Download - How the Media Can Effect Positive Change

How the news media can affect positive change

Mallary Tenore, Images & Voices of Hope

Images & Voices of Hope

• A nonprofit that shows how the media can create meaningful awareness and change. – Website: ivoh.org– Twitter: @ivohMedia– Facebook: Facebook.com/ivoh.org


https://www.facebook.com/IVOH.org

How to create positive social awareness & change?

• By telling stories that …

– Deviate from the “if it bleeds, it leads mentality”– Focus on recovery and resilience, instead of

violence and despair– Help people & communities connect after

tragedies– Focus on solutions instead of problems


Moving away from the “if it bleeds, it leads” mentality

There’s growing interest in uplifting news.

Why?Social media is a big factor…


Stock image


• “The recipe for attracting visitors online is changing. Bloggers have traditionally turned to sarcasm and snark to draw attention. But the success of sites like BuzzFeed and Upworthy, whose philosophies embrace the viral nature of upbeat stories, hints that the Web craves positivity. …” – Time Magazine


http://ideas.time.com/2013/08/21/how-the-news-got-less-mean/


• “…The reason: social media. Researchers are discovering that people want to create positive images of themselves online by sharing upbeat stories. And with more people turning to Facebook and Twitter to find out what’s happening in the world, news stories need to cheer up in order to court an audience. If social is the future of media, then optimistic stories might be media’s future.” – Time Magazine



Stories that highlight the positive

Jonah Berger, author of “Contagious: Why Things Catch On,” monitored the stories on The New York Times’ Most-Emailed List for six months and found positive stories were more likely to appear on the list than negative ones.

“What we share [or like] is almost like the car we drive or the clothes we wear,” Berger says. “It says something about us to other people. So people would much rather be seen as a Positive Polly than a Debbie Downer.”

– Time Magazine



Stories that highlight the positiveSome examples…

This is the most popular story ever on BuzzFeed….


Stories that highlight the positiveThis story gained more than 15 million views in

just a few months and raised more than $300,000 for cancer research.

Effect of stories that highlight the positive

Research suggests that uplifting news can motivate people to do good in the world.


Effect of stories that accentuate the positive

• A 2011 study, publishing in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology examined the “warm, uplifting feeling we get from watching someone act with courage and compassion – a feeling psychologists refer to as ‘moral elevation.’ Researchers have found that elevation induces positive emotions, makes people believe in the goodness of humanity, and inspires them to act more altruistically.” -- GreaterGood.com


http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/100/4/703/

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_good_news_can_inspire_good_deeds


• By contrast, research shows that “If it bleeds, it leads” news about violence can actually lead to more violence.



• “There is now consensus that exposure to media violence is linked to actual violent behavior – a link found by many scholars to be on par with the correlation of exposure to second-hand smoke and the risk of lung cancer. ….” – The New York Times


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/25/opinion/sunday/does-media-violence-lead-to-the-real-thing.html?_r=0


• “….In a meta-analysis of 217 studies published between 1957 and 1990, the psychologists George Comstock and Haejung Paik found that the short-term exposure to media violence on actual physical violence against a person was moderate to large in strength.” – The New York Times


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/25/opinion/sunday/does-media-violence-lead-to-the-real-thing.html?_r=0


• Of course, you can’t always write stories that are uplifting or that inspire good deeds. But as you cover your beats, you can keep these stories top of mind – more so than you may have in the past.


Restorative narratives


Restorative narratives

• What are restorative narratives?

– Stories that show how people and communities are learning to rebuild and recover after difficult times.

– Stories that require honest and sustained inquiries and reveal hard truths.

– Stories that highlight possibility, revitalization and resilience.


Restorative Narratives

• This type of storytelling isn’t new, but it’s never really been given a good name. “Feature stories” and “human interest” stories don’t capture the depth of Restorative Narratives. The word “restorative” – which is defined as “having the ability to restore health, or a feeling of well-being” – is a better fit; it reflects resilience.


http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/restorative


• These aren’t positive, happy-go-lucky fluff pieces. They explore the rough emotional terrain of disruptions like the Newtown school shooting and the Boston Marathon bombings and they reveal harsh realities. They’re “positive,” though, in the sense that they focus on themes such as growth and renewal – themes that, at some point in our lives, we can all relate to.



