Conceptualizing News Avoidance: Towards a Shared Understanding of Different Causes and Potential Solutions

“Be Less of a Slave to the News”: A Texto-Material Perspective on News Avoidance among Young Adults

“…The increasing numbers of news avoiders across the globe (Ksiazek, Malthouse, and Webster 2010;Newman et al 2017) have attracted scholarly interest to the phenomenon of news non-use. Nevertheless, the absence of a standardized measure for news avoidance has impeded conceptual rigor in the literature (Skovsgaard and Andersen 2020). Defined as a continuous "low news consumption" (Skovsgaard and Andersen 2020, 463), avoidance is operationalized either in relation to a pre-determined threshold (i.e., once a day, a week, or a month) (Newman et al 2017;Toff and Nielsen 2018;Toff and Palmer 2019), or in comparison to the amount of consumption by others (Ksiazek, Malthouse, and Webster 2010;Strömbäck, Djerf-Pierre, and Shehata 2013).…”

“…Alternatively, several studies have relied on consumers' explicit identification as avoiders, regardless of their general exposure (Newman et al 2019;Woodstock 2014). This latter measurement aligns with the fluidity of avoidance behavior in an era of media convergence (Ribak and Rosenthal 2015;Jenkins 2006), which may lead even "news junkies" to enact avoidance practices at times (Skovsgaard and Andersen 2020).…”

“…News distrust, political disinterest, or a lack of civic obligation to remain informed are other prominent avoidance catalysts (Edgerly 2017;Ksiazek, Malthouse, and Webster 2010;Lee and Chyi 2014;Newman et al 2017;Palmer and Toff 2020;Strömbäck, Djerf-Pierre, and Shehata 2013;Toff and Nielsen 2018). Avoidance is also often related to a sense of news overload (Pentina and Tarafdar 2014;Skovsgaard and Andersen 2020), when consumers are disturbed by the incessant coverage of certain national or global political events, such as the "Brexit" referendum (Toff and Nielsen 2018), the 2016 US elections (Wagner and Boczkowski 2019), and the coronavirus pandemic (Kalogeropoulos, Fletcher, and Nielsen 2020). News avoidance can thus be seen as a self-preservation behavior, aimed to prevent information manipulation and to shield individuals from the distressing effect of engaging with the news (Toff and Palmer 2019;Woodstock 2014).…”

“…News consumption contributes to a range of desirable democratic outcomes, from civic participation and political knowledge to reinforcing people's sense of community (Bennett 2008;Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996;Strömbäck, Djerf-Pierre, and Shehata 2013). Despite these oft-cited benefits, keeping up with the news also comes at the cost of time and emotional resources, which may lead to news avoidance (Newman et al 2019;Palmer and Toff 2020;Skovsgaard and Andersen 2020). The millennial generation in particular draws concerns regarding a decline in their news consumption, especially from legacy media (Antunovic, Parsons, and Cooke 2018;Boczkowski, Mitchelstein, and Matassi 2018;Poindexter 2012).…”

Block, Hide or Follow—Personal News Curation Practices on Social Media

“…Despite the manifold availability of news content, the number of people who avoid news is increasing (Blekesaune, Elvestad, and Aalberg 2012), which is a potential societal problem since news use is related to political knowledge and participation (Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996). In their review of news avoidance, Skovsgaard and Andersen (2019) differentiate between a) a lack of news exposure due to low levels of news interest and a preference for other media opportunities and b) the practice of consciously tuning out of news content due to skepticism, negative effects on their mood or feelings of news overload.…”