HROs and the Mobilization of Consensus and Action

HROs—the specific type of NGOs focused on human rights issues—gather information that states do not want to be available to the public. Perpetrators of human rights abuses generally prefer to avoid the spotlight so as to be able to continue these practices without scrutiny by global or local audiences. They also wish to avoid being labeled as norm violators, particularly if this results in suffering consequences for their actions. An HRO's power lies in the information it possesses about these abuses, and how it uses that information to mobilize consensus that an issue is a human rights issue, and to mobilize action to address it (Becker Reference Becker2012; Keck and Sikkink Reference Keck and Sikkink1998).

HROs mobilize consensus by spotlighting a rights abuse, and making others perceive that action as an abuse and the perpetrator as an abuser of human rights. HROs can then mobilize action to pressure those perpetrators to change their behavior, and encourage other actors to shame or sanction the perpetrators (Becker Reference Becker2012; Brysk Reference Brysk1993; Keck and Sikkink Reference Keck and Sikkink1998; Krain Reference Krain2012; Murdie Reference Murdie2009; Murdie and Bhasin Reference Murdie and Bhasin2011; Wong Reference Wong2012). Studies have shown that such efforts are often effective at changing the behavior of rights violators, reducing or eliminating the use of particular human rights abuses in many instances (Becker Reference Becker2012; Brysk Reference Brysk1993; Clark Reference Clark2001; Hertel Reference Hertel2006; Hendrix and Wong Reference Hendrix and Wong2013; Keck and Sikkink Reference Keck and Sikkink1998; Krain Reference Krain2012; Murdie Reference Murdie2009; Wong Reference Wong2012). However, some important studies have found that HROs are strategic actors, and that sometimes their efforts can be problematic (Bob Reference Bob2005; Carpenter Reference Carpenter2005; Hafner-Burton Reference Hafner-Burton2008). The contrast in findings suggests that analyzing differences in human rights campaigns may yield insight into differences in HRO effectiveness in changing human rights outcomes.

Although much of the literature has focused on how HROs mobilize consensus and action of elites on the global stage, none of that is possible without micromobilization efforts. HROs mobilize individuals directly, or assist local groups in mobilizing, to pressure targets to change their human rights practices (Keck and Sikkink Reference Keck and Sikkink1998; Murdie and Bhasin Reference Murdie and Bhasin2011). For instance, HRO campaigns spotlighting the practice of manufacturing clothes in sweatshop conditions or with child labor have successfully convinced concerned citizens to view these issues as rights violations, and have triggered the mobilization of consumer boycotts. In turn, these actions have forced multinational corporations and host states to alter their labor practices (Elliott and Freeman Reference Elliott and Freeman2003; Hertel Reference Hertel2006). Similarly, Amnesty International's (AI) Urgent Action campaigns encourage citizen activists to identify an issue as a human rights violation, and to act on it by communicating directly with target governments to urge them to change their behavior. Governments previously able to act in the shadows are besieged with messages from people around the world, making it clear that rights violations no longer go unseen (Hendrix and Wong Reference Hendrix and Wong2013; Wong Reference Wong2012). HRO efforts at educating local populations about human rights issues yield greater appreciation for the human rights environment and a better understanding of governments’ failures to protect such rights (Davis et al. Reference Davis, Murdie and Steinmetz2012; Welch Reference Welch1995). This enables HROs to mobilize citizens to educate lawmakers about the nature and extent of the issues, and attempt to change their political calculus and behavior.

Scholars have noted the far-reaching success of this tactic, from the campaign to end chattel slavery in Great Britain in the 19th century (Wong Reference Wong2012) to the recent campaign in California to abolish sentences of life without parole for juvenile offenders (Becker Reference Becker2012). However, these successes are only possible if HROs are able to convince citizens that a given issue is a human rights issue, and to subsequently take action to change the situation (Davis et al. Reference Davis, Murdie and Steinmetz2012). To accomplish both of these tasks, HROs engage in framing. Despite its centrality to HRO activities, to our knowledge, there are no studies in the academic literatureFootnote ² or within the advocacy community that explicitly examine under what conditions framing is effective as a tool to build consensus and action mobilization on human rights issues. In conversations with key figures in international HROs such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Catholic Relief Services, advocacy professionals routinely noted that HROs would love to know what type(s) of framing works, both to design more effective campaigns and to justify efforts and expenditures to funders, but do not have the resources to examine the relative effects of these efforts. We contribute to this gap in the academic literature and in the knowledge base of practitioners by analyzing which framing strategies are most effective at aligning citizen views about human rights issues with that of the organization, and which are most effective at mobilizing citizens to act.

