Problem definition is a package of ideas that includes, at least implicitly, an account of the causes and consequences of undesirable circumstances and a theory about how to improve them. As such, it serves as the overture to policymaking, as an integral part of the process of policymaking, and as a policy outcome. In each of these roles it seems to exert influence on government action. Distinguishing among the roles clarifies the nature of that influence. A case study examines the transition from one problem definition to another in the domain of information collection by the federal government. The rise of the Paperwork Reduc- tion definition illustrates the variety of ways in which problem definition has powerful con- sequences. Problem definition is widely regarded as the first stage of the policy cycle, a stage that lays fundamental groundwork for the ensuing struggle over the construction of useful policy alternatives, authoritative adoption of a policy choice, implementation, and assessment (Brewer and deLeon 1983). Defini- tion in this sense is not merely a label for a set of facts and perceptions. It is a package of ideas that includes at least implicitly an account of the causes and consequences of some circumstances that are deemed undesirable, and a theory about how a problem may be alleviated (Defy 1984, Gusfield 1981). By the frame imposed on circumstances, a problem definition highlights some aspects of the situation, throwing other aspects into shadow. It pushes forward some potential solutions, neglecting others (Gamson and Modigliani 1987). The definition of problems at the outset of the policy process may have various sources: the lonely analyst wrestling to impose intellectual structure on a messy array of facts and dilemmas; savvy politicians crafting issues to appeal to the winning mix of voter demographics; a crisis event splashed across the front page to galvanize attention to previously neglected corners of social life; the insistence of disenfranchised groups that their concerns be taken seriously by those more comfortably circumstanced. Whatever the pre- cipitating factors, problem definition determines how people think about the problems that are (and are not) on the public agenda. 2 I endorse the importance of the initial definition of the problem, as it has been typically considered in the policy literature. A problem definition at the outset of the policy process has implications for later stages: which kinds of

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The powers of problem definition: The case of government paperwork

Merck and AIDS activists: engagement as a framework for extending issues management ☆

Research on the rhetorical presidency has been marked by two important sets of theoretical divisions: individual versus institutional approaches to the analytic task and instrumental versus constitutive understandings of the rhetorical enterprise. In both cases, this has led to a situation in which scholars from the differing positions tend to talk past rather than to one another. In keeping with the generally interdisciplinary focus of political communication as it develops as a recognizable subfield with places in both political science and communication studies, this essay is intended to begin pointing the way toward redirecting some of those conversations, such that representatives from the various analytic communities can begin to work with one another rather than on parallel or opposing tracks.

The Rhetorical Presidency: Deepening Vision, Widening Exchange

This essay argues that President John F. Kennedy's civil rights discourse evidences an important evolutionary pattern marking a transition from legal argument to moral argument, and highlights two speeches as exemplars of this change. Three rhetorical constraints are identified which help account for and explain this shift in the president's public rhetoric. Finally, we offer implications of this essay for the study of contemporary presidential discourse during times of domestic crisis.

John F. Kennedy's civil rights discourse: The evolution from “principled bystander” to public advocate

(1992). Legitimating leadership: The rhetoric of succession as a genre of presidential discourse. Rhetoric Society Quarterly: Vol. 22, No. 2, pp. 25-38.

Sarah E. Monrad

Papers

Deep and surface images in the construction of political issues: The case of amnesty