The Real-World Effects of Constructive Journalism: A Field Experiment on Climate Change News

To explore the effects of constructive journalism beyond one-shot experiments, this study utilizes a 2-week constructive journalism campaign on climate change in two regional Danish news outlets. Employing a difference-in-differences approach, news users exposed to the campaign were compared to news users from regions not exposed to the campaign. The constructive journalism campaign yielded more positive evaluations of news coverage, but not on core quality aspects like trustworthiness and balance. No effects were found for emotional responses, response efficacy, and behavioural intentions, but a positive effect was found for self-efficacy, indicating the potential of a constructive approach to journalism.