Audience Engagement with COVID-19 News: The Impact of Lockdown and Live Coverage, and the Role of Polarization

Abstract

Existing research on media and the COVID-19 pandemic is largely based on quantitative data, focused on digital media, limited to single-country studies, and often West-centred. As such, it has limited capacity to provide a holistic account of the causes and consequences of audience engagement with COVID-19 news, or to consider the impact of systemic political and media factors. To compensate for that, we examine a large set of qualitative interviews and media diaries collected in four eastern European countries during the first wave of the pandemic. We show that changes in news consumption-including the resurgence of television and decline of print consumption-were not driven solely by audience demand for up-to-date information, but also by practical constrains of home-bound life in lockdown, and the introduction of live briefings. Our findings underscore disruption and uncertainty as key elements of audience experiences and highlight the markedly privatized and depoliticized nature of public debate in the early phase of the pandemic. We argue that the pandemic was an unpredictable, open-ended, and exhausting media event with high potential for divisiveness and polarization, especially in contexts marked by low levels of media freedom, declining democratic standards, and elite-led politicization of the crisis.

The COVID-19 infodemic at your fingertips. Reciprocal relationships between COVID-19 information FOMO, bedtime smartphone news engagement, and daytime tiredness over time

“…However, since these longer overall durations were often accompanied by, among other things, longer sleep onset latencies (i.e., the time needed to fall asleep; Alfonsi et al, 2021 ), more sleep difficulties (e.g., insomnia; Li et al, 2020 ), and more nightmares ( Scarpelli et al, 2021 ), people's sleep quality nevertheless worsened during the pandemic ( Jahrami et al, 2021 ). This decline in sleep quality coincides with findings on people's intensified news engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic that has been attributed to more extensive reporting and increasing demand for it due to persistent feelings of uncertainty ( Mihelj et al, 2021 ). However, instead of providing reassuring experiences, heavy news engagement has been found related to harmful outcomes (e.g., amplified emotional distress, anxiety, depressive symptoms; Fullana et al, 2020 ; Olagoke et al, 2020 ; Stainback et al, 2020 ) that mirror psychological consequences previously documented for news overconsumption from other traumatic events (e.g., terrorist attacks or natural disasters; Pfefferbaum et al, 2021 ), so much so that public health authorities have endorsed limited exposure ( Crew et al, 2020 ).…”

The Mental Health Impact of Daily News Exposure During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Ecological Momentary Assessment Study

“…The uncertain and rapidly changing nature of the pandemic, coupled with shelter-in-place and work-from-home orders in the first year of the pandemic, increased access to and demand for information about COVID-19 [ 1 , 2 ]. News consumption increased across multiple forms of media, including increases in television news viewership, daily visits to news websites, and the use of mobile phones to monitor pandemic updates [ 3 - 5 ].…”

“…Crisis situations prompt information seeking to reduce uncertainty and increase feelings of safety, corresponding to an increase in overall news consumption during the pandemic [ 2 , 8 , 10 , 11 ]. During periods of elevated stress, people may turn to media outlets to help relax and cope with anxiety, particularly when access to other coping resources is limited [ 12 - 15 ].…”

“…Due to evolutions in news dissemination across social network platforms, millions are inadvertently exposed to distressing content while engaging with social media for connection, social support, and distraction, limiting the efficacy of web-based coping methods and increasing worry [ 29 - 32 ]. Distress may be further compounded in the context of COVID-19 because of an increase in misinformation and uncertainty about news accuracy, which may prompt additional news engagement in the light of rapidly changing and contradictory information presented by various sources [ 2 , 33 , 34 ].…”

La televisión educativa en España: la oferta de Atresmedia, Mediaset y RTVE

“…La obligación de quedarse en casa supuso, entre otras alteraciones, un aumento del consumo mediático, tanto en la televisión lineal como a través de plataformas de vídeo bajo demanda (Montaña Blasco et al, 2020). En este contexto tan complejo, la televisión se convirtió en una aliada no sólo a la hora de transmitir información de servicio público (Mihelj et al, 2021) y proporcionar una fuente de entretenimiento y desconexión, sino también recuperando una de sus funciones más marginadas (Serrano y Ojeda Castañeda, 2007;Grummell, 2009), la educativa.…”