Publication Cover
Journal of Media Ethics
Exploring Questions of Media Morality
Volume 38, 2023 - Issue 3
546
Views
0
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Research Article

Constructive Journalism: Techniques for Improving the Practice of Objectivity

&
Pages 176-190 | Received 30 May 2023, Accepted 19 Jun 2023, Published online: 22 Jun 2023

References

  • Aitamurto, T., & Varma, A. (2018). The constructive role of journalism: Contentious metadiscourse on constructive journalism and solutions journalism. Journalism Practice, 12(6), 695–713. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2018.1473041
  • Alcorn, G. (2022). What is Victoria’s Agenda for the 2022 state election? The Age. Retrieved from https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/what-is-victoria-s-agenda-for-the-2022-state-election-20221005-p5bndc.html
  • Baden, D., McIntyre, K., & Homberg, F. (2019). The impact of constructive news on affective and behavioural responses. Journalism Studies, 20(13), 1940–1959. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2018.1545599
  • Baker, C. E. (2002). Media, markets, and democracy, communication, society, and politics. Cambridge University Press.
  • Bell, C. V., & Entman, R. M. (2011). The media’s role in america’s exceptional politics of inequality. The International Journal of Press/politics, 16(4), 548–572. https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161211417334
  • Bennett, W. L., Lawrence, R. G., & Livingston, S. (2006). None dare call it torture: Indexing and the limits of press independence in the Abu Ghraib scandal. Journal of Communication, 56(3), 467–485. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2006.00296.x
  • Bennett, W. L., Lawrence, R. G., & Livingston, S. (2008). When the press fails: Political power and the news media from Iraq to Katrina. University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226042862.001.0001
  • Blom, J. N., Rønlev, R., Hansen, K. R., & Ljungdalh, A. K. (2021). The potentials and pitfalls of interactional speculations by journalists and experts in the media: The case of Covid-19. Journalism Studies, 22(9), 1142–1160. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2021.1925950
  • Bro, P. (2019). Constructive journalism: Proponents, precedents, and principles. Journalism, 20(4), 504–519. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884918770523
  • Bro, P., & Gyldensted, C. (2021). Constructive Journalism: Portraying the World Accurately through Positive Psychology Reporting. In K. M. Hopkinson & N. S. Dahmen (Eds.), Reporting beyond the problem: From civic journalism to solutions journalism (pp. 29–45). Peter Lang Publishing, Incorporated.
  • Callison, C., & Young, M. L. (2020). Reckoning: Journalism’s limits and possibilities. Oxford University Press.
  • Christians, C. G., Glasser, T. L., McQuail, D., Nordenstreng, K., & White, R. A. (2009). Normative theories of the media: Journalism in democratic societies. University of Illinois Press.
  • Costera Meijer, I. (2020). Understanding the audience turn in journalism: From quality discourse to innovation discourse as anchoring practices 1995–2020. Journalism Studies, 21(16), 2326–2342. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2020.1847681
  • Cunningham, B. (2003). Re-thinking objectivity. Colombia Journalism Review, 42(2), 24–32.
  • Curry, A. L., & Hammonds, K. H. (2014). Solutions journalism. Retrieved from Solutions Journalism Network:
  • Donsbach, W., & Patterson, T. E. (2004). Political news journalists: partisanship, professionalism, and political roles in five countries. In F. Esser & B. Pfetsch (Eds.), Comparing political communication: Theories, cases, and challenges (pp. 251–270). Cambridge University Press.
  • Dunwoody, S., & Konieczna, M. (2013). The role of global media in telling the climate change story. In S. J. A. Ward (Ed.), Global Media Ethics: Problems and Perspectives (pp. 171–191). Blackwell Publishers. ISBN: 9781405183925.
  • Entman, R. M. (2003). Cascading activation: Contesting the white house’s frame after 9/11. Political Communication, 20(4), 415–432. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584600390244176
  • Entman, R. M. (2010). Media framing biases and political power: Explaining slant in news of Campaign 2008. Journalism, 11(4), 389–408. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884910367587
  • Ewart, J., & Beard, J. (2017). Poor relations: Australian news media representations of ethnic minorities, implications and responses. In J. Budarick & G.-S. Han (Eds.), Minorities and Media: Producers, industries, audiences (pp. 165–191). Palgrave Macmillan UK.
