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DESIGN STRATEGY | CO- DESIGN | SYSTEMS THINKING
Revolutionizing Journalism
Co-designing with community members to redefine the purpose of journalism.
Role: Design Researcher & Strategist, Workshop Facilitator
Timeline: 14 weeks
Client: Solutions Journalism Network (SJN)
CONTEXT
Solutions Journalism Network (SJN) is a non profit that trains journalists to find, research and write Solutions Stories; which are tested solutions to real-world social and environmental problems to equip society with the knowledge to envision and build a more sustainable and equitable world.
BRIEF
SJN wanted us to help them identify:
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Opportunities for generating revenue through Solutions Journalism.
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Value proposition for business leaders in the news industry.
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Collaborators who can benefit from using solutions stories
SOLUTION
Co-Design workshop that produced ideas in which collaborators can leverage solutions stories.
We held a co-design workshop in which we engaged 14 co-designers from different backgrounds in community leadership, career services, design, media advocacy and urban planning.
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Workshop Details
WORKSHOP RESULTS
Journalism Residency Program
Collaborators
A program where community members can engage with journalists to build trust with the community and break misleading narratives.
Civic Engagement Professionals
Public Policy Professional
Lobbyists
Community Leaders
Lego prototype of Journalism Residency Program
Journalists as community builders
Journalists are a great hub of knowledge- using deep research to cover stories. As knowledge hubs, journalists can help non-profits provide up-to-date information about research interests of non-profits, like a community's needs and requirements.
Collaborators
Non-profit Leaders
Urban Developers
Visualizing Journalists as Community Builders using craft materials
APPROACH
RESEARCH
We conducted both primary and secondary research including in-depth interviews with 10+ stakeholders ranging from professionals from media, small-large scale news organizations, and professors of journalism to identify:
1. Different business models in journalism
2. Stakeholders in the system
3. Opportunities and barriers in the journalism industry
4. Repurposing journalism content
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Opportunities and barriers in newsrooms
Stakeholder map of Solutions Journalism
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Conducting interviews with journalists
Conducting interviews with business model experts
INSIGHT #1
SJN trains journalists to lead a new wave of change in the industry. However, they have minimal authority when approving stories for publication.
SJN has been empowering journalists for the past 10 years and though that has reflected in immense amount of solutions content it hasn’t really been able to shift the needle since journalists are one of the small player in the system and scaffolding them ain’t enough.
" So they're(journalists) not creating solutions packages on the regular because most of their news organizations are just still understaffed, overwhelmed, and trying to get to the news of the day. "
-Professor of Journalism,
University of Georgia
Stakeholders and their decision making hierarchy
INSIGHTS #2
Old journalistic value of objectivity held by many business leaders discourages building trust with readers.
Making a business case to publishers & editors requires hard data that points to revenue generation but SJN currently lacks such hard evidence. More than hard evidence, changing traditional value systems is a mindset shift at the landscape level which can take up to years to change.
I think we need to teach our journalists and our audience how to make the dialogue productive…And perhaps that's where we can do some healing for the trust issues that we have developed with our audience because of our old mindset.
-Professor of Journalism,
University of Georgia
Multi-level perspective diagram to analyze system elements
INSIGHT #3
Readers hold power in the system, and some of them even use solutions journalism to drive impact which can be increased by deepening audience understanding.
Journalism, including solutions journalism lacks in understanding their audience base and it's needs and wants. SJN assumes that creating awareness about solutions stories will lead to readers directly using them in their lives.
“There are environmental groups that have been using our content. A person in Washington State wrote us about a pesticide issue. And they said, we're using your content at the governmental level to educate our members to then lobby.”
- Founder at a non-profit media startup on food systems
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Power Dynamics map highlighting the power held by readers
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Gaps in SJN's Theory of Change
How might we deepen audience engagement to increase the impact of solutions journalism?
OPPORTUNITY
SJN can create value for the readers by learning who, when, where and how can use Solution’s Content.
We envisioned different audience types and different use-cases where they could action
on reading solutions content.
Such as:
Students- Writing campaigns to officials in their state
Entrepreneurs- Derive ideas and are inspired by the solutions stories and start their own firm
Activists: Climate change activists cites articles to push pressure of local administration
Ideating different audience types and the outcomes they can achieve with Solutions Content
However, we realized we couldn't truly identify what would be valuable to readers without involving them.
Co-Design Workshop to understand what readers can gain from reading Solution’s Content.
Co-designers co-designing in the workshop
IMPACT
" The insights and ideas they(students) surfaced will contribute to the larger set of reflections around how SJN and the industry evolve and strategize to push media globally to be more solutions-focused. "
- Alec Saelens, SJN's Director of Impact
" SJN is incorporating a co-design approach with an almost identical question to the one the students posed. That is a really big step for SJN. This progress is due in no small part to the quality of the student’s work and the excellence of their storytelling. "
- Cheryl Dahl, Co-Design Professor
LEARNINGS
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It’s always good to diversify stakeholder interviews to understand a wholistic perspectives rather than just hearing one side of the story. I realized this when after having conducted 3-4 interviews with Professors of Solutions Journalism, we weren’t hearing any insightful responses on a key research question we asked and once we discussed this with our professor she suggested we connect with some different stakeholders.
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Facilitating a workshop is not an easy task. As a facilitator, one has to be always present, be patient, be prepared for last-minute changes, maintain decorum and be able to nudge participants to be active.
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The way results and findings are presented to clients play a critical role; especially if the insights which emerge from the research are at a cross-road with the client’s modus operandi.
Fun team-work!