Susana Herrera Damas

In recent years, constructive journalism (CJ) has gained prominence as a response to audience fatigue, declining trust, and the prevalence of negativity in contemporary news. However, the empirical evidence remains fragmented across geopolitical contexts, audience effects, and organizational environments. This systematic review synthesizes 25 empirical studies published between 2017 and 2025 in open-access journals to examine (1) how CJ is implemented and adapted in Western democracies and in Global South contexts, (2) its differentiated effects on audience responses, and (3) how narrative formats and organizational conditions mediate its scalability. Following the PRISMA 2020 guidelines, experimental, qualitative, and mixed-methods studies were identified and assessed using the MMAT tool. The results indicate that CJ is implemented with differentiated normative functions depending on the context, with a higher risk of political co-optation in some settings. CJ is consistently associated with more positive emotional responses, while exhibiting cognitive trade-offs and behavioral effects that depend on format. This proposal emerges as a context-contingent innovation, whose potential and limits are shaped by political, narrative, and organizational dynamics.

In recent years, constructive journalism (CJ) has gained prominence as a response to audience fatigue, declining trust, and the prevalence of negativity in contemporary news. However, the empirical evidence remains fragmented across geopolitical contexts, audience effects, and organizational environments. This systematic review synthesizes 25 empirical studies published between 2017 and 2025 in open-access journals to examine (1) how CJ is implemented and adapted in Western democracies and in Global South contexts, (2) its differentiated effects on audience responses, and (3) how narrative formats and organizational conditions mediate its scalability. Following the PRISMA 2020 guidelines, experimental, qualitative, and mixed-methods studies were identified and assessed using the MMAT tool. The results indicate that CJ is implemented with differentiated normative functions depending on the context, with a higher risk of political co-optation in some settings. CJ is consistently associated with more positive emotional responses, while exhibiting cognitive trade-offs and behavioral effects that depend on format. This proposal emerges as a context-contingent innovation, whose potential and limits are shaped by political, narrative, and organizational dynamics.

This exploratory study aims to analyse the perceptions of professionals in the field of marketing and advertising regarding the risks and threats associated with the growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the sector. Through a survey with a sample of 373 marketing, advertising, and branded content professionals in Spain, the concerns of participants were uncovered regarding the quality of AI-generated content, the potential loss of creativity and originality, the impact on job security, and the need for human oversight. While the participants appreciate the operational utility of AI, they also warn of its ethical, expressive, and strategic limitations. The findings reveal a perspective that is critical, although not technophobic, which calls for regulatory frameworks, specialised training, and responsible use. In regards to the practical implications, this study highlights the tension that accompanies automation in the creative field and underscores the importance of ethical, balanced, and human-focused use of such technology, which is the prerequisite for a responsible transition toward the use of AI in the advertising industry. Given the context, it is imperative to understand how the transformation of the industry due to the introduction of these technologies is interpreted by the professionals who experience them firsthand. This study is one of the first to evaluate the level of acceptance of AI tools among professionals in the advertising industry in Spain.

Esta revisión sistemática sintetiza la evidencia empírica (2000–2025) sobre la prevalencia del estrés crónico en periodistas y los principales factores de riesgo y protección asociados. Se buscaron artículos en WoS y Scopus, aplicando criterios PICOS y selección en Rayyan. Los datos se sintetizaron mediante análisis temático inductivo-deductivo. Se incluyeron 20 estudios que examinan la situación a la que se enfrentan 7.394 periodistas de un total de 16 países. Predominan los diseños cuantitativos (n=12) frente a los cualitativos (n=6) o mixtos (n=2). Los resultados muestran una prevalencia elevada, con mayores niveles entre mujeres, jóvenes, autónomos y profesionales expuestos a precariedad, sobrecarga y acoso. El locus de control interno, la reevaluación positiva y el apoyo social emergen como factores protectores robustos. Estos hallazgos subrayan la necesidad de intervenciones multiescalares y de mejorar la estandarización y medición del estrés crónico.

Spanish journalists do not suffer from work-related anxiety because they lack resilience; they suffer from it because they work in environments structurally designed to produce it. Based on this premise, this study develops the first empirically grounded multilevel governance model to reduce work-related anxiety among journalists, drawing on 23 in-depth interviews with Spanish professionals who have experienced it through either a diagnosis or self-report, analyzed using reflective thematic analysis. The findings are organized into three interconnected levels—micro, meso, and macro—and identify, respectively, pre-existing protective factors, reactive coping strategies, and advice and recommendations aimed at structural change. Anchored in Job Anxiety Theory and evidence from equivalent complex interventions, the model demonstrates that individual resources only produce sustainable effects when the organizational and sectoral levels actively support them. The asymmetry between the density of the micro level and the precariousness of the meso and macro levels constitutes the study’s central finding. Our model redefines anxiety in journalism as an institutional design challenge and offers a scalable, modular, and contextualized architecture for the Spanish media ecosystem.