• We came up with the idea for these narratives after reading Rachel Aviv’s December 2012 New Yorker article about how The Newtown Bee, a small community newspaper, responded to the Newtown shooting. The paper’s editor, Curtiss Clark, really listened to what readers wanted during that time; he asked them questions and acted on their responses. He found himself thinking about the paper’s greater purpose…


http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/03/04/130304fa_fact_aviv


• “He didn’t care if national reporters thought he lacked a ‘hard-ass clinical angle. When he learned that a camera crew had rung the doorbell of parents who had just lost their child, he wrote a letter to the New England Newspaper and Press Association, urging the media to stop ‘invading the yards and space of grieving survivors.’” – New Yorker article


http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/good-questions/restorative-narratives-can-help-shape-communities-9-good-questions-mallary-tenore-ivoh/


• After a tragedy like the Newtown school shooting, the media swoops in and covers the story. This is understandable; the media is supposed to inform people about what happened. As days and weeks pass, though, these stories become less of a focus and we move on to other newsier stories…



… But what if we stuck with the story more?



• … What if we as journalists were more proactive about the “what’s next” stories that explain how people and communities are learning to cope with tragedy? What if we put as much emphasis on recovery and restoration as we do on tragedy and devastation?



• These stories aren’t always easy to tell, due to a lack of time and resources. But they have the potential to create impact. Resilience is a learned skill. By telling stories about how people and communities are bouncing back and recovering from difficult times, the media can help others learn from them.


Restorative Narratives: Examples

A new San Francisco State University project is bringing together students from the university’s Japanese studies and journalism programs to report on the aftermath of the 2011 tsunami, earthquake and nuclear power plant disaster. During their trip, students will focus specifically on how displaced residents are recovering from the tragic disaster.

Professor & ivoh board member Jon Funabiki, who’s leading the project.



• “The project will focus on residents living in trailer homes in temporary housing developments. … The students will produce journalistic stories about the residents, using their personal experiences as ways to touch on a broad range of recovery issues, such as the loss of homes and jobs; lingering trauma; environmental cleanup efforts, the educational and emotional needs of children; and the need to rebuild community and a sense of hope for the future.” (From a news release.)


http://japancenter.sfsu.edu/2014/04/14/366-dilena-takeyama-center-wins-grant-fukushima-stories-project


• A New York Times story about two brothers who were injured in the Boston bombings and are now trying to recover, emotionally and psychically.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/14/us/a-year-after-boston-marathon-bombings-injured-brothers-endure.html


• The story focuses on the brothers’ progression and how far they’ve come over the past year, but doesn’t gloss over the fact that they still struggle.

• “I’m happy most of the time,” one of the brothers says in the story. “But it’s so frustrating when you can’t do what you want to do; you feel like you’re not even a man.”



Dallas Morning News reporter Scott Farwell wrote a compelling eight-part series about Lauren Kavanaugh, a young woman whose mother and stepfather locked her in a closet, starved her and abused her for six years. Photo by Sonya Hebert-Schwartz,

used with permission from the DMN.



Farwell’s series is painful at times to read; he highlights the horrible experiences Lauren endured as a child. But it also focuses on where she is today, more than a decade later. He wanted to show her resilience – and at his editor’s prodding – reflect hope.


Restorative Narratives: Examples“[Dallas Morning News Editor Bob Mong] wanted me to reconfigure the first days to give more of a whiff of hope – to let people know that this was going to be a painful journey, but if you stuck with us, there would be some emotional payoff in the end and something restorative that you could look forward to,” Farwell told ivoh.org.


http://ivoh.org/element-hope-dallas-morning-news-girl-closet-series-resonates-readers/


“There was value in showing how a young girl who was tortured could survive. “We began to feel like this was a story that in some way everybody could relate to,” Farwell told ivoh. “The idea that Lauren, who had been through this nightmare, was able to get up every day and function and walk forward and make sense of it, and try to make a life for herself – we thought it would be meaningful for all of us.”

Photo by Sonya Hebert-Schwartz, used with permission from the DMN.




Restorative Narratives don’t gloss over hard truths, or pretend everything’s ok in the end. They do, however, show progress.

• “What we leave people with is incredibly important. There is certainly a temptation to put a pretty little bow on stories, particularly a story about somebody who’s been hurt and is putting her life back together,” Farwell told ivoh. …




• “…As a writer, I wanted to be emotionally accurate and honest in the betrayal of Lauren, and I wanted to make sure we had a scene or dialogue or whatever it was at the conclusion of the story that left readers with the feeling that this human being is remarkable. It is a triumph of the human spirit that [Lauren] can function in the world – and yet there are many challenges ahead for her.”