  • Fielding, V. (2022). Conservative advocacy journalism: Explored with a model of journalists’ influence on democracy. Journalism. https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849211072717
  • Fritz, B., Keefer, B., & Nyhan, B. (2004). All the president’s spin: George W. Bush, the media, and the truth. Simon and Schuster.
  • Gade, P. J. (2011). Postmodernism, uncertainty and journalism. In W. Lowrey & P. J. Gade (Eds.), Changing the news: The forces shaping journalism in uncertain times (pp. 63–82). Routledge.
  • Glasgow University Media Group. (1976). Bad news. Routledge & K. Paul.
  • Gyldensted, C. (2015). From mirrors to movers: Five elements of positive psychology in constructive journalism. Ggroup Publishing.
  • Haagerup, U. (2017). Constructive News. Aarhus University Press.
  • Hackett, R. A. (1984). Decline of a paradigm? Bias and objectivity in news media studies. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 1(3), 229–259. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295038409360036
  • Hall, S., Critcher, C., Jefferson, T., Clarke, J., & Roberts, B. (1978). Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the state, law and order. Macmillan International Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-15881-2
  • Hallin, D. C., & Mancini, P. (2004). Comparing media systems: three models of media and politics. Cambridge University Press.
  • Hanitzsch, T. (2007). Deconstructing journalism culture: Toward a universal theory. Communication Theory, 17(4), 367–385. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2007.00303.x
  • Hanitzsch, T., Seethaler, J., Skewes, E. A., Anikina, M., Berganza, R., Cangöz, I., … Coman, M. (2020). Worlds of journalism: Journalistic cultures, professional autonomy, and perceived influences across 18 nations. In The global journalist in the 21st century (pp. 473–494). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003070740-42
  • Hartley, J. (2013). Understanding news (1 edn ed.). Taylor and Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315002378
  • Hartman, R., Blakey, W., Womick, J., Bail, C., Finkel, E. J., Han, H., … Gray, K. (2022). Interventions to reduce partisan animosity. Nature Human Behaviour, 6(9), 1194–1205. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01442-3
  • Hearken. (2022). Retrieved from https://wearehearken.com/
  • Hermans, L., & Drok, N. (2018). Placing constructive journalism in context. Journalism Practice, 12(6), 679–694. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2018.1470900
  • Hermans, L., & Gyldensted, C. (2019). Elements of constructive journalism: Characteristics, practical application and audience valuation. Journalism, 20(4), 535–551. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884918770537
  • Holbert, R. L., & Zubric, S. J. (2000). A comparative analysis: Objective & public journalism techniques. Newspaper Research Journal, 21(4), 50–67. https://doi.org/10.1177/073953290002100404
  • Hopkinson, K. M., & Dahmen, N. S. (2021a). Moving forward: Bringing clarity to productive and socially responsible Reporting. In K. M. Hopkinson & N. S. Dahmen (Eds.), Reporting beyond the problem: from civic journalism to solutions journalism (pp. 171–180). Peter Lang Publishing, Incorporated.
  • Hopkinson, K. M., & Dahmen, N. S. (2021b). Reporting beyond the problem: From civic journalism to solutions journalism: Peter Lang Publishing, Incorporated.
  • Imundo, M., & Rapp, D. (2021). When fairness is flawed: effects of false balance reporting and weight-of-evidence statements on beliefs and perceptions of climate change. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 11(2), 258–271. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2021.10.002
  • Johnson-Cartee, K. S. (2004). News narratives and news framing : Constructing political reality. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
  • Jost, J. T., Baldassarri, D. S., & Druckman, J. N. (2022). Cognitive–motivational mechanisms of political polarization in social-communicative contexts. Nature Reviews Psychology, 1(10), 560–576. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-022-00093-5
  • Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow (1st ed.). Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
  • Koehler, D. J. (2016). Can journalistic “false balance” distort public perception of consensus in expert opinion? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 22(1), 24. https://doi.org/10.1037/xap0000073
  • Kovacevic, P. (2022). Promises and pitfalls of solutions journalism: Case study of BBC People Fixing the World ( Doctoral). Cardiff University, Cardiff University.
  • Kovach, B., & Rosenstiel, T. (2021). The elements of journalism: What newspeople should know and the public should expect (4th ed.). Crown Publishing Group.
