Interest, Ideology, and Claims‐Making Activity *

Social constructionists have produced a rich theoretical and empirical literature on the rise and fall of public issues. By focusing exclusively on claims‐making behavior in a micro interactive context, social constructionists, in the tradition of Spector and Kitsuse, generally have rejected efforts to link claims‐making to antecedent variables. Thus they often treat claims‐making participants as activities, devoid of motives, meanings, and intentions. In this paper, ideology and interest are offered as antecedent variables to claims‐making and as the critical factors which determine why some claims are more marketable than others. Interest and ideology also are examined as both subjective and structural/cultural phenomena.