Study: Frame Backfire: The Trouble with Civil Rights Appeals in the Contemporary United States (DOI: 10.1177/00031224251333087journals.sagepub.com/home/asr)
Civil rights appeals have historically been instrumental in driving social change and safeguarding human rights in the United States. But invoking civil rights to garner public support for addressing present-day social problems may actually backfire, according to new research from the University of Michigan.
Published in the American Sociological Review, the study shows that while most people hold positive views about civil rights in the abstract, framing contemporary problems such as employment discrimination, sexual harassment, food insecurity and inadequate health care reduces public support for government action.
"Most surprising to us was how widespread the negative effect was," said lead author Fabiana Silva, U-M assistant professor of public policy.
The civil rights framing was counterproductive across diverse issues of discrimination and material deprivation among both beneficiaries-African Americans, Mexican Americans, white Americans and undocumented Mexican immigrants-and audiences-liberals, conservatives, whites, African Americans and Latinos.
One might assume the findings reflect racialized backlash, but such an account would imply that some groups-particularly those most likely to have anti-Black attitudes-would react more negatively than others, Silva says.
Instead, Silva and colleagues found that civil rights framing similarly reduced support for government action across respondent subgroups. In fact, civil rights framing even reduced Black respondents' support for government action to address hardships faced by Black communities, which is not consistent with a straightforward racial backlash account.
The researchers believe this backfire effect occurs because civil rights language triggers comparisons with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, a period marked by state-sanctioned discrimination and violence. Such associations might render today's issues as less severe and inadvertently alienate supporters.
The study suggests activists and policymakers should consider articulating issues around "American values" as a framing strategy.
"We were intrigued to find that not only did American values framing work better than civil rights framing, but also that people have an expansive view of American values," Silva said. "People largely believed that all the problems we examined, including problems of discrimination and material deprivation, represent violations of American values."
