Between “challengers and powerholders”: Framing of issues through dynamic discursive processes in a digital arena

This study explores how the selection of discursive and interactive processes generates specific framings of an issue to advocate opposite positions and to represent a struggle of power between parties with their own agendas. This paper draws from literature on public relations framing, issue arenas and multimodal discourse and reports detailed explorations of qualitative data retrieved from two websites, Protect Mauna Kea and Maunakea and TMT, which frame the Thirty Meter Telescope’s construction on Mauna Kea Mountain in Hawaii from alternative perspectives. The empirical evidence suggests that by connecting the respective issue and related issues to specific concerns, values and beliefs in novel ways, the challengers and powerholders (Steinberg, 1998) attempt to monitor the way in which the issue is understood by existing and potentially supporting groups. The findings also illustrate how the qualitative methodological approach characteristic of discourse analysis can be employed in order to reveal dynamic framing strategies.