Preadolescents’ Emotional and Prosocial Responses to Negative TV News: Investigating the Beneficial Effects of Constructive Reporting and Peer Discussion

Abstract

Watching news is important for preadolescents, but it may also harm their well-being. This study examined whether applying insights from positive psychology to news production can reduce this potential harm, by reducing negative emotional responses and enhancing positive emotional responses to negative news, and by encouraging prosocial intentions. Moreover, we explored whether peer discussion strengthened these effects. Preadolescents (n = 336; 9–13 years old; 48.5% female) were exposed to either constructive (solution-based news including positive emotions) or nonconstructive news. Subsequently, half of the children assigned to the constructive and the nonconstructive condition participated in a peer discussion. The findings showed that exposure to constructive news resulted in more positive emotional responses and less negative emotional responses as compared to nonconstructive news. Moreover, discussing the news with peers led to more positive and less negative emotional responses among preadolescents who watched the nonconstructive newscast, and to more prosocial intentions among preadolescents who watched constructive news. In all, constructive news reporting and peer discussion could function as tools to make negative news less harmful for preadolescents.

Children’s cognitive responses to constructive television news

“…This study is the first in the emerging field of constructive journalism that investigated how constructive news reporting, compared to nonconstructive news reporting, affects cognitive processing. Following studies on how constructive news reporting influences children's emotional responses, engagement, and prosocial intentions (Kleemans et al, 2017a(Kleemans et al, , 2017b, this study examined whether constructive news reporting in stories tailored to children succeeds in journalisms' core function to inform the audience. Our findings suggest that the effects of constructive news are mixed.…”

“…Based on the theoretical foundations of constructive journalism, one might expect that a constructive style of news reporting elicits smaller increases in negative emotional responses and smaller decreases in positive emotional responses than nonconstructive news reporting. Previous research already provided support for this assumption (Kleemans et al, 2017a(Kleemans et al, , 2017b. It is conceivable that changes in emotional responses mediate the effect of the style of news reporting on recall.…”

“…Children were asked to indicate on two separate 100-mm VAS (cf. Kleemans et al, 2017aKleemans et al, , 2017b: how frightened and anxious they felt. Children provided their specific emotional feelings by marking a position along a continuous line on the right endpoint with a frightened or anxious emoticon and on the left endpoint with the same emoticon, but with a red cross through it.…”

Children's Responses to Negative News: The Effects of Constructive Reporting in Newspaper Stories for Children

“…Empirical investigation of constructive journalism is still in its infancy (cf. Kleemans, Schlindwein, & Dohmen, ; McIntyre, Dahmen, & Abdenour, ), and the effects on audiences of all ages are thus rather unexplored. Therefore, we conducted an experiment that allowed us to isolate the effects of constructive news reporting from those of more mainstream, nonconstructive news reporting.…”

Psychological perception by students of prosocial media

“…Вопросы изучения просоциальности в современных условиях особенно актуальны, поскольку в связи с социальными трансформациями последних десятилетий произошла переоценка системы ценностей. В обществе были утрачены многие духовно-нравственные и социокультурные ориентиры и социальные нормы, включающие обязанности по отношению к другому человеку или группе лю-дей, оказавшихся в трудной жизненной ситуации и нуждающихся в помощи [38]. Такая форма просоциального поведения как волонтерство, обладая свойствами полезности для общества и социальной значимости, способствует поддержанию в обществе психосоциального комфорта для граждан, нуждающихся в помощи, снижению социальной напряженности в тех ситуациях, когда отсутствует возможность помочь человеку какими-либо другими средствами [4].…”