Rethinking Constructive Journalism by Means of Service Journalism

Abstract

RETHINKING CONSTRUCTIVE JOURNALISM BY MEANS OF SERVICE JOURNALISM Unni From and Nete Nørgaard Kristensen This article argues that constructive journalism scholarship should look to service journalism and its subfields, cultural journalism and lifestyle journalism, to understand the key characteristics of this newer type of journalism. Though constructive journalism is typically associated with the reporting of political and social issues, it is also seen to challenge the traditional ways of writing about such hard news topics due to its positive and solutionoriented approach. In this respect, constructive journalism seems to reuse some of the approaches known from service journalism, especially in terms of audience address and an expanded social role for journalists. However, service journalism emerged in the increasingly commercialized and globalized media landscape of the post-World War II period, whereas constructive journalism has emerged in the digital media landscape of the 2010s. These historical contexts provide particular circumstances for both types of journalism. KEYWORDS Constructive journalism; cultural journalism; hard news; lifestyle journalism; service journalism; soft news This article provides a different framework for understanding constructive journalism. It makes the case that this type of journalism, in many ways, resembles service journalism (Eide 1992; Eide and

Curating conversations in times of transformation: Convergence in how public relations and journalism are “Doing” communication

“…This in turn triggers calls for increasing diversification in communicator roles. For example, we see a movement towards a constructive advocacy role of journalism that assists in bringing about societal transformation (Brüggemann et al, 2021; Fromm and Nørgaard Kristensen, 2018; Hermans and Drok, 2018). Such solution-oriented publishing draws from findings in positive psychology as well as the long experience of the behavioral sciences and their impact on environmental journalism.…”

A systematic review of constructive and solutions journalism research

“…García-Orosa et al, 2020), sometimes fully distinct (e.g. Fromm and Kristensen, 2018) and sometimes nested within the other (e.g. McIntyre and Gyldensted, 2018).…”

”Man ska’ jo nødigt blive en kvinde med en sag”

“…Derimod vil den mere aktive journalist ofte tilskynde folk til at handle, idet den aktive journalists primaere anliggende er effekten af daekningen. Betegnelser som 'løsningsjournalistik' (Aitamurto & Varma, 2018), 'konstruktiv journalistik' (From & Nørgaard Kristensen, 2018;Hermans & Drok, 2018) eller 'problemløsende journalistik' (Olsson, 2017) er blevet anvendt til at beskrive denne aktive, eller endda 'aktivistiske' , tilgang til journalistik. Denne dikotomi haenger tit direkte sammen med objektivitetsnormen, hvor den passive journalist i højere grad end den aktive journalist anses for at have objektivitet som ideal i hendes arbejde.…”