Restorative Narratives: Impact

• There’s a desire for this type of storytelling. The response to Farwell’s story was “unprecedented,” Farwell said. During the eight days it ran online, it received half a million unique page views. That same week, The Dallas Morning News’ print circulation increased by 5 percent.


Helping people, communities connect

After a tornado swept through Moore, Oklahoma, last year, the Daily Oklahoman wanted to help those who were displaced and affected by the disaster. “We created this page so people could connect with others and help share information and whereabouts,” the page reads.


Helping people, communities connect“We just kind of came together and asked ourselves what more we could be doing for the community,” Tiffany Gibson, a news and Web editor at The Oklahoman, told ivoh. “We noticed on social media a lot of people were [saying], ‘I can’t contact this person, or reception is jammed.’” So, The Oklahoman asked people to post photos of items they found in the debris. As a result of the Facebook page, people were able to locate important belongings and find loved ones.


http://ivoh.org/3-ways-media-helped-people-connect-difficult-times/



The Boston Globe created a Google doc called “I have a place to offer” for out-of-town runners who were in need of a place to stay for an extra night in Boston.



“We were totally caught off-guard by how many people were willing to offer their places to out-of-towners or residents who didn’t have access to their hotels or homes,” Boston Globe data producer Andrew Tran told ivoh. “It spread so fast through social media. I think it was a needed contrast to all that chaos at that moment … [and] a way to express empathy and unity. It showed that people want some way to help, even if it’s as fleeting as filling out a form in a Google document.”




Solutions JournalismThe media reports a lot on problems in communities and stories. What if it reported on solutions as often as it reports on problems?


Solutions JournalismWhat is solutions journalism?– “Critical and clear-eyed reporting that investigates and

explains critical responses to social problems.”– It’s “about ideas, how people are trying to make them

work, and the observable or measurable effects they’re producing. What makes solutions journalism compelling is the discovery – the journey that brings the reader or viewer to an insight about how the world works and, perhaps, how it could be made to work better.” – The Solutions Journalism Network


http://solutionsjournalism.org/about/solutions-journalism-what-it-is-and-what-it-is-not/

Solutions Journalism: Examples


From the Seattle Times …

Solutions Journalism: Examples


Solutions Journalism: Examples• This San Francisco Chronicle story, written by

Kevin Fagan, introduces a solution to the city’s homeless problem and “makes a compelling, evidence-based case for its inclusion in the realm of solutions. … It’s implicit that a bus ticket home will not solve the problem of homelessness, but the … narrative makes apparent that for a certain segment of the population, this program is exactly the remedy.” – The Solutions Journalism Network


http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/One-way-ticket-back-Under-S-F-initiative-a-2592902.php

http://solutionsjournalism.org/2013/11/21/sojo-example-one-way-ticket-back-under-s-f-initiative-a-homeless-teen-is-returned-by-bus-to-her-worried-family/

Solutions Journalism: Impact“If done well, solutions journalism makes our reporting stronger and more complete. It injects valuable information into the public conversation, attracts readers and engages them deeply, and helps de-polarize the public debate.” – David Bornstein, Solutions Journalism Network co-founder, told The American Press Institute.


http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/good-questions/moving-toward-whole-story-9-good-questions-david-bornstein-solutions-journalism-network/

Solutions Journalism: Impact“Covering responses to problems without advocacy, PR, or fluff makes journalism stronger and has the potential to make society stronger.” – Tina Rosenberg, Solutions Journalism Network co-founder, told News University.


http://ivoh.org/rosenberg-covering-responses-problems-potential-make-society-stronger/

In conclusion …

How can we effect positive change as journalists?

-- Realize that “if it bleeds, it leads” isn’t the type of news people are craving.

– Stick with stories in the wake of difficult times. How are people bouncing back and becoming resilient?

– Look for ways to connect people in the aftermath of tragedies and natural disasters.

– Report on solutions as rigorously as you would report on problems.


Images & Voices of Hope summitMeet some of the journalists featured in this Webinar & learn more about restorative narratives at our annual media summit.

Register at ivoh.org/summit

http://ivoh.org/summit/

http://ivoh.org/summit/

Questions?

• Message me with questions and feedback:

Mallary Jean Tenore ([email protected]; @mallarytenore)

Managing director of Images & Voices of HopeSupport us: ivoh.org/donate

Thank you!


mailto:[email protected]

http://ivoh.org/donate/

http://ivoh.org/donate/

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