e at a certain place and time, and in a certain language. Languages represent the world in different ways, and in particular represent processes differently, and to ignore fundamental objective conditions such as these is not possible. Strict constructionism is flawed because the physical world offers too much objective feedback to be completely subjectively interpreted. It is not surprising then the majority of constructionists reject the strict approach because of the apparent impossibilities of having no objectiveness when analyzing claimsmaking. The majority of sociologists examining claimsmaking use contextual constructionism, which attempts to locate claimsmaking within its context. [8] Contextual constructionists recognize that claims occur at a particular moment in time, at a certain place, by a specific group or individual. Because claims occur within these contexts, it is important to recognize and understand them, because this is often the key to understanding why a condition is being considered a social problem. Contextualists also study the apparent discrepancies between objective harm and subjective concern. For example how some conditions for which there is great objective harm such as marijuana, receive less attention than something with less objective harm such as cigarettes. Also of importance is how the amount of subjective concern will vary over time, when the amount of objective harm remains constant. Joel Best’s model of the logical structure of claimsmaking contains three main components which are making grounds statements, making warrants, and finally conclusion statements. These components can be applied to any social problem or public issue in order to further understand the claimsmaking process. Rhetoric, which is the use of language and symbols to persuade, is found throughout the model in order to convince others that the claim should concern them. Rhetoric usually takes th...
