Description
Book SynopsisAs audiences avoid negative news and public risk perceptions fracture across polarized media ecologies, journalists are being called upon to tell engaging and optimistic stories about the future. Consequently, solutions journalism has moved from the margins to the global mainstream, resulting in a plurality of new solutions-focused practices. Solutions Journalism: News at the Intersection of Hope, Leadership, and Expertise explores the professional dynamics and tensions concerning solutions journalism, clarifies these related practices and, in so doing, provides scholars and journalists with a nuanced appreciation of the opportunities and liabilities of reporting solutions. Drawing upon a year-long study of journalism in Tasmania, Bill Dodd develops a tripartite theory of solutions journalism at the intersection of three core concepts: hope, leadership, and expertise. In Australia’s lagging southernmost province, where development propositions have sparked global protest movements, ‘New Tasmania’ represented a newly optimistic spirit of bipartisanship. Yet, in this book, a close reading of solutions-focused discourse reveals deeper asymmetries regarding whose voices are routinely privileged in framing the future. On this basis, the book argues for a solutions journalism founded on a nuanced understanding of hope and a plurality of community leaders and practical expertise.
Trade ReviewThis book offers a clear-eyed guide to the ins and outs of solutions journalism as a possible path forward for news and information in the twenty-first century. Combining analysis of the journalistic field with on-the-ground observation in newsrooms and local communities, Bill Dodd shows readers what kinds of challenges and opportunities confront news organizations in their commitments to preserving democracy and educating the public. This book also offers much-needed critique of the frames, structures, and outcomes of journalistic storytelling with a solutions mindset. At a time when the public’s need for accurate information and hope in the future is more important than ever, Dodd offers us reasons to look to new forms of leadership and organization in the pursuit of society’s self-understanding.
-- Melissa Aronczyk, Rutgers University
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction
Part I
Chapter 1: Hope
Chapter 2: Leadership
Part II
Chapter 3: “New Tasmania”
Chapter 4: “An Entrepreneurial Spirit”
Chapter 5: Governmental Metaphors
Chapter 6: Expertise
Chapter 7: Conclusion
Appendices
References
About the Author