The Use of Frames to Mobilize Consensus and Action

Frames are the rhetorical lenses or “schemata of interpretation” that help actors construct the way in which issues are likely to be viewed or understood (Goffman Reference Goffman1974, 21). There are many frames through which individuals can view a given issue or situation (Benford and Snow Reference Benford and Snow2000; Chong and Druckman Reference Chong and Druckman2007). The frame employed affects how individuals process information, and helps individuals assign larger sociopolitical or cultural meaning to their own experiences and understandings (Domke et al. Reference Domke, Shah and Wackman1998; Scheufele Reference Scheufele1999). Framing is the process by which some actor constructs a particular perception of reality about that issue by causing individuals to “develop a particular conceptualization of an issue or reorient their thinking about an issue” (Chong and Druckman Reference Chong and Druckman2007, 104; see also Goffman Reference Goffman1974; Nelson and Oxley Reference Nelson and Oxley1999).

Framing is a particularly effective way for political entrepreneurs to influence individuals as they consider information about sociopolitical issues. Framing affects how individuals connect their values to political issues (Brewer Reference Brewer2002; Nelson et al. Reference Nelson, Clawson and Oxley1997). When exposed to a particular frame, people tend to assign greater weight to the value that the frame invokes (Nelson et al. Reference Nelson, Clawson and Oxley1997). Frames have even been found to “influence how citizens explain their thoughts about an issue in their own words” (Brewer Reference Brewer2002, 304).

Transnational advocacy networks, like other social movements and their component organizations, must frame issues to “make them comprehensible to target audiences, to attract attention and encourage action” (Keck and Sikkink Reference Keck and Sikkink1999, 90). Movements and organizations actively engage in the framing of social problems to bring individuals’ views on the issues at hand in line with their own, a process known as consensus mobilization (Klandermans Reference Klandermans1984). Since consensus mobilization is necessary for movement participation, the ability to effectively employ frames plays a significant part in action mobilization and the ability to shape public policy (Gamson Reference Gamson, Johnston and Klandermans1995; Klandermans Reference Klandermans1984; Snow et al. Reference Snow, Rochford, Worden and Benford1986; Snow and Benford, 1992). However, action mobilization is not a guaranteed outcome, and may require additional framing efforts (Klandermans Reference Klandermans, Klandermans, Kriesi and Tarrow1988).

Different frames have different impacts on the importance that individuals place on their beliefs about issues and action, and elicit different responses from those individuals (Druckman Reference Druckman2001; Shen Reference Shen2004). For example, the voter mobilization literature suggests that an individual is more likely to vote when he or she perceives his or her vote as instrumental to affecting the outcome, when the costs of voting are minimal, and when the psychic benefits of participation are high (Duffy and Tavits, Reference Duffy and Tavits2008; Sigelman and Berry Reference Sigelman and Berry1982). The latter includes complying with and reiterating social norms about participation, and gaining a sense of efficacy and importance through being able to express one's preference (Riker and Ordeshook, Reference Riker and Ordeshook1968). In short, different frames tap into different elements that may be critical to one's decision to participate politically, such as lowered costs of participating, greater feelings of empathy, or an increased sense of efficacy and agency. It is to these themes that we now turn.

Informational Frames

Informational frames are frames that provide objective information or statistics. These frames rely on the assumption that by increasing an individual's knowledge about the issue, s/he is more likely to see the issue as problematic and want to do something about it. Studies have found that the more knowledge individuals have about human rights issues, the more likely they are to report greater interest in human rights, an increased desire to get involved, and a greater likelihood of engaging in human rights activism (Cohrs et al. Reference Cohrs, Maes, Moschner and Kielmann2007; Stellmacher et al. Reference Stellmacher, Sommer and Brähler2005). In addition, voter mobilization studies show that providing factual information about an issue reduces the costs associated with information gathering, yielding a significant and sizeable impact on an individual's likelihood of political participation (Haspel and Knotts Reference Haspel and Knotts2005; Ladner and Pianzola Reference Ladner, Pianzola, Tambouris, Macintosh and Glassey2010; Larcinese Reference Larcinese2007).

