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Why has social innovation not made a bigger splash in mainstream media, you may wonder, given that so much groundbreaking work is being done in the sector?
Why has social innovation not made a bigger splash in mainstream media, you may wonder, given that so much groundbreaking work is being done in the sector.
"At a time when everyone knows the Kardashians, I don't understand why everyone doesn’t know who you are," Annie Lennox, the world-renowned singer-songwriter, AIDS/HIV campaigner and philanthropist, told an audience of social entrepreneurs at this year’s Skoll World Forum on Social Enterprise in Oxford, England.
Her point? Mainstream media largely ignore social entrepreneurs and their solutions-orientated work, sticking to a traditional diet of bad news, conflict and celebrity gossip instead, as this is perceived to be selling newspapers and driving traffic to websites.
In comparison, Kim Kardashian, the character at the centre of hit reality television series “Keeping Up With The Kardashians”, was the most searched-for person on Yahoo last year and made headlines on many days.
But a new way of reporting has been emerging that eschews the murder, mayhem and muckraking way of reporting the news - it’s called solutions journalism and focuses on innovative ways to solve problems rather than just exposing them.
MEDIA AS A PLATFORM FOR SOCIAL CHANGE
The notion behind it is that the media can actively function as a platform for social innovation and positive change.
“There are so many more social entrepreneurs than terrorists in the world,” David Bronstein, chief storyteller at Dowser Media, a leading proponent of solutions journalism, said during a panel discussion on “The Evolving Role of Media in Social Progress” at the Skoll World Forum on Friday.
Journalists are trained to focus on “bad things”, not solutions, said Bronstein, and look for arguments not outcomes.
Such an approach is failing the public because it does not tell the story of how things can be made right, Bronstein said.
Social entrepreneurs and innovators, with their focus on changing the world for the better, lose out in such a news ecosystem.
That situation is poised for a change, not least because opinion polls find that consumers consistently express their dissatisfaction with the state of journalism and “news fatigue” and the desire to “tune out” are happening as a result.
“It’s a waste of the power of storytelling,” said Pat Mitchell, president and chief executive of Paley Center for Media.
Mitchell pointed out that part of the problem is that many social entrepreneurs only allocate tiny budgets, if any, for telling their story to the media- they just hope that it will get noticed.
But thanks to the Internet and social media, the power base of distributing information has shifted from traditional news organisations to literally everyone who can be bothered to come up with a strategy to utilise these new tools to tell their story, Mitchell said.
JOURNALISM OR ADVOCACY?
If journalists play more of a role in highlighting and accelerating social change, isn’t there a risk that they become less critical, less of a watchdog that exposes wrongdoings?
“We took a very early decision not to identify as journalists, so we wouldn’t be bound by the rules,” said Peter Koechley, co-founder and curator-in-chief at Upworthy, a website that defines itself as being for “people who care what’s going on in the world but don’t want to be boring about it.”
Bronstein said there is a professional risk for journalists who cover solutions to be labeled as advocates, an approach that most in the profession would consider unethical and biased.
But social entrepreneurship offers a wealth of compelling stories, not just feel-good tales, or soft news, to lighten up coverage - it is about how citizens and innovators are wielding power to reshape society, the panel heard.
“We don’t put up anything that we don’t think can make the world a better place,” said Upworthy’s Koechley, a former editor of The Onion.
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