Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Rhetorical Resolutions To The Tension Between Issue Ownership And Agency Or What Do You Do With An Old Social Movement?, Christine M. Hirsch 9313586

Proceedings of the New York State Communication Association

This paper will apply Gusfield’s theory of issue ownership to one specific social issue: domestic violence. It will briefly trace the evolution of the issue as a social problem, looking at the battered women’s movement. It will present a case study of a specific, localized issue owner – Boulder County Safehouse, now SPAN (Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence) as it attempts to reframe the problem and expand its control of the issue. Finally, the case study and paper will serve as an exemplar for how other issue owners might meet the challenge of expanding the power of ownership to reframe …