What actually needs to happen to solve the big issues of our era? Dig into just about any social change research, and you’ll find a common action that precipitates progress: successful cooperation. Yes, humans (including ones who currently disagree with each other) will need to work together to make a dent in everything from homelessness to climate change to public safety.
Now, cooperation requires some ingredients to make it possible. For diverse groups to collaborate in healthy ways, we’ll need some bravery and openness. We’ll need self-reflection, imagination, and — essentially — trust. But what if I told you that the dominant approach to news and information sharing right now is about as bad at building those qualities as you could design?
I’m Allen Arthur, and I’m the engagement director at Solutions Journalism Network. We’re a nonprofit that helps journalists do rigorous reporting on responses to social problems, not just the problems themselves. We encourage and train journalists to find places where a problem is being addressed (even just a little) and ask, “How did they do that? What can others learn from that attempt?”
Both at work and in my spare time, I research constructive communication a lot. I’m guessing some of you reading immediately understood my assertion about news. But maybe you’re curious how what’s assumed to be journalism’s fundamental task — spotlighting problems and putting pressure on decision makers to solve them — could be bad at getting the results we want.
What research has called “catastrophically-framed” news, pumped relentlessly onto our phones and televisions, actually shuts off the part of our brain that helps us cooperate. Instead, it activates our amygdala, which is great at snap decisions, anxiety, and aggression, but turns off the cooperation center. Anger and outrage can be productive, but create too much (like now) and we become overwhelmed, less imaginative, less willing to examine ourselves and our opinions, and less trusting of others.
The good news is, there are other ways to communicate.
A study from the American Press Institute and More in Common found that there is huge demand for information that covers both problems and potential solutions. Or check out the research suggesting that quality solutions journalism appeals to people regardless of age, geography, and even political beliefs. We’ve seen everyone from climate communicators to the United Nations exploring how to integrate solutions-focused communication. Journalists need it, but if you reflect for a moment, you might see that you need it to make a compelling case in your work too.
It’s tempting to always lead with the problem. We see the injustice, and we want others to feel the fire to fix it that we do. But the world’s information channels are glutted with that. When we rely on one approach, we can fail to listen, and we risk making others feel helpless and hopeless. To combat this, we encourage you to find thorough, solutions-focused reporting as much as possible. Then, in your own work, ask yourself: “As I try to treat one wound, am I wounding others?” Because cooperation happens, but it doesn’t just happen. We need to nurture it. And we need to take it seriously.
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