How Historical Context Shapes the Construction of Field-Level Frames: A comparative study of France and Germany’s shale gas debates

This study investigates the shale gas debates in France and Germany, providing a comparative lens on how historical context shapes the construction of field-level frames. Leveraging a structural topic modelling approach, our analysis of over 25,000 newspaper articles reveals that France and Germany’s field-level frames were influenced by unique historical contexts that reflect longstanding differences in their countries’ energy production. While France framed shale gas as inherently in conflict with their energy strategy, Germany framed it as an opportunity aligned with their energy mix. Supplementing the topic modelling results with 78 interviews, we identify three mechanisms through which France and Germany’s historical context of energy production influenced the construction of these frames: (1) historical positioning, which first situated the concept of shale gas within the country’s decades-old understanding of energy; (2) issue labelling, which then constrained actors in how they categorized and discussed the overall debate; and finally (3) bounded mobilization, which, given the positioning and labelling of the issue, limited the actors that could participate in the debates. Taken together, this study offers a rare comparative lens on how field-level frames are influenced by historical contingencies and offers a methodological roadmap for scholars interested in using structural topic modelling to conduct multilingual frame analyses.