Advantages Of The Objective View Of Social Problem

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The objective outlook on social problems considers anything that is harmful to society as a social problem (Best pg #). There are many things that are harmful to society, such as individual’s large reliance on smartphones, industries replacing individuals with automation, and the U.S.’s increasing elder population. The objective outlook attempts to group these problems together, but thus sacrifices specificity which is one of the problems with this outlook (Best 2013: 7-8). Something that impacts only a single individual, such as job loss, has a miniscule impact on society, whereas an entire sector of an industry being let go across the country can have a disastrous impact on society. The objective view does not effectively define the harm …show more content…

The subjective outlook states that social problems are social constructs (meaning assigned to things by people) and cause people to have subjective reactions (Owens 1/10/18). This viewpoint focuses on why and how people consider problems to be social problems (Best 2016: 10). Some advantages of the subjective outlook include the focus on the social problems process and social constructions. The social problems process works to determine how something becomes a social problem (Best 2013: 14). The subjective view asks people to not simply define a social problem, but instead asks people to question why and how something becomes a social problem because this process can help discover the root issues and can help create solutions (Best 2013: 14). The subjective viewpoint also asks people to understand social constructions because social constructs shape the way people see things and ultimately determine if something is a social problem to them (Best 2013: …show more content…

To convince my peers that USC’s tuition is a social problem, I would implement the rhetorical strategies of typifying examples and statistics from the grounds component of claimsmaking. These would be effective within the social problems marketplace because the typifying example would immediately catch the reader’s attention and be something memorable so that they can share with others. I would also use statistics to quantify the problem of high tuition so that students can realize that many individuals and families must make significant sacrifices to attend USC because tuition cost is likely the biggest concern to many USC

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