The contextualist function: US newspaper journalists value social responsibility

Abstract

A survey ( N = 1318) evaluated US newspaper journalists’ attitudes toward c ontextual reporting – stories that go beyond the immediacy of the news and contribute to societal well-being. Results indicated that journalists highly value professional roles associated with contextual reporting. Responses revealed new journalistic role functions, including the ‘Contextualist’, who placed high value on being socially responsible and accurately portraying the world. Analyses showed that younger journalists and female journalists highly valued three genres of contextual reporting: constructive journalism, solutions journalism, and restorative narrative. Additionally, a journalist’s belief in activist values such as setting the political agenda and pointing to possible solutions predicted more favorable views of all three forms of contextual journalism, while belief in an adversarial attitude predicted less favorable views of restorative narrative.

Value Conflict, Lack of Rewards, and Sense of Community as Psychosocial Risk Factors of Burnout in Communication Professionals (Press, Radio, and Television)

“…Enough scientific support has not been found on this matter regarding communication professionals [ 32 , 33 ], although we consider that it could be extrapolated to other professions. Regardless of salary, sharing the same project with the company, superiors, and colleagues mitigates the harmful effects of burnout very significantly and contributes to personal accomplishment at work [ 10 ].…”

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

“…Much is unknown about how constructive news reporting may or may not affect the audience, given that previous research has widely focused on the production of constructive news (cf. McIntyre & Sobel, ; McIntyre et al, ). Thus, the current study is on the forefront of research on the potential effects of constructive news reporting.…”

“…Constructive news reporting has only recently gained the attention of scholars (cf. Kleemans et al, 2017a; McIntyre et al, ). To form specific hypotheses, we draw in particular on literature on constructive news for adults because this has received the most research attention thus far.…”

“…Given the core functions of journalism in democratic societies, journalists obviously cannot ignore negative events in news. By bringing constructive elements into conventional news reporting, constructive journalism remains dedicated to, for instance, accuracy and truth, but in a more engaging way (Dagan Wood, in McIntyre et al, ). Therefore, constructive news still adheres to one or more of journalism's core functions, such as serving as watchdog, alerting the public of potential threats, or disseminating important information, in order to create an informed audience (Gyldensted, ; McIntyre, ).…”

“…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.…”