Growing up in South Africa with its myriad of challenges, the news cycle can be relentless. Poverty, inequality, crime, unemployment and challenges within education, health and more recently electricity provision are front and centre of everyday life. However, South Africans, regarded as resilient and hopeful, will not miss the opportunity to rally behind a good news story which may include sharing it widely on social media. Someone rising against the odds, one South African helping another, or an entrepreneur coming up with a novel solution to a social ill. And may I add as the tournament is currently underway, winning the Rugby World Cup?
South Africa has a long history of this type of reporting. Bosch (2010) refers to Hoyt (1995) who observed that “South African journalists, via community media and sometimes even tabloid newspapers, have long embraced the notion of civic or community journalism, framing news ‘in a way that facilitates people thinking about solutions, not just problems and conflict’”
These good news stories, perhaps providing a brief reprieve from everyday hardship, are a generator of hope. At least these stories have a ‘feel good factor’ which can contribute to positive emotions and social change through its impact on positive mental health.
However, without dismissing the importance of the ‘feel good factor’ it is debatable if these stories contribute to actual (further) and direct social change through inspiring individual or social action towards the common good. There is also the question if these stories may work against social change to some extent, by creating the impression that things are okay and no further solutions are needed or that, in the case of a ‘rising against the odds’ story ‘hard work and perseverance’ will always be rewarded, ignoring the structural elements of unemployment for example.
The question therefore may be what the net effect is of good news stories in South Africa: is social change limited to its positive impact on mental health greater or smaller than its potential impact on fostering complacency? This does not necessarily mean that negative news is an antidote to complacency and will inspire social action. Its impact may be neutral or it can discourage social action among South Africans if they feel overwhelmed by being reminded of the country’s many challenges. At what point is negative news ‘too much’? Is there an appropriate level of negative news exposure where someone will ‘know what is going on in the world’ without feeling disempowered to contribute to positive change?
These questions are important within the context of answering what the role of the media is or ought to be. Regardless if media companies recognise or act in accordance (or not) with their social purpose, in a digital world media companies need to be innovative to maintain a revenue stream to pay journalists adequately and make a profit. Therefore, they also respond to what readers respond to as this will generate more revenue from advertising. Innovation may include good news stories. However, as alluded to above, the impact of these stories on social change may be ambiguous. Perhaps the question is what is the ‘adequate’ or ‘appropriate’ mix of positive and negative news? Does this differ from individual to individual and what are media companies’ responsibility in this regard?
This blog post is based on a practitioner view of solutions journalism, where solutions and constructive journalism are used interchangeably and which is regarded here as any news item which can be deemed constructive and outside the ‘negative news’ cycle, therefore covering a very broad view of constructive and solutions journalism. However, there is an academic argument to make that good news stories and stories reporting on solutions, although they may have overlapping features, are distinctly different, and fall under the umbrella term of constructive journalism.
My next blog post will be academic and focus on the broader constructive journalism term and how constructive journalism as a communication for development and ICT for development (ICT4D) tool specifically may contribute to social change via the channel of building hope.
Stay tuned!