The popularity of labelling theory is reflected in the
emergence of a related perspective, called social constructionism.
The social constructionist perspective sees
deviance as the product of the culture in which we live.
Social constructionists focus specifically on the decisionmaking
process that creates the deviant identity. They
point out that “missing children,”“deadbeat dads,”“spree
killers,” and “date rapists” have always been with us, but
at times have become the major social concern of the
moment because of intensive media coverage (Liska and
Messner 1999;Wright et al. 2000).