 In this section we're going to be discussing what makes a problem a social problem. This is important because a lot of times we talk about problems with the world, but they don't result in actual working towards social change. So the question is what exactly has to happen to move from just bitching about a problem to actually creating organizations and collecting money and getting information out to people and getting people to work towards your goals. There is a book written by a woman, a sociologist named Donalene Lasecki, who actually outlines what a successful social problem claim is by she looked at a number of successful social problems claims and was able to sort of tease out a framework of the things that happen that make a social problem successful. Now understand we're defining successful as it results in not so much succeeding in changing the problem, but in succeeding and convincing other people that this really is a problem that needs to be addressed by resources. So the first thing that has to happen is that you have to demonstrate that the problem is public, that it is not a personal problem or a private problem, but rather a problem that concerns a large group of people. And this is where a lot of political debate in our country is right now because on the right side of the aisle we have a lot of people who believe that the most of the things that we call problems are things that ought to be solved in a private way that should not have government involvement or other kinds of intervention. Where the other side of the aisle, the left side of the aisle is like no, no, we have to address this, we have to address it directly. So this creates a schism in the debates that go on within our political system and it also creates questions about various charities and social organizations that attempt to make changes. So the first thing to be successful is that you have to convince people that this really is something that should be addressed on a public level. This usually involves developing a set of facts, objective facts that one can point to, usually in the form of numbers like this affects three out of five people or at a particular rate a group of people will be involved with this or a percentage or something like that. So you usually just can't stand up and say, oh you know this hurts and then have a lot of people flock to your cause. You have to kind of demonstrate through numbers that this cause is affecting a lot of people and that it can be measured. Then there is a word that you need to know called typifications. So like stereotypes in some ways, a stereotype is a kind of typification but it isn't just limited to stereotypes but these are basically symbols that people buy into usually emotionally. So a typification might be a starving child. It might be a struggling drug addict. It might be a person who is living on the streets. So there are these kind of symbols or pictures that we have in our head that oftentimes evoked emotional responses from us and these typifications are often used in convincing other people that this is an important issue that they should be addressing. And then the last thing is probably overlooked a lot but it definitely has to be part of the equation. There has to be some sort of uneven distribution or division of power and the reason that we know this is because if people had the power, if the people who had the power actually wanted to change the issue, they would have already done it. So there has to be a group of people who could make a difference, who are not making a difference and a group of people who do not have the power all by themselves to make a difference, who are appealing to or struggling to get the people with the power or take the power from the people with the power in order to make that change. So that uneven distribution, that division of power is always going to be a part of this and it needs to be addressed. So how do we construct? The word construct here just simply means putting together a building, a case. How do we construct a social problems claim? Well there are four elements to this that we're going to go over. Claims making, claims makers and the audience. So let's address them one at a time. Claims and claims making. A claim has to be measurable to be a successful social problems claim. I'll give you an example. I can make the social problems claim poverty sucks and that wouldn't be that hard to convince people of but it really isn't going to result in a lot of action because it is not measurable. How much does it suck? Does it suck more this year than it did last year? Will it suck less? If we do this, how do we measure that? We can't. So a more convincing social problems claim was made by a Nobel Peace Prize winner named Muhammad Yunus who said poverty is the result of a lack of assets. He made this claim and then he started something called microlending in which he set up banks where people in developed countries could invest money and give loans to people in developing countries and this would lift them out of poverty. So it's very easy to measure, well it's not easy but it's very possible to measure somebody's assets, how much they own, whether or not they are increasing their assets, all of these things are possible. So that measurable claim got to a cause of poverty and was easy to capture the audience's imagination with how to go about knowing whether they were making a difference. There also usually is a certain amount of panic or worry or fear in claims making and this is because you've got to get attention in a very competitive situation because there are a lot of people making claims out there, a lot of people trying to get attention