ABSTRACT
Frame breaking is said to occur when the organization of activity, together with its expectations and norms of social behaviour therein, is disrupted in some way. Each frame can be analysed according to its channel of activity, the ‘laminations’ given to that activity, and the status of its participants. A primary framework is ‘one that is seen as rendering what would otherwise be a meaningless aspect of the scene into something that is meaningful’. Brackets are conventionalized boundary markers, in time and/or space, designed to set something apart from – and thus to anchor it in – the ongoing flow of surrounding events. A fabrication occurs when someone intentionally tries to manage an activity in such a way that one or more of the other participants in a frame will be induced into falsely believing that one thing rather than another is going on.