  • Lee, N.-J., Mcleod, D. M., & Shah, D. V. (2008). Framing policy debates: issue dualism, journalistic frames, and opinions on controversial policy issues. Communication Research, 35(5), 695–718. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650208321792
  • Le Morvan, P. (2020). Journalistic balance, unintended pyrrhonism, and political polarization. Democracy, Populism, and Truth, 103–112. Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43424-3_8
  • Lough, K., & McIntyre, K. (2021). A systematic review of constructive and solutions journalism research. Journalism, 24(5), 1069–1088. https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849211044559
  • Maras, S. (2013). Objectivity in journalism. John Wiley & Sons.
  • McIntyre, K. (2019). Solutions journalism: The effects of including solution information in news stories about social problems. Journalism Practice: Journalism Research in Practice: Scholarly Inquiry for Journalists, 13(8), 1029–1033. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2019.1640632
  • McIntyre, K., & Gyldensted, C. (2017). Constructive journalism: An introduction and practical guide for applying positive psychology techniques to news production. The Journal of Media Innovations, 4(2), 20–34. https://doi.org/10.5617/jomi.v4i2.2403
  • McIntyre, K., & Gyldensted, C. (2018). Positive Psychology as a Theoretical Foundation for Constructive Journalism. Journalism Practice: Constructive Forms in Journalism Guest-Edited by Laura Ahva and Mikko Hautakangas, 12(6), 662–678. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2018.1472527
  • McNair, B. (2017a). Fake news: Falsehood, fabrication and fantasy in journalism. Routledge.
  • McNair, B. (2017b). After Objectivity?: Schudson’s sociology of journalism in the era of post-factuality. Journalism Studies, 18(10), 1318–1333. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670x.2017.1347893
  • McQuail, D. (2010). McQuail’s mass communication theory. Sage Publications.
  • Meyers, C. (2020). Partisan news, the myth of objectivity, and the standards of responsible journalism. Journal of Media Ethics, 35(3), 180–194. https://doi.org/10.1080/23736992.2020.1780131
  • Mindich, D. T. (1998). Just the facts: How“objectivity” came to define American journalism. NYU Press.
  • Morley, D. (1976). Industrial conflict and the mass media. The Sociological Review, 24(2), 245–268. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1976.tb00112.x
  • Muñoz-Torres, J. R. (2012). Truth and objectivity in journalism: Anatomy of an endless misunderstanding. Journalism Studies, 13(4), 566–582. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2012.662401
  • Newman, N., Fletcher, R., Robertson, C. T., Eddy, K., & Kleis Nielsen, R. (2022). Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2022. Oxford University. Retrieved from https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2022-06/Digital_News-Report_2022.pdf
  • Newman, E., & Shapiro, B. (2013). Clinicians and journalists responding to disasters. Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, 24(1), 32–38. https://doi.org/10.1089/cap.2013.0068
  • Nosek, B. A., Spies, J. R., & Motyl, M. (2012). Scientific Utopia: II. Restructuring incentives and practices to promote truth over publishability. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7(6), 615–631. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691612459058
  • Orth, T. (2022). From millionaires to Muslims, small subgroups of the population seem much larger to many Americans. Retrieved from https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/03/15/americans-misestimate-small-subgroups-population
  • Park, S., Fisher, C., Lee, J. Y., & McGuinness, K. (2020). COVID-19: Australian news and misinformation. News and Media Research Centre.
  • Parks, P. (2022). Senses of truth and journalism’s epistemic crisis. Journal of Media Ethics, 37(3), 179–193. https://doi.org/10.1080/23736992.2022.2107523
  • Robinson, S., & Culver, K. B. (2019). When White reporters cover race: News media, objectivity and community (dis) trust. Journalism, 20(3), 375–391. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884916663599
  • Rosling, H., Rosling, O., & Rönnlund, A. R. (2018). Factfulness: Ten reasons we’re wrong about the world - and why things are better than you think. Hodder & Stoughton.
