The Big Fix

6. Society and Sustainability 6c Social Sustainability This paper proposes that we can reach the tipping point by utilizing collective impact approaches and evidence-based solutions journalism networks, to reimagine the world... [ view full abstract ]

6. Society and Sustainability
6c Social Sustainability

This paper proposes that we can reach the tipping point by utilizing collective impact approaches and evidence-based solutions journalism networks, to reimagine the world as a united front creating ‘The Big Fix’. Walter Lippman has said that “the way in which the world is imagined determines at any particular moment what men will do.”

In a readership currently suffering “news fatigue” there is a vacuum waiting to be filled by the “citizen sector”. This sector represents an extraordinary number of organisations pursuing change and has been surprisingly under-reported.

This paper proposes that models of scaling social innovation rapidly can be found throughout culture and, combined with evidence-based solutions journalism networks, could provide the cross-sector responses required to tackle the “wicked problems” facing us today.

The paper should be of interest to researchers as well as decision and policy makers.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the need for developing evidence-based solutions journalism networks operating within collective impact frameworks, in order to scale innovation to reach the urgent tipping point required.

Collective Impact: Strategic Philanthropy for a Complex World, John Kania, Mark Kramer, & Patty Russell; Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2014

Social Norming: Integrating social networks and human social motives to achieve social influence at scale, Noshir S. Contractor and Leslie A. DeChurch, PNAS, 2014

Solutions Journalism: Innovating News Journalism through Positive Psychology, Cathrine Gyldensted, University of Pennsylvania Scholarly Commons, 2011

This paper concludes that collective impact approaches, incorporating evidence-based solutions journalism, are an antidote to fear and can help us tackle “wicked problems” by providing us with the tools and social norming required to change en masse.

We will reach the necessary tipping point when media becomes part of the solution, rather than part of the problem, with civic journalism rapidly scaling social and environmental innovation.

Key words: solutions journalism; social norming; scaling innovation; wicked problems; collective impact; systems design