This blog post provides the theoretical underpinnings of how digital constructive journalism may enable social change via hope. Constructive journalism is broadly part of the media for development and ICT for development (ICT4D) agendas. These two agendas can further be categorised under the academic discipline of communication for development (C4D). It falls outside the scope of this blog to provide a conclusive argument for constructive journalism as a potential enabler of social change via hope, but it attempts to provide a theoretical framework for thinking about the topic.
Communication for development and media for development
Tufte refers to three meta-debates within a new wave of communication for social change research, namely its political, cultural and media dimensions. On media Tufte says ‘identifying what makes media activism and communication for social change converge is an important strategic question, and a highly relevant research one to inquire further into’. Tufte alludes to the challenge of fitting media within the communication for social change paradigm (Tufte, 2017:42-44).
Manyozo (2012:19-20) assists us with this challenge by identifying three methodological and theoretical approaches within C4D, namely media for development, media development and participatory and community communication. It is within the media for development approach where constructive journalism may find its place, with Manyozo contending that the functional objective of media for development is ‘using media to promote and sell positive attitudes and behaviours’.
Scott (2014:2) cautions against simply accepting that media has a positive role to play: ‘while it may be useful in some contexts to draw attention to the potential benefits of media, the danger is that this comes at the expense of developing a more critical appreciation of the contexts in which media-related interventions can work, when they are not appropriate and the conditions upon which their effectiveness depends’.
The link between the media and social change is therefore ambiguous and difficult to prove. According to Scott (2014:3) ‘the primary explanation for the relative lack of attention given to the field of C4D is the difficulty of attributing development outcomes directly to the media.’ The question therefore could be what the channels may be, even if not conclusive, through which the media could contribute towards positive development outcomes.
Media for development and ICT4D
According to Heeks (2017:10) ICT for development or ICT4D in short is ‘the application of any entity that processes or communicates digital data in order to deliver some part of the international development agenda in a developing country’. Due to the proliferation of the internet over the last two decades and its central role in the media, it is critical to explore this extra dimension.
Scott (2014:4) cautions against an over-optimistic view of the internet, a key element within ICT4D in terms of its potential impact on social change: ‘presenting media, and particularly information and communication technologies (ICTs), as a magic bullet for development has also become a key feature of the discourse of many corporations involved in international development. As is argued in Chapter 1, it allows them to frame their interventions as technical, apolitical projects which draw attention away from the structural causes of poverty and inequality, in which they could be implicated.’
Constructive and solutions journalism
However, more recently constructive journalism, with solutions journalism as a subset has increasingly started to emerge in academic literature (Lough & McIntyre 2023:1070). Although the literature mostly focuses on constructive and solutions journalism in a broad sense and does not make a distinction between online and offline journalism, it is a fair assumption to make that due to the growth in the internet and social media use there is now greater access to constructive and solutions journalism stories than ever before.
Constructive and solutions journalism ‘act as an antidote to the negativity bias in traditional news, and both encourage contextual, thematic reporting with an aim to increase trust and empower audiences’. In a systematic review of the two terms, Lough & McIntyre (2023:1071-1072) contends that most practitioners do not appreciate the difference between constructive and solutions journalism, but that academically they are mostly seen as distinct terms with constructive journalism being the umbrella term and solutions journalism resting below it. Although both constructive and solutions journalism apply techniques from positive psychology, or what is also known as the science of wellbeing, constructive journalism can be seen as a type of journalism which focuses on ‘productive’ and ‘engaging’ coverage, whilst solutions journalism a subset which looks at reporting on solutions in particular. (Lough & McIntyre 2023:1072, Routledge, 2023).
For the purpose of this article another subset of constructive journalism will be explored namely that of stories reporting on good news and how this may contribute to social change, although not in a direct manner. These good news stories are not necessarily stories on solutions, although they can include elements of solutions. Meier (2018:768) refers to McIntyre as a potential criticism of the link between solutions journalism and social change i.e. that solutions journalism disincentives action towards a solution as the problems alluded to in the article also includes the solution. According to Meier ‘this highlights the difference between the narrowly defined solutions journalism and a more widely understood constructive journalism in which possible solutions or promising aspects and encouragements from role models for complex social problems are also discussed.’