HROs routinely use an informational frame to leverage their strengths in gathering and disseminating information about abuses to help inform and mobilize. As Jo Becker, a twenty-year veteran of numerous global and local human rights campaigns, notes, “[b]y spotlighting patterns of abuse, advocates can often let facts speak for themselves” (Becker Reference Becker2012, 251). Becker notes that the campaign to abolish sentences of life without parole for juvenile offenders “backed its arguments regarding young people's capacity for rehabilitation with recent findings from neuroscience on adolescent brain development,” information that proved key to mobilizing consensus on this human rights issue (Becker Reference Becker2012, 228). In fact, she reports that “when asked about the most effective aspect of the campaign, two family members of juvenile offenders serving life terms had a similar response. ‘Cold hard facts’ . . .” (Reference Becker2012, 241). Similarly, Keck and Sikkink (Reference Keck and Sikkink1998, 183) report that the international women's movement found its greatest successes in “promoting change by reporting facts.” Movement activists used that information both to shame governments into addressing human rights abuses and to inspire greater mobilization of grassroots activists.

Few studies have specifically examined the effectiveness of NGOs’ use of informational frames in changing attitudes and behavior. A notable exception is the work done by Davis et al. (Reference Davis, Murdie and Steinmetz2012), which demonstrated that public opinion about state respect for human rights changes when citizens are provided with information about government abuses by HROs. Absent such information, people do not change their beliefs about their government's respect for human rights, even in the face of worsening governmental abuses of those rights.

Informational frames should be effective at providing requisite information necessary to change opinions and mobilize consensus, and to increase the likelihood of the mobilization of action.Footnote ⁴ Thus, we hypothesize:

Because informational frames gain their power via the provision of facts, we further hypothesize:

Personal Frames

Personal frames focus the audience's attention on a particular episode such as the plight of an individual, rather than on broader factual information about the rights issue. Like a testimonial, but told by a third party, a personal frame “personifies abuse as the story of a single suffering individual who is warranted as representative, while it is narrated with features that connect to mass publics” (Brysk Reference Brysk2013, 12). It trades a focus on cold hard facts, which may create distance from the audience, for the humanization of victims of the abuse, and the creation of empathy. It is used intentionally to personalize, dramatize, and emotionalize the issue (Valkenburg et al. Reference Valkenburg, Semetko and De Vreese1999). This common convention in journalism, but also in activism, has a significant effect on viewer perceptions (Iyengar Reference Iyengar1991; Zillmann Reference Zillmann1999).

For instance, in one type of personal frame, an injustice frame, “movements identify the ‘victims’ of a given injustice and amplify their victimization” (Benford and Snow Reference Benford and Snow2000, 615; see also Gamson Reference Gamson, Johnston and Klandermans1995). The audience is asked to empathize with the victims, perhaps by imagining themselves or a loved one facing a similar situation. In an unscripted, but perfect illustration, when asked how AI goes about convincing the skeptic to care about a particular human rights issue, Dr. Carole Nagengast, Chair of AI-USA Board of Directors responded:

By establishing a personal connection between the reader and the individual in the story, the audience is more likely to feel empathy and to prioritize the issue and want to affect change (Carpenter Reference Carpenter2005; Scheufele Reference Scheufele1999).

Studies of media framing seem to bear out that personal frames play a crucial role in the way individuals process information. One study found that “respondents who had just read a story framed in terms of human interest emphasized emotions and individual implications in their responses significantly more often” (Valkenburg et al. Reference Valkenburg, Semetko and De Vreese1999, 565). Humanization and identification with victims have been shown to have powerful effects on mobilizing consensus and action (Hunt Reference Hunt2007; Monroe Reference Monroe1996). Small and Lowenstein's (Reference Small and Loewenstein2003) experiment demonstrated that narratives about “identifiable victims” were more likely to evoke sympathy and move people to donate to causes working on their behalf than more informational narratives about “statistical victims.” Similarly, Kogut and Ritov (Reference Kogut and Ritov2005) found that participants in their experiments were more willing to help a single identified victim than multiple nonidentified ones, and confirmed that this effect was as a result of the respondent's emotional reaction to the identifiable victim. It appears that while information can be persuasive, framing issues in terms of a specific individual is more effective at prompting change.Footnote ⁵

HROs employ personal frames frequently as they try to mobilize their base supporters to act. Since its founding, Amnesty International (AI) has used personal frames very effectively in their campaigns. AI's adoption of “prisoners of conscience” humanized the plight of political prisoners by identifying spotlight cases and telling an evocative story about the individuals in detention and the conditions under which they were held (Benenson Reference Benenson1961). AI then used this personalized information about detention to mobilize volunteers to write letters directly to state officials on the detainee's behalf (Wong Reference Wong2012).

Similarly, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines used emotive images of devastating injuries children sustained as a result of landmine accidents to humanize the victims and stir emotions of politicians and potential activists alike. The United Nations Association-USA's Adopt a Minefield Program helped members of the public connect on a personal level to the issue by giving them the opportunity to “adopt” a particular area containing landmines, learn more about the individuals and communities affected, and raise funds to remove the mines (Warkentin and Mingst Reference Warkentin and Mingst2000).

