Social Construction

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The process where society defines issues and problems is called social construction. As we know, issues can be defined in an infantine amount of ways, therefore they can be spun in the particular direction of a certain point of view or political debate. This relates to how society chooses to to tell the story of the problem. With this, a group can create and spread a story that works in that groups particular interest. Symbols and numbers can also be used in social construction. (Birkland, 2016, p. 222). Recent allegations of sexual harassment in the workplace has been taking headlines. Lauren Sivan, a reporter in Los Angeles and an accuser of Harvey Weinstein stated that now is a tipping point for the industry in sexual harassment and discrimination against women. She mentions that we will look back on these times and know that this is when it all started to change (O'Malley, 2017). The issue of sexual harassment in the workplace is socially constructed in the sense of the stories that back it. According to Birkland (2016) and Stone (2012), story telling is an important part of public policy, being that these stories seek to explain what caused the issue, as well as suggesting a solution to the problem. More specifically, casual stories are most often used, which include a narrative interpretation of normative statements about an issue and a particular solution to the issue. The term sexual harassment is new, as of …show more content…

Numbers also play a role in defining the problem of sexual harassment. A simple Google search

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