Wikipedia’s definition of a Software framework is: a reusable design for a software system… Software frameworks can be object-oriented designs.

In the political world, George Lakoff has been trying to get progressives to think about a different type of frame, as illustrated in his book, Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values, Frame the Debate. Jeffrey Feldman takes this further in his website, Frameshop, where he talks framing the debate.

All of this harkens back psychological frames. Working Psychology defines a frame as ”a psychological device that offers a perspective and manipulates salience in order to influence subsequent judgment..”

It seems as if there are some interesting parallels between psychological terms and technology terms and thinking about technology from a psychological frame is a useful task that isn’t done frequently enough.

One interesting place to explore this is in Marc Andreessen’s blog post, Why there's no such thing as Web 2.0. In the post, Andreessen, criticizes O’Reilly’s short definition of Web 2.0 as lacking crispness. Yet he does talk about O’Reilly’s phrase describing Web 2.0 as an “architecture of participation”.

Well, there are technological design considerations that can help websites facilitate participation. Using forms on a webpage so that people visiting the webpage can contribute content as text, or even upload sounds and pictures to incorporate into the website can facilitate participation. Adding the ability to rate and/or link to other content also facilitates participation. Making the content available as widgets so it can easily be incorporated into other websites facilitates participation.

Yet what are the psychological components that facilitate or inhibit participation online? How do fears about conflict and the persistence of online content inhibit participation? How does the desire to establish relationships and to be heard encourage people to participate? How can people running websites use ideas from psychology to foster participation that will make the website attractive and successful?

I think Andreessen is partially right and partially wrong. Too many of the people talking about Web 2.0 seem to think of it in terms of the underlying technological tools. Yet what really facilitates an architecture of participation isn’t the technology, but an understanding of group dynamics online, and so far, I am not seeing people sufficiently explore these dynamics.