1: Networks & Hybridity It 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 conferences 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).

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 selfcommunication 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-topeer 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 UKs 2010 general election (Chadwick 2011b), Chadwick demonstrates that relationships between traditional elite actors, media

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 Guattaris 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 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 fields 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 theorys 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

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 framings 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 metatheories, notably Entman (1993), Scheufele (1999) and DAngelo (2002), have not only perpetuated macro-micro interpretations of framing but, moreover, have helped cement this reductionism as a central pillar of framings over-arching research agenda. The consequences of locking micro-macro reductionist principles into framings general theory (Entman 1993, 57) include a focus on neatly delineated and unproblematic fields of frame analysis. For example, Entmans (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 processoriented models have been developed (e.g. Scheufele 1999; DAngelo 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 (DAngelo 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.

1 Arguably, more recent experimental cognitive approaches to framing research (see Miu and Crian

(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 worlds material realms and functions.

Framing as Organizing Principle 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 Reeses (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 (DAngelo 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 theorys] traditional senderreceiver, 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 Reeses interpretation of framing enables it to be bridged with a broader theoretical framework that, while aligned with Reeses potent - but loosely

defined - framing criteria, augments Reeses theory by underpinning it with an 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 Reeses framing theory with Manuel DeLandas 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 Guattaris 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 Guattaris 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 Guattaris 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 Guattaris 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 Guatarris 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 Guattaris 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 Guattaris work on assemblages into a distinct theory (Shaviro, 2007). DeLandas assemblage theory eliminates the need to engage in Deleuzian hermeneutics and outlines a comprehensible framework to account for and analyse the fluid and

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dynamic processes of assembly that constitute reality (DeLanda, 2006, 3-4). As a result, DeLandas theory codifies Deleuzian concrete assemblages into a robust and 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 Reeses 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

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challenging the establishment of a stable and identifiable structure in frames-asassemblage include relations of exteriority and non-linear causality (DeLanda 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 Terranovas 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?

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One possible solution to this limitation lies within the role played by two subfunctions of the assembling process: coding and universal singularities. DeLanda 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 Modiglianis enduring nuclear power frame (1989); Entmans (2004) Cold War frame; or Reeses (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 assemblages 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

3 Crucially, these over-coded frames shouldnt 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 Deleuzes 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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constrained by other forces. (DeLanda, 2002, 15) [italics in original]. While the presence of universal singularities originates - and is thus more advanced - in the fields of chemistry and physics (DeLanda, 2002; DeLanda 2006, 29) DeLanda suggests that a socially-embedded example is identifiable in Max Webers 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-Assemblages The next question that needs to be posed is how do we attempt to analyse frames-asassemblages? 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.

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Hertog and McLeod assert that an interventionist, interpretive methodology requires study of the means used to frame and reframe events (2001 151) [my emphasis]. Thus, opening up the analysts 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 Guattaris 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 practices6 (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 Guattaris 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)
6 Adopted in the Deleuzian sense. See Wiley, Becerra, et al (2012, 193: n. 3)

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By synthesizing and simplifying Deleuze and Guattaris account Wiley, Becerra et al. outline a set of basic categories for use in analyzing the expressive, material and 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 Social / subjective Network Type Social Constitutive attributes People; interpersonal communications Places; paths; means of transport Expressive components Narratives; spatial frames Physical channelling; spatial expression Agendas; narratives; spatial frames Articulatory practices Inter-personal interaction Practices of emplacement & displacement; flows of mobility Media use

Geographical

Place

Media

Media

Media; media contents

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 framesas-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 manmade) 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-asassemblages 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
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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 als 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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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 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 conferences 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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