The MRAP Seminar
The continuing MRAP seminar is a key mechanism for coordinating the many related projects in which the MRAP group is involved. This seminar meets once a week during both academic terms and creates its weekly agenda based on the activities and interests of its graduate student and faculty participants. It typically consists of 12 to l5 regular attendees, about two-thirds of them Boston College graduate students but including faculty from other departments (Communication, Organizational Studies, and Political Science), and graduate students, faculty, and visiting scholars from other universities in the greater Boston area.
Some members of the seminar continue over several years while others join for a year or two and then move on to other activities. Hence, the seminar typically consists of about three-fourths veterans from previous years and one-fourth newcomers. The seminar builds its agenda each term, based on the interests of the participants. These interests cover a range of issues involving the media and framing strategies of social change organizations engaged in some challenge to political or cultural inequality. While some sessions deal directly with problems and issues we are encountering in ongoing MRAP projects, others involve the presentation of graduate student dissertation proposals and ongoing research, meetings with activists on framing strategies and campaigns in which they are currently engaged, and with journalists on the development of possible working relationships with MRAP and its grassroots partners. This continuing seminar provides the participants with a common vocabulary and a shared model for analyzing framing contests and strategy.