and as such then you want to be the one who is most urgent, the one that needs the most attention right now. And this leads to constructing two things. One is sympathetic victims, sympathetic victims are victims who essentially are being hurt through no fault of their own and this is why probably the most successful social problems claims in some way or another will include the impact on children because children are very sympathetic victims, they are not perceived as being a victim by their own means, they're perceived as innocent and then you also need unsympathetic villains. Unsympathetic villains are usually not going to be persons because a person is multifaceted and you can think oh my god this person, this thing is evil and then you meet the person and he's a really nice guy. There's a documentary film called The Corporation that has this really great scene in it where this group is going to the CEO's house of British Petroleum or Shell, I think it was Shell Oil and so they're going to the CEO's house of Shell, the CEO of Shell Oil, his house in a London suburb and they get there and the first thing that happens is it turns out to be this little suburban home in a cul-de-sac so it's not a big mansion, I mean this guy's a billionaire or multi-millionaire and then while they're protesting at this cul-de-sac with the signs and everything, the wife of the CEO comes out and offers them tea and cookies and the guy comes out and he's like your uncle, right? He's this nice guy and so it just sort of took the entire wind out of the protest because it turns out that the CEO of this big bad oil company is actually a human being who lives in a nice little suburb who is very friendly and wants to listen to you. So you're going to be more successful if you paint institutions or ideas as the villain rather than individuals. There are few people in the world who are truly completely unsympathetic and so generally these are not persons but rather ideas or institutions so you know an unsympathetic villain is like a multinational corporation, you hear that a lot. You don't talk about specific companies or specific CEO's or board of directors but rather the sort of vague but menacing multinational corporation. And then you also have to have some sort of solution implied in your claim. People have to get a sense that if they listen to you and start worrying about this that there is some hope of solving it and then finally there has to be some sort of call to action. You need to be saying okay this is a problem and what you need to do is give us money or this is a problem and what you need to do is sign this petition or this is a problem and what you need to do is volunteer your time. We bitch about a lot of things in the world and if you don't have this call to action then the claims are probably going to just come across as complaints rather than as something that will lead to actual social change. You also have to have the right spokesperson for your claim. And the best spokesperson are going to be credible, they're going to have some believability to them, they're going to get the attention of the people that you want to pay attention. And so the three biggest claims makers that usually succeed are victims. When victims discuss what has happened to them it's very hard to say to them oh it doesn't hurt, you know I don't believe you, those kind of things. So victims are an important claims maker, experts especially if you have like a scientific side to something or a particular kind of research that has been done that supports your claim. It's always good to have you know somebody with credentials, somebody with experience, somebody who's done the research to stand up and point to this and say you know this is what needs to change. And then a group that is not necessarily more credible but they are certainly capable of being more believable and they will definitely get more attention are celebrities. So quite a few causes and ideas out there are supported by celebrities and this helps make them more successful. And then finally you have to have the right audience. The right audience for your claim is going to be the audience that has the most power to actually make the change. So if you want to change a law your audience is going to be lawmakers. Mothers Against Drunk Driving is a very successful social problems claim campaign and they started out with the claim that the laws that were on the books about drunk driving were not being enforced. And so they were talking about law enforcement and because they were talking about law enforcement the first thing that they did is they went to police departments and judges with information educating them across the country saying to them you know we need to basically really enforce the laws that are on the books. So they went to the right people the right audience and that's how they successfully pushed forward their social problems claim. The audience needs to be invincible. You're not going to be arguing with your enemies. You're not going to be trying to convince people who have no sympathy towards your cause. You've got to you know pick people who are going to be interested and listen to it. And then it's not going to be the general public. A lot of people this is where they fell apart. They think we've got to convince everybody. Or we've got to convince you know a whole lot of people. You might use the general public to convince the lawmaker or to convince the policymaker or whatever to help you put pressure on it. But the ultimate audience is going to be whoever has the power to change things. So probably on a test somewhere there'll be something about not general public as a good audience.