The effects of constructive journalism: Towards a theoretical framework

News media coverage mainly focuses on problems and conflicts, resulting in unintended negative consequences for democracy and journalism itself. Constructive journalism aims to address these issues by emphasizing solution-oriented reporting. However, research on its effects remains inconsistent, mainly due to vague definitions of constructive journalism and a lack of theoretical foundation. This paper first proposes a content-centered definition of constructive journalism, suggesting three dimensions: balance, matter-of-factness, and focus on solutions. Using a series of established theories, we then present a theoretical framework that models the impacts of the content dimensions in a chain of effects from emotions to cognitive and conative variables. Our approach offers a systematic basis for future research by enabling experimental analysis of operationalizable and empirically separable content dimensions and by integrating research on constructive journalism into a variety of established media effect theories. Thus, we meet the demand for a stronger theoretical focus and aim to clarify constructive journalism’s impact on audiences.