for newspapers or television news programs) and entertainment media (such as television talk shows)—relay activists’ claims to the general public. Reporters often find it easy to turn those claims into interesting news stories; after all, a new social problem is a fresh topic, and it may affect lots of people, pose dramatic threats, and lead to proposals to change the lives of those involved. Media coverage, especially sympathetic coverage, can make millions of people aware of and concerned about a social problem. Activists need the media to provide that coverage, just as the media depend on activists and other sources for news to report.
Often activists also enlist the support of experts—doctors, scientists, economists, and so on—who presumably have special qualifications to talk about the causes and consequences of some social problem. Experts may have done research on the problem and can report their findings. Activists use experts to make claims about social problems seem authoritative, and the mass media often rely on experts’ testimonies to make news stories about a new problem seem more convincing. In turn, experts enjoy the respectful attention they receive from activists and the media.6
Not all social problems are promoted by struggling, independent activists; creating new social problems is sometimes the work of powerful organizations and institutions. Government officials who promote problems range from prominent politicians trying to arouse concern in order to create election campaign issues, to anonymous bureaucrats proposing that their agencies’ programs be expanded to solve some social problem. And businesses, foundations, and other private organizations sometimes have their own reasons to promote particular social issues. Public and private organizations usually command the resources needed to organize effective campaigns to create social problems. They can afford to hire experts to conduct research, to sponsor and encourage activists, and to publicize their causes in ways that attract media attention.7
In other words, when we become aware of—and start to worry about—some new social problem, our concern is usually the result of efforts by some combination of problem promoters—activists, reporters, experts, officials, or private organizations—who have worked to create the sense that this is an important problem, one that deserves our attention. In this sense, people deliberately construct social problems.*
Efforts to create or promote social problems, particularly when they begin to attract attention, may inspire opposition. Sometimes this involves officials responding to critics by defending existing policies as adequate. Recall that New York police minimized the number of prostitutes in the city, just as the Reagan administration argued that activists exaggerated the number of homeless persons. In other cases, opposition comes from private interests; for example, the Tobacco Institute (funded by the tobacco industry) became notorious for, over decades, challenging every research finding that smoking was harmful.
Statistics play an important role in campaigns to create—or defuse claims about—new social problems. Most often, such statistics describe the problem’s size: there are 10,000 prostitutes in New York City, or three million homeless people. When social problems first come to our attention, perhaps in a televised news report, we’re usually given an example or two (perhaps video footage of homeless individuals living on city streets) and then a statistical estimate (of the number of homeless people). Typically this is a big number. Big numbers warn us that the problem is a common one, compelling our attention, concern, and action. The media like to report statistics because numbers seem to be “hard facts”—little nuggets of indisputable truth. Activists trying to draw media attention to a new social problem often find that the press demands statistics: reporters insist on getting estimates of the problem’s size—how many people are affected, how much it costs, and so on. Experts, officials, and private organizations commonly report having studied the problem, and they present statistics based on their research. Thus, the key players in creating new social problems all have reason to present statistics.
In virtually every case, promoters use statistics as ammunition; they choose numbers that will draw attention to or away from a problem, arouse or defuse public concern. People use statistics to support their point of view, to bring others around to their way of thinking. Activists trying to gain recognition for what they believe is a big problem will offer statistics that seem to prove that the problem is indeed a big one (and they may choose to downplay, ignore, or dispute any statistics that might make it seem smaller). The media favor disturbing statistics about big problems because big problems make more interesting, more compelling news, just as experts’ research (and the experts themselves) seem more important if their subject is a big, important problem. These concerns lead people to present statistics that support their position, their cause, their interests. There is an old expression that captures this tendency: “Figures may not lie, but liars figure.” Certainly we need to understand that people debating social problems choose statistics selectively and present them to support their points of view. Gun-control advocates will be more likely to report the number of children killed by guns, while opponents of gun control will prefer to count citizens who use guns to defend themselves from attack. Both numbers may be correct, but most people debating gun control present only the statistic that bolsters their position.8
THE PUBLIC AS AN INNUMERATE AUDIENCE
Most claims drawing attention to new social problems aim to persuade all of us—that is, the members of the general public. We are the audience, or at least one important audience, for statistics and other claims about social problems. If the public becomes convinced that prostitution or homelessness is a serious problem, then something is more likely to be done: officials will take action, new policies will begin, and so on. Therefore, campaigns to create social problems use statistics to help arouse the public’s concern.
This is not difficult. The general public tends to be receptive to claims about new social problems, and we rarely think critically about social problems statistics. Recall that the media like to report statistics because numbers seem to be factual, little nuggets of truth. The public tends to agree; we usually treat statistics as facts.
In part, this is because we are innumerate. Innumeracy is the mathematical equivalent of illiteracy; it is “an inability to deal comfortably with the fundamental notions of number and chance.”9 Just as some people cannot read or read poorly, many people have trouble thinking clearly about numbers.
One common innumerate error involves not distinguishing among large numbers. A very small child may be pleased by the gift of a penny; a slightly older child understands that a penny or even a dime can’t buy much, but a dollar can buy some things, ten dollars considerably more, and a hundred dollars a great deal (at least from a child’s point of view). Most adults clearly grasp what one can do with a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, even one hundred thousand dollars, but then our imaginations begin to fail us. Big numbers blend together: a million, a billion, a trillion—what’s the difference? They’re all big numbers. (Actually, of course, there are tremendous differences. The difference between a million and a billion is the difference between one dollar and one thousand dollars; the difference between a million and a trillion is the difference between one dollar and a million dollars.)
Because many people have trouble appreciating the differences among big numbers, they tend to uncritically accept social statistics (which often, of course, feature big numbers). What does it matter, they may say, whether there are 300,000 homeless or 3,000,000?—either way, it’s a big number. They’d never make this mistake dealing with smaller numbers; everyone understands that it makes a real difference whether there’ll be three people or thirty coming by tomorrow night for dinner. A difference (thirty is ten times greater than three) that seems obvious with smaller, more familiar numbers gets blurred when we deal with bigger numbers (3,000,000 is ten times greater than 300,000). If society is going to feed the homeless, having an accurate count is just as important as it is for an individual planning to host three—or thirty—dinner guests.
Innumeracy—widespread confusion about basic mathematical ideas—means
