Collective Sensemaking Under Frame Manipulation: Bateson Games on Networks

The Bateson Game formalizes strategic ambiguity arising from uncertainty over the inter-pretive frame mapping actions to payoffs, together with a penalty on meta-communication(verification or “Question”). We extend the environment to a networked organization in whichmany Receivers observe noisy private evidence, partially observe others’ actions and outcomes,and exchange cheap-talk (gossip). A strategic Sender manipulates the frame and can selectivelypunish questioning nodes by raising their cost of verification. We identify network-level analoguesof Bateson traps. First, for belief-based frame-inference learners, social learning can stabilizecollective knife-edge ambiguity: beliefs homogenize near a decision threshold even while preferredactions keep switching, producing coordinated confusion and persistent welfare losses. Second, forrobust or ambiguity-averse learners, the primary defense is defensive convergence to verification;selective punishment of strategically positioned questioning nodes (central or bridging roles) col-lapses this defense and restores vulnerability. We show how topology (modularity, centralization,bridge structure) and homophily shape resilience, polarization, and inequality under adversarialframing. All figures and tables referenced below are generated by a fully reproducible Colabnotebook.