The Effects of Solutions versus ‘Heart-warmer’ Journalism on Audience Wellbeing, Self-Efficacy, and Trust

Natasha van Antwerpen, & Kyser Lough (2025). “The Effects of Solutions versus ‘Heart-warmer’ Journalism on Audience Wellbeing, Self-Efficacy, and Trust.” Media Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2025.2491764

Abstract: Solutions journalism, rigorous reporting on responses to social problems, has separated itself from lighter and inspirational “heart-warming” news. However, existing studies on outcomes such as positive emotion and wellbeing, efficacy, and trust in news primarily test solutions against problem-oriented reporting. Accordingly, we ran a between-participants (solutions/heart-warmer) repeated-measures experiment among young higher-education students in Australia (N = 262) and the United States (N = 249). Participants read three articles on university-related topics in solutions-oriented or “heart-warming” story conditions. Participants in the heart-warming condition reported higher eudaimonic (meaning-related) and hedonic (pleasure-related) responses, though solutions stories were identified as more evidently addressing a structural issue. There was no difference across conditions in effects on community-efficacy, though self-efficacy increased among US participants in the solutions condition. Similarly, US participants in the solutions condition reported higher trust; however, the opposite effect was found in the Australian sample. Our results suggest participants do find a difference between solutions and heart-warming journalism. As positive emotion is currently the only consistent finding in the solutions journalism audience-effects literature, our study points to the importance of testing solutions journalism against heart-warming as well as negative/prototypical news and considering more nuanced definitions of wellbeing than positive and negative emotion alone.