Chapter 2

Social Problems
Chapter 2
Youngjoon Bae

Rhetoric of Claims
Slide 1
Claimsmakers attempt to persuade others that
something is a social problem.
What are some examples of this?
Social Problems, Third Edition
Copyright © 2016 W.W. Norton & Company

Rhetoric of Claims
Slide 2
 Rhetoric is the study of persuasion.
 Constructing social problems is rhetorical.
 Three fundamental components of
persuasive arguments:
 Grounds
 Warrants
 Conclusions

Rhetoric of Claims
Slide 3
 Grounds: identifying the troubling condition
 Grounds often follow a rhetorical recipe with
three ingredients.

Rhetoric of Claims
Slide 4
1. Grounds often start with a typifying
example of the problem.
 These stories do not always reflect
“typical” cases.
2. The problem is named and given an
orientation.
 Type of medical condition, abuse, etc.
3. Statistics imply how bad the condition is.

Rhetoric of Claims
Slide 5
 More rhetorical devices used to establish
grounds:
 Claiming that the problem is getting
progressively worse
 Categorizing the problem as a recognizable
type, such as crime or disease

Rhetoric of Claims
Slide 6
 More rhetorical devices used to establish
grounds:
 Painting the groups involved as either victims
or villains
 Claiming that many different kinds of people
are hurt by the troubling condition
 Challenging preexisting ways of constructing
the social problem

Rhetoric of Claims
Slide 7
 Warrants: explaining why people should care
 A claim’s warrants justify doing something.
 Claims utilize values.
 Since different people have different values,
claimsmakers use multiple warrants to cover
the reasons why people might care.

Rhetoric of Claims
Slide 8
 Conclusions: what should be done
 The proposed solutions must be in line with
the grounds and warrants.
 Conclusions can include both short-term and
long-term goals and policy changes.

Claims and Audiences
Slide 1
 Valence issues:
 Conditions that nearly everyone will agree are
significant social problems
 Position issues:
 Divisive, controversial topics
 It is more difficult to find agreement, so
claimsmakers target sympathetic audiences.

Slide 2
 Audiences for claims can be segmented.
 Segmented audiences may have different
interests and ideologies.
 Certain demographic groups worry more about
certain social problems than others.

Slide 3
 Audiences are not passive.
 They may seek out some claims and reject
others, picking and choosing social problems.
 Successful claimsmakers pay attention to how
audiences respond to their claims.

Slide 4
 Social problems marketplace
 Audiences hear claims about many problems.
 Claimsmakers struggle to get and keep the
attention of the audience.
 Even if an issue is well-established,
claimsmakers need to keep refining claims.
 They risk losing the attention of policymakers, the
media, and the general public.

Slide 5
 How do claimsmakers refine claims?
 Domain expansion: claimsmakers broaden
the definition of the problem, adding in more
victims to help and villains to confront.
 Piggyback: claimsmakers can rely on
established problems and allow newer claims
to build upon older ones.

Slide 6
 Most claims inspire counterclaims.
 Counterclaims often involve disputes over
grounds or warrants.
 “Stat wars” focus on which statistics are true.
 Debates over ideologies are usually linked to
warrants.
 Both sides modify claims as a response to
counterclaims.

Cultural Resources
Slide 1
 Claimsmakers can make any kind of claim.
 However, their claims need to make sense to
the intended audiences.
 Claimsmaking requires an understanding of
the cultural context in which claims are made.

Cultural Resources
Slide 2
 Claimsmakers tap into cultural resources, the
well of words, ideas, and images that most
people (of that culture) respond to.

Cultural Resources
Slide 3
 Culture is constantly changing.
 Claimsmakers are not always consistent in
the cultural resources that they use.
 They might frame the same issue in many
ways to appeal to a variety of audiences.

Cultural Resources
Slide 4
 Cultural resources both enrich and limit the
claimsmaking process.
 They provide a broad range of words, images,
and ideas to use.
 They constrain claimsmakers by making them
ground claims.

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