Hope
There are five key elements to positive psychology according to Seligman who can be regarded as the founder of the positive psychology study field. The five elements are positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment. One of the elements of positive emotion is hope. (University of Wolverhampton, 2023). According to Meier (2018:776) ‘constructive journalism aims not only to draw attention to problems and injustices, but also to look towards the future and seek solutions as well as possibilities for action, prospects and hope.’
A potential link may therefore exist between hope and social change which is confirmed by Bender and Rawluk (2023) who refer to Lueck (2007), Andersson (2016) and Strazds (2019) in terms of ‘how individual hope can be merged into collective hope with benefits such as a greater possibility of success in creating social change, building cooperation, trust, learning, and motivation.’
However, the link between hope, motivation and action are not clear. According to Andersson (2016:26): “While the constructs of hope and motivation have overlaps, the results showed that it might be highly meaningful to differentiate their meaning and explore how different aspects of hope relate to motivation to engage in action. Hope also needs several preconditions to be sustained: ‘Hope is sensitive to a variety of conditions, such as time, information, personal resources, social context, and perceived support.’ (Andersson, 2014:24). Meier (2018:777) further warns that ‘hopeful prospects should not be used to simply garnish a difficult problem at any price, and secondly not be at the expense of a differentiated and comprehensive presentation of a complex social problem.’
From the above it is clear that from a theoretical perspective digital constructive journalism can be linked with the concepts of media for development, ICT4D and hope within the broader C4D paradigm. Although the potential of digital constructive journalism to contribute to social change may not be as direct as one would want to believe, this type of journalism may through the channel of building hope and when certain conditions are present contribute to social change.
References
Andersson, P. 2016. The Dynamics of Hope and Motivations in Groups Working on Complex Societal Issues, Integral Review, 12:1, 4-31. [Online]. Available: doaj.org/article/12f79872b0034805a4d0cc53aec660b2 (Integral Review) [Accessed, 29 September 2023].
Bender, H. & Rawluk, A. 2023. Adaptive hope: a process for social environmental change, Ecology and Society, 28:2, 14. [Online]. Available: doi.org/10.5751/ES-14099-280214 (Directory of Open Access Journals). [Accessed, 30 September 2023].
Heeks, R. 2017. Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D). [Online]. Abingdon: Routledge. Available: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/malmo/detail.action?docID=4912767 (EBook Central). [Accessed, 8 October 2023].
Lough, K. & McIntyre, K. 2023. A systematic review of constructive and solutions journalism research, Journalism, 24:5, 1069-1088, DOI: doi.org/10.1177/14648849211044559 (SAGE Publications). [Accessed, 30 September 2023].
Manyozo, L. 2012. Media, Communication and Development: Three Approaches. [Online]. SAGE India: New Delhi. Available: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/malmo/detail.action?docID=1013489 (EBook Central). [Accessed, 29 September 2023].
Meier, K. 2018. How does the audience respond to constructive journalism? Two experiments with multifaceted results, Journalism Practice, 12:6, 764-780, DOI: doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2018.1470472 (Taylor & Francis Online). [Accessed, 30 September 2023].
Routledge, 2023. Positive Psychology: The Science of Wellbeing and Human Strengths. [Online]. Available: https://www.routledge.com/Positive-Psychology-The-Science-of-Wellbeing-and-Human-Strengths/Carr/p/book/9780367536824 [Accessed, 8 October 2023].
Scott, M. 2014. Media and Development. [Online]. London: Zed Books. Available: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/malmo/detail.action?docID=1696466 (EBook Central). [Accessed, 29 September 2023]
Tufte, T. 2017. Communication and Social Change: A Citizen Perspective. [Online] Cambridge: Polity. Available: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/malmo/detail.action?docID=4854000 (EBook Central). [Accessed, 29 September 2023].
University of Wolverhampton. 2021. Positive psychology and well-being. [Online]. Available: https://online.wlv.ac.uk/positive-psychology-and-well-being/ [Accessed, 8 October 2023].