'Unhappy news': the construction of happiness as a social problem in UK newspapers

Interest in happiness has seen an unprecedented growth in both popular and scholarly writing, in the mass media, and has been institutionalised into the policy and practice of a wide array of institutions. Both implicit and explicit in this rising interest is the notion that happiness re presents a serious problem requiring the intervention of a range of professional and political powers. The rapid and widespread affirmation that claims about happiness have received warrants critical examination. This study examines the construction of happiness as a socia l problem in four major UK newspapers, from the perfunctory evocations of the past to the present-day project of redefining the id iom as the legitimate domain ,of expertise and campaigns to bring it to the forefront of public debate. With theo retica l too ls drawn from the constructionist study of social problems and methodological tools garnered from qualitative media analysis, it examines the roles played by various claimsmakers in the construction of the problem and the rhetoric mobilised in support of their cause. It offers important insights into the ascendance of happiness onto the public agenda and identifies some of the underlying cultural currents on which claims about happiness draw and

which make it a particularly powerful idiom th rough which to conceptualise contemporary social problems.