One shortcoming in the literature on policy framing has been the absence of analytic models through which to explicate change. This paper advances research in this area in three related ways. First, it links policy frames to the actors who employ them. Second, based upon this linkage it proposes two complementary approaches for examining…

Describes a computer-based methodology for representing mental models as maps, extracting these maps from written and spoken texts, and analyzing and comparing concepts and structures of information within maps. Illustrates the model using data on students and teacher in an undergraduate writing class. Contains about 80 references. (Author/SV)