ABSTRACT
Social constructionists argue that people create the meanings they assign to the objective world around them. This means that any particular condition— drug use, earthquakes, crime, and so on—is not a social problem until people evaluate the condition as frequent, very troublesome, and in need of change. Within a constructionist perspective, a claim is any verbal, visual, or behavioral statement that tries to persuade audience members to take a condition seriously and respond to it as a social problem. Claims-makers are the people who make claims, and audiences are the people who evaluate the believability and importance of claims. Claims-makers compete for audience members' attention. Audiences are the judges and juries for social problems claims and these claims are made by claims-makers. As with audiences, there are many differences among claims-makers. Within this incredible diversity among claims-makers, this chapter focuses on the three most important types, social movement activists, scientists, and mass media.
