What is Frame Alignment

This study brings into conversation various discourses of faith groups with scientific, government, and other organizations in order to trace how religious/spiritual communities frame societal crises through their language use in response to two interrelated crises, the COVID-19 pandemic, and recent manifestations of systemic racism. The authors use theories and methodologies of metaphorical framing to analyze how different faith organizations communicated with their members or others about the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests in order to understand what role faith communities play in communicating public health and civil issues, what kinds of framing faith communities are mediating, and how their communication genres impact uptake. The authors' analysis seeks to understand how faith communities can effectively mitigate the harms of these crises rhetorically and how generative dialogues could look in the future.