Solutions journalism (SoJo) has been widely promoted as a response to declining trust in news and growing audience disengagement, yet empirical evidence regarding its effectiveness remains fragmented across methods, contexts, and levels of analysis. This systematic review synthesizes 41 peer-reviewed studies (2016-2025) identified through preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses 2000 (PRISMA 2020)-guided searches to determine when, how, and under what conditions SoJo produces measurable outcomes. Integrating findings across contextual environments, narrative forms, audience processes, and institutional dynamics, the review shows that SoJo consistently improves affective responses and perceived efficacy but yields uneven behavioral effects. Outcomes vary systematically depending on narrative structure, audience relevance, and organizational feasibility, while structural constraints such as resource limitations, platform logics, and newsroom norms restrict scalability. By specifying how narrative design, media context, and institutional implementation interact in shaping civic outcomes, the study advances journalism communication theory and provides evidence-based guidance for practitioners. The findings reframe SoJo not as a universal remedy for journalism’s crisis but as a conditional innovation whose impact depends on identifiable mechanisms and contextual contingencies.

This systematic review examines how emotional well-being in journalism has been de-fined, experienced, and supported between 2010 and 2025. It draws on 15 peer-reviewed empirical studies identified in Web of Science and Scopus and evaluated using PRISMA 2020 and the MMAT. The review addresses three main gaps in the field: unclear definitions, limited synthesis of risk and protective factors, and scarce assessment of support interventions. Across studies, emotional distress emerges from structural pressures, such as overwork, trauma exposure, online harassment, job precarity, and the erosion of collegial networks. These pressures, rather than inherent traits of journalistic work, shape vulnerability. Protective factors include social support, editorial autonomy, professional experience, purpose-driven motivation, and practices like mindfulness or digital disconnection. Yet their impact is often limited by weak organizational infrastructures. Vulnerability is higher among women, freelancers, and early career journalists, although intersectional analyses remain rare. Sectoral and organizational responses—peer networks, resilience programs, trauma-informed training, and emerging digital safety policies—show promise but remain fragmented. The review concludes that emotional well-being should be framed as an ethical and structural responsibility within journalism, and that sustainable progress requires systemic measures that foster psychological safety and professional dignity.

Este estudio analiza las percepciones de 373 profesionales del marketing, la publicidad y el branded content en España sobre el impacto de la inteligencia artificial en su actividad. Los resultados revelan una visión mayoritariamente positiva en relación con sus beneficios para optimizar procesos, mejorar la eficiencia operativa y estimular la creatividad. Con todo, el trabajo también subraya la importancia de preservar la centralidad del juicio humano y fomentar una adopción crítica, ética y estratégicamente orientada de estas tecnologías en una industria en plena evolución y crecientemente atravesada por la innovación algorítmica.

Propósito. Este artículo identifica buenas prácticas que optimizan el funcionamiento de los laboratorios de medios como espacios clave para la innovación periodística. Metodología. Se emplea un enfoque cualitativo basado en la revisión de literatura y 21 entrevistas en profundidad a expertos académicos y profesionales vinculados a laboratorios de medios en España (2021-2025), cuyo análisis fue codificado con el software Atlas.ti. Resultados y conclusiones. Los hallazgos revelan que la operatividad de estos espacios depende de factores como el respaldo institucional, la autonomía operativa, el uso de metodologías ágiles, la existencia de equipos interdisciplinarios y una cultura de innovación distribuida en toda la organización. Además, se subraya la importancia de establecer mecanismos de transferencia del conocimiento para evitar que los laboratorios operen como unidades aisladas. Aportación original. El estudio propone un modelo sistematizado de buenas prácticas para laboratorios de medios, que refuerza su capacidad de experimentación y de transformación organizacional, al tiempo que articula estrategias para maximizar su impacto en la redacción.

This systematic review synthesises publicly available empirical evidence (2000-2025) on burnout among journalists, an understudied occupational health phenomenon whose individual and systemic repercussions raise critical questions about media integrity, professional resilience and democratic accountability. Guided by two objectives, the review first examines the consequences of burnout on journalists’ quality of life and quality of work. Studies report chronic fatigue, insomnia, hypertension, depression, anxiety and post traumatic stress, along with diminished creativity, ethical tension and disengagement within newsrooms. Thus, burnout not only compromises personal well-being and collective performance but also affects the civic mission of journalism. The second objective identifies and evaluates coping strategies at individual, organisational and sectoral levels. By integrating the findings through the frameworks of job demands-resource and conservation of resources, this review highlights burnout as a systemic imbalance between increasing demands and insufficient resources. The study concludes that effective responses require multi-level coordination to foster sustainable and mentally healthy journalism.