1. Do professionals support constructive journalism?
Karen McIntyre, Ph.D.
Virginia Commonwealth University, USA

2. The Contextualist Function:
Karen McIntyre, Ph.D Virginia Commonwealth University
Nicole Dahmen, Ph.D University of Oregon
Jesse Abdenour, Ph.D University of Oregon
The Contextualist Function:
US Newspaper Journalists Value Social Responsibility
Forthcoming in Journalism

3. Traditional professional roles
Neutrals Participants
Prefer detachment and objectivity
Prefer involvement and advocacy

4. Traditional professional functions
Adversarial
Disseminator Neutrals
Interpretive
Participants
Populist Mobilizer
How journalists view their job
Adversarial - adversary of govt and business
Mobilizer - motivating individuals
(Weaver et al., 2007)

5. Conventional news Contextual news
A shift in news
Conventional news
Contextual news
Stories that go beyond the immediacy of the news and contribute to society’s well being
The who-what-when-where-model
A “just the facts” approach
Journalist as a mirror
The wide-angle lens model th
A big picture approach
Journalist as a mover

6. “most important change in reporting in the past half century”
Contextual stories represent the
“most important change in reporting in the past half century”
But they have with no “hallowed” or “standardized” understanding in the academy or the profession
(Forde, 2007)

7. Do they value professional roles inherent in constructive journalism?
Are US journalists familiar with specific constructive journalism genres?
What are their attitudes and behavioral intentions toward constructive genres?
Do they value professional roles inherent in constructive journalism?

8. National online survey
1,318
Final N …………….
….……. Response rate
15%

9. National online survey 50% reporters/writers 28% editors
1,318
Final N …………….
….……. Response rate
20 years experience
60% male
15%
89% white
M = 44 years

10. Familiarity, attitudes and behavioral intentions
Journalists were fairly unfamiliar with the terms (CJ, SoJo, RS)
But, they reported having used these tactics (RS → SoJo → CJ)
After learning more about them, journalists had favorable attitudes toward all three genres (RS → SoJo → CJ)
And said they would be likely to use all of these techniques moving forward (SoJo → RS → CJ)

11. Definitions
Solutions journalism: Rigorous and fact-driven news stories of credible solutions to social problems
Constructive journalism: News stories that are produced in a way that intends to engage and empower audiences and ultimately improve society
Restorative narrative: News stories that focus on recovery, restoration and resilience in the aftermath, or in the midst of, difficult times

12. Which roles do journalists most value?

13. Traditional professional functions
Adversarial
Contextualist
Disseminator Neutrals
Interpretive
Participants
Populist Mobilizer
Adversarial - adversary of govt and business
Mobilizer - motivating individuals
Contexualist role function second most popular - a strong function that accounted for the most variance, so this is not a fluke
Adversarial - same as Weaver - adversary of govt and business
Mobilizer - similar to Weaver - motivating individuals
Intellectual - developing intellectual and cultural interests
Marketer - widest audience and providing entertainment
Hybrid - speed and accuracy but also analysis