This suggests that personal frames should be very effective at eliciting an emotional reaction, personalizing the issue, making it more salient, and making people feel a greater need to act. We hypothesize:

Since personal frames gain their power via the evocation of an emotional reaction through identification with and humanization of the victims of rights abuses, we further hypothesize:

Motivational Frames

In the social movement literature, motivational frames are consistently recognized as affecting behavior (Benford and Snow Reference Benford and Snow2000). Social movement organizations (SMOs) are faced with the task of convincing members that the cause they are fighting for is both obtainable and worthy of action. Motivational frames are a call to arms “intended to mobilize potential adherents and constituents, to garner bystander support and to demobilize antagonists” (Benford and Snow Reference Benford and Snow2000, 614). They motivate individuals to act by creating feelings of agency and efficacy—suggesting that they can act, and that their actions can create the desired outcomes (Gamson Reference Gamson, Johnston and Klandermans1995).

When individuals think that their political participation will be pivotal to achieving the outcome they desire, they are more likely to participate (Duffy and Tavits Reference Duffy and Tavits2008; Edlin et al. Reference Edlin, Gelman and Kaplan2007). For instance, in studies of get-out-the-vote campaigns, messages that explicitly appeal to voter efficacy, including explicit statements that “your vote can make a difference” have a significant positive effect on voter mobilization (Green et al. Reference Green, Gerber and Nickerson2003). This is true even when an individual's efforts are not actually pivotal to the success of a campaign, since people tend to overestimate the importance of their own participation (Duffy and Tavits Reference Duffy and Tavits2008). Moreover, participation may be more likely when “a small effort yields a substantial expected social gain” (Edlin et al. Reference Edlin, Gelman and Kaplan2007, 297).

While there has been some analysis of the use of motivational frames in human rights campaigns (Harlow Reference Harlow2012; Kim et al. Reference Kim, Kim and Yoo2014), to our knowledge, there have been no empirical studies of the effectiveness of motivational frames on the behavior of individuals targeted for mobilization by HROs.Footnote ⁶ Given what we know from the voter mobilization and social movements literatures, motivational frames that explicitly call on the individual to act, suggesting that their participation is crucial, and that limited effort can yield a positive social good, should increase the motivation to act and the likelihood of action. Therefore, we hypothesize:

Because motivational frames explicitly work by increasing individuals’ sense of personal agency, we hypothesize:

Although these direct appeals for action on their own may successfully mobilize individuals in get out the vote or blood drive campaigns, where the issue is already so thoroughly contextualized and its importance imbedded in public discourse as to not require additional justification, we do not expect this to necessarily transfer to such contested issues as human rights. Because motivational frames do not contain detailed information about the issue, nor do they present personal narratives to humanize the victims, we hypothesize:

The hypotheses above address two central research questions: First, are informational, personal, and motivational frames effective at mobilizing consensus and action on human rights issues? Are individuals who see human rights campaigns featuring one of these framing strategies more likely to agree that a violation has occurred, and subsequently more likely to get involved in a campaign to end the practice? Second, if they are effective, what is the mechanism through which these frames change individuals’ beliefs and actions?

However, a third question remains—which of these commonly used framing strategies is most effective? Knowing which technique is most likely to yield the greatest effects is of paramount importance for HROs facing significant resource constraints. It is not surprising that motivational frames are so important in voter mobilization campaigns, as much of what we know about voting suggests how central an individual's calculation about her or his impact is to their decision. Yet this logic does not work as well in application to human rights activism, where most theorizing suggests the importance of empathy and emotional reaction in mobilizing consensus and action. Similarly, information about human rights abuses may be important in spurring mobilization, but we believe it is not sufficient. Facts alone should do less to make others focus on the problem as central and in need of their action than efforts that help people identify with other humans in distress.

We argue that there is an inherent fit between human rights issues and personal frames. By definition, human rights focus on those rights or freedoms that are necessary to preserving the basic humanity of all persons. Empathy generated by personal narratives about the humanity of others was crucial to the development and diffusion of the very idea of human rights (Hunt Reference Hunt2007), as well as altruism inherent in the willingness to act on behalf of the suffering of others (Monroe Reference Monroe1996). Personal frames remind the audience of the inalienability of these rights by humanizing the subject and connecting the audience to him or her. They should elicit strong emotional reactions based on a connection formed from a sense of a common humanity, and the recognition of the inhumanity of rights abuses. This, in turn, should yield both consensus and action mobilization. Therefore, we hypothesize:

Table 1 below summarizes each hypothesis according to the research question being examined.

TABLE 1.

Hypotheses