Solutions journalism can spur climate action, University of Oregon study finds

News stories that highlight potential solutions alongside the harsh realities of climate change can spur people to action — as long as the stories empower readers to see their own role in the solution, a new study by University of Oregon researchers has found. 

Solutions journalism is an approach to reporting that not only explains a problem but also emphasizes ways to solve it, while still adhering to core journalism values. For example, a solutions story on the harm from climate change might also highlight a new kind of electric vehicle or the work of a climate activism group as possible ways to mitigate some of the damage.  

Its intention is to both inform and make news more useful to the public. Emmanuel Maduneme, a doctoral candidate at the UO’s School of Journalism and Communication, said that kind of empowerment is something traditional news coverage hasn’t typically done. 

As a journalist turned journalism and media psychology researcher, Maduneme said he’s seen how negativity as a basis for newsworthiness — “if it bleeds, it leads” — has led to people avoiding the news. 

“The news ecosystem we have is making people feel like they can't do something about it and that the issue is best left for the polling booth,” Maduneme said. “But you should feel like you can do something about it. You should feel empowered. And, in fact, solutions journalism can give ways you can participate.” 

Pressing issues, and climate change in particular, generate news coverage centering on severity rather than progress, Maduneme said. Solutions narratives can be harnessed to paint a full picture that inspires hope and action, he said, and newsrooms like The Washington Post’s Climate Solutions section have increasingly used its power. 

But whether solutions journalism works, and how it encourages people to change their behavior, has been understudied, Maduneme said, especially in the context of the climate crisis. Working with Alex Segrè Cohen, an assistant professor of science and risk communications in the School of Journalism and Communication, Maduneme conducted a survey experiment to investigate the effectiveness of solutions-focused messaging compared to problem-oriented journalism. 

The findings of their study were recently published in a paper in the journal Environment and Behavior. 

The two researchers had more than 400 American adults read a short news article on how flooding exacerbated by climate change is affecting a community in Connecticut. Half of the study participants read a version of the story that also highlighted the success of a new flood control system; the other half read a story with the possible solution stripped out. 

Participants then answered a series of questions asking how the story made them feel, their confidence in collective efforts on climate change, and whether they intended to participate in pro-environmental behaviors like donating to an environmental organization. 

Maduneme and Segrè Cohen found that those who read the solutions-oriented story tended to feel more positive than those who read the traditional news version. Those positive emotions also gave them a greater sense of collective effectiveness, resulting in more participants willing to take action.  

In other words, emphasizing solutions helped people feel positive and empowered, driving them to join the effort to fix a problem. That’s the power of the call to action, Segrè Cohen said.  

“A lot of these doom-and-gloom stories end almost on a cliffhanger,” she said. “I don't know about you, but every time I read a book or watch a movie and there's a cliffhanger, I'm not feeling happy about it. So, by providing the resolution, there's this sense of something that can be done and applied to your life.” 

That doesn’t mean solutions-framed narratives alone get people to engage in pro-environmental practices, however. In certain cases, the researchers found solutions journalism led to inaction. That might be because reading a story about someone fixing something can lead people to conclude the problem has been handled, called a complacency effect. 

They said reporters can increase the chance that a solutions-oriented climate story will lead to action rather than complacency by making it more relevant to an audience, both personally and locally. 

“Good solutions journalism always leaves room for more action,” Maduneme said. 

The researchers warned that not every story needs to be solutions-focused, nor is solutions journalism synonymous with positive news. There’s a place for feel-good stories, Maduneme said, but solutions journalism takes more of a “glass half empty” approach by accurately reporting both the severity and possible fix for a threat. 

“There’s no solution without a problem, so if you've not done a good job explaining the problem, you can't talk about the solutions,” he said. 

Because the participants in the study were from the United States, Maduneme is interested in expanding the work to other countries and comparing the results between individualistic and collectivist cultures. 

In today’s digital age, people are not just consuming news, they’re living in it, Maduneme said. Humans are naturally attuned to threats, he explained, but that also means we’re looking for opportunities for resolution. He said solutions journalism is one tool in a communicator’s kit to tell accurate, comprehensive and hopeful stories on pressing issues like climate change. 

“The biggest finding of this work is that emotions are powerful,” Maduneme said. “People feel emotions when engaging with the news, so why not harness them for good?”