  • Ross Arguedas, A., Robertson, C. T., Fletcher, R., & Klein Nielsen, R. (2022). Echo chambers, filter bubbles, and polarization: a literature review. University of Oxford. Retrieved from https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/echo-chambers-filter-bubbles-and-polarization-literature-review
  • Rouner, D., Slater, M. D., & Buddenbaum, J. M. (1999). How perceptions of news bias in news sources relate to beliefs about media bias. Newspaper Research Journal, 20(2), 41–51. https://doi.org/10.1177/073953299902000204
  • Ryan, M. (2001). Journalistic ethics, objectivity, existential journalism, standpoint epistemology, and public journalism. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 16(1), 3–22. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327728JMME1601_2
  • Schudson, M. (2001). The objectivity norm in American journalism*. Journalism, 2(2), 149–170. https://doi.org/10.1177/146488490100200201
  • Schudson, M. (2005). The emergence of the objectivity norm in American journalism. In S. Høyer & H. Pöttker (Eds.), Diffusion of the News Paradigm 1850-2000 (pp. 149–170). Nordicom, University of Gothenburg.
  • Schudson, M., & Anderson, C. (2008). News production and organisations: Professionalism, objectivity, and truth seeking. In K. Wahl-Jorgensen & T. Hanzitsch (Eds.), The Handbook of Journalism Studies (pp. 88–101). Routledge. ISBN: 9781138052888.
  • Shoemaker, P. J., & Reese, S. D. (1996). Mediating the message: Theories of influences on mass media content (Second ed.). Longman.
  • Skovsgaard, M., Albæk, E., Bro, P., & de Vreese, C. (2013). A reality check: How journalists’ role perceptions impact their implementation of the objectivity norm. Journalism, 14(1), 22–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884912442286
  • Skovsgaard, M., & Andersen, K. (2020). Conceptualising news avoidance: Towards a shared understanding of different causes and potential solutions. Journalism Studies, 21(4), 459–476. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2019.1686410
  • Soroka, S. N. (2012). The gatekeeping function: distributions of information in media and the real world. The Journal of Politics, 74(2), 514–528. https://doi.org/10.1017/S002238161100171X
  • Soroka, S., & McAdams, S. (2015). News, politics, and negativity. Political Communication, 32(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2014.881942
  • Thier, K., Abdenour, J., Walth, B., & Dahmen, N. S. (2019). A narrative solution: The relationship between solutions journalism, narrative transportation, and news trust. Journalism, 22(10), 2511–2530. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884919876369
  • Thier, K., & Lin, T. (2022). How solutions journalism shapes support for collective climate change adaptation. Environmental Communication, 16(8), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2022.2143842
  • Tsetsura, K., & Kruckeberg, D. (2017). Transparency, public relations and the mass media: Combating the hidden influences in news coverage worldwide. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203545461
  • Tsfati, Y., Boomgaarden, H. G., Strömbäck, J., Vliegenthart, R., Damstra, A., & Lindgren, E. (2020). Causes and consequences of mainstream media dissemination of fake news: Literature review and synthesis. Annals of the International Communication Association, 44(2), 157–173. https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2020.1759443
  • Tuchman, G. (1972). Objectivity as strategic ritual: An examination of newsmen’s notions of objectivity. American Journal of Sociology, 77(4), 660–679. https://doi.org/10.1086/225193
  • Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. Science: Advanced Materials and Devices, 185(4157), 1124–1131. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.185.4157.1124
  • van Antwerpen, N., Searston, R. A., Turnbull, D., Hermans, L., & Kovacevic, P. (2022). The effects of constructive journalism techniques on mood, comprehension, and trust. Journalism, 14648849221105778. https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849221105778
  • van Antwerpen, N., Turnbull, D., & Searston, R. A. (2022a). Perspectives from journalism professionals on the application and benefits of constructive reporting for addressing misinformation. The International Journal of Press/politics, 194016122110727. https://doi.org/10.1177/19401612211072782
  • van Antwerpen, N., Turnbull, D., & Searston, R. A. (2022b). what’s positive in a pandemic? journalism professionals’ perspectives on constructive approaches to COVID-19 news reporting. Journalism Studies, 23(4), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2022.2032804
  • Venrooij, I. V., Sachs, T., & Kleemans, M. (2022). The effects of constructive television news reporting on prosocial intentions and behavior in children: The role of negative emotions and self-efficacy. Communications, 47(1), 5–31. https://doi.org/10.1515/commun-2019-0151
  • Waisbord, S. (2009). Advocacy journalism in a global context. In K. Wahl-Jorgensen & T. Hanitzsch (Eds.), The handbook of journalism Studies (pp. 371–385). Routledge.
  • Ward, S. J. (2010). Inventing objectivity: New philosophical foundations. In C. Meyers (Ed.), Journalism Ethics: A Philosophical Approach (pp. 137–152). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195370805.003.0009

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.