News avoidance refers to the phenomenon whereby audiences reduce their consumption of journalistic media over a continuous period of time due to either an active dislike for news or a preference for other kinds of media content.
Although many theories about the impacts of journalistic media implicitly assume that large portions of the public regularly consume those media, it is important to recognize that large segments of the population do not do so. Indeed, although more journalism is produced today than ever before, the number of people who avoid journalism has also increased in recent decades.
Similarly, it is important to recognize that audiences' journalistic media use is usually characterized by a combination of genres, such as sports journalism, political journalism, and environmental journalism. News avoidance is typically linked to the exclusion of certain genres and issues, though it may be extended to all journalistic media use.
This development can have profound impacts on democratic societies that presumably rely upon a well-informed citizenry to self-govern as news exposure has historically been positively related to political knowledge and engagement. Second, the development has negative economic consequences for journalistic organizations as it reduces the potential size of its audience.
There are many reasons why an audience member may engage in news avoidance, but they can usually be placed into one of two categories: intentional avoidance and unintentional avoidance.
Intentional avoidance is the consequence of individuals consciously tuning out news media. There are three main reasons why they engage in such behavior, all of which are linked to negative dispositions toward journalistic media.
The first reason is that they perceive news coverage to be too negative and pessimistic. While conflict and negativity have historically proven to be important in the context of journalistic news values—and some audiences are drawn to particularly violent news, such as heinous crimes—such news has been linked to increases in negative emotions and decreases in an individual’s well-being over time. The desire to seek positive emotions can thus result in intentional avoidance.
The second reason is that some audiences do not trust journalistic media. This may be due to a perception that certain groups of journalistic organizations—if not journalistic media as a whole—are pushing for their own political and economic interests by being selective with the topics they cover and the information they include in their coverage. The perception that such coverage will be biased against the individual’s viewpoints or perception of reality can thus encourage intentional avoidance.
The third reason is that there is always a massive amount of readily accessible journalistic products out there, which can create a feeling of information overload. Not only is there a seemingly endless pool of issues being covered at any given moment, but there is also a seemingly endless pool of stories about each issue—which is impossible for any single person to consume or process. That perceived overload can create stress, confusion, and anxiety, and thus result in intentional avoidance to reclaim a positive emotional state.
There is also unintentional news avoidance, which is based on the audience member’s relative preference for non-journalistic media. Put another way, the avoidance isn’t because the individual is actively seeking to avoid journalistic media but rather because their preference for another choice—like the latest Ryan Gosling movie—is stronger. Indeed, scholars have argued that the large audiences drawn by television news broadcasts in the 1960s and 1970s were due in part to audiences watching the news while they waited for evening entertainment programs to start after them.
News avoidance does not have to reflect a permanent state wherein audience members always avoid certain kinds of journalistic products, or journalistic media altogether. Quite often, it is a temporary state, as when individuals feel overwhelmed and need to take a break from an issue.
Perhaps you felt this yourself during news coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. After a certain number of stories, you may have felt the need to disconnect from your preferred news sources to keep your mental state from deteriorating. After a while, you may have resumed taking in such stories, and needed another break later on.
We can call this phenomenon news fatigue, which connotes a temporary feeling of exhaustion that can be addressed after a period of recharging. News fatigue can occur in relation to any kind of news story, such as royal weddings and the like. However, it is typically most pronounced when it comes to natural disasters, illnesses, and political issues that, by their very nature, already tend to engender negative emotional responses.
Similarly, there is a phenomenon called compassion fatigue, which refers to the gradual lessening of compassion over time as a result of repeated exposure to traumatic phenomena. For example, consider the refugee crisis resulting from the Syrian Civil War, wherein nearly 13 million Syrians were estimated to have been displaced and needing humanitarian assistance. As the war dragged on over years, audiences around the world moved from being shocked to becoming numbed in order to psychologically protect themselves from repeated traumatic exposure.
Compassion fatigue has been associated with increased feelings of hopelessness and negative attitudes. That, in turn, can lead to desensitization and even resistance to helping those suffering if the issue is perceived as being intractable, or impossible to manage or change. Consequently, individuals may seek to turn off certain emotions as best they can. Compassion fatigue can also impact political and economic support for initiatives to address that issue.
This phenomenon is not limited to news audiences or to journalism. It has been found to impact a range of professionals, including doctors, child welfare workers, and lawyers. However, it has been found to have profound impacts on journalists themselves—and especially foreign correspondents who are shuttled from one crisis to another. Those impacts involve not only their emotional and mental states but also the depictions (and tropes) they incorporate into their work.
Several strategies have been proposed to reduce the likelihood of news avoidance. The first is to engage in approaches to journalism like constructive journalism and solutions journalism.
Constructive journalism aims to rebalance journalism by accompanying a selection of predominantly negative news about an issue with more positive coverage that illustrates the bright spots—however few—related to that issue. For example, this might involve stories about how some Syrian refugees were able to successfully relocate themselves and start new lives, or how a local non-profit helped provide needed aid to displaced refugees.
Solutions journalism aims to not only diagnose problems—like the displacement of Syrians during the war—but also adopt a forward-looking perspective that identifies possible solutions and offers concrete suggestions to audiences for how to become a part of those solutions. This may include providing contact information for local nonprofits or identifying specific humanitarian aid legislation that is under consideration.
The second strategy is to look for ways to increase trust in news organizations, such as by being more transparent about how stories are reported and explaining the journalistic processes behind them. For example, this might entail appending an information box to a story that contains anonymous sources that explains the journalistic organization’s policy on granting anonymity.
A third strategy is to provide slow journalism alternatives. This approach moves away from providing many short, episodic breaking news products and instead toward providing fewer, longer, and more holistic news products. The approach is not intended to replace traditional journalism but simply to offer a complement for those who feel stressed by information overload.
News avoidance refers to the phenomenon whereby audiences reduce their consumption of journalistic media over a continuous period of time.
News avoidance may be the result of intentional and unintentional attitudes, with the former referring to an active dislike for news and the latter a simple preference for other media content.
Intentional avoidance may be the byproduct of perceived over-negativity, lack of trust in news, and information overload.
Individuals may develop either or both news fatigue and compassion fatigue as a result of over-exposure to a particular issue.
There are different strategies that journalistic actors and actants can employ to reduce the likelihood of avoidance, though some measure of avoidance is inevitable.