Objectivist viewpoint: people who hold an objectivist view believe that social problems can be defined as "harmful conditions" to societies (Best, 2020, p. 4). A solid definition may help us formalize and categorize social problems, but defining what is considered "harmful" is hard.

Subjectivist viewpoint: A social problem is something people believe to be a problem to society (Best, 2020, p.9). It avoids the downsides of the objectivist's view. But then social problems would change all the time based on people's beliefs.

Best's viewpoint: Social problems are social constructions, which means that the meanings of social problems are assigned by people (Best, 2020).

For example, people in CALPRIG UC Davis as an activism group often ask passengers on campus to support them in protecting the ocean through donations. They are considered claimsmakers, and they make claims that ocean pollution is an example of claimsmaking that we can see around us.

Thus, they will need to use other ways (through media or public speaking) to spread their claims to more audiences. As more and more people are joining in, it will eventually pressure the policymakers to take action.

For example, medical authorities studied and constructed the social problem of drinking (Best, 2020, p. 101).

They first make a claim by bringing the grounds that the incident in Gaza is treated as a typifying example. After that, they invoke people's values on how this war crime is against our sense of justice, as a part of warrants. In the end, they came to the conclusion: asking UC to defund Israeli institutions.

Typifying examples: extreme examples that characterize the main issue and draw attention.

Name: some phrases or words that sound serious to draw more attention and make it easier to spread. 

Statistic: Stats related to the social problem in the claim. 

For example, if people believe that equality is a good virtue, then for claimsmakers who work against racism, the warrants are the justification for how racism would damage racial equality.

Moreover, since people's sense of justice and righteousness changes over time, it is also an important job for claimsmakers to keep updating warrants accordingly.

Conclusions can also be categorized as short-range conclusions and long-range conclusions.

Later in the spring quarter, the UC student workers also started a demonstration against the UC. This shows how activists as claimsmakers often work towards a policy change: through public/media demonstrations to draw attention from more people.