The Empirical Approach to the Study of Media Framing

The media impart knowledge and create an awareness of the world people experience, as well as those aspects of our existence which remain unexperienced, unexplained, and hidden. Despite the miles between Sweden and Hollister, California, deviant motorcycle clubs and steadfast police will be understood by an international audience. The process of communication begins with imagination, the spontaneous creation of a meaningful image. The outlaw biker myth is that image, a multipurpose, meaning-making device. Motorcycle outlaws, who have long cultivated independence and a healthy skepticism of bureaucracy and democracy, have managed to meld with the demands of the age. More important to the continued analysis of changes in the framing of outlaw motorcycle clubs, is Cohen's reminder that "the value of the line must continually be reasserted; people can only know what it is to be saintly by being told just what the shape of the devil is".