Journalism's Green Transition: The Constructive Path to Climate Motivation

The climate crisis requires action not only from politicians but also from citizens, who must change their behavior in a more climate-friendly direction. However, while news coverage focusing on alarming future scenarios and severe consequences raises awareness and fear about the climate crisis, it also leaves many with a feeling that they cannot do anything to change the problem, causing them to become passive and resigned. Therefore, the ambition of GRO is: 1) To develop new constructive journalism and test whether it can increase people’s feeling of being competent to take action and motivate them to change their behavior.
2) To investigate whether this type of journalism can be aligned with the journalists' professional values, such as being society's critical watchdog and being objective disseminators of information. This is examined in close collaboration between the University of Southern Denmark and the news media in the Funen region transforming the Funen media landscape into a live laboratory for constructive climate journalism.