The study “Avoiding News is Hard Work, or is it? A Closer Look at the Work of News Avoidance among Frequent and Infrequent Consumers of News” by Stephanie Edgerly from Northwestern University explored the experiences of both frequent and infrequent news consumers when avoiding news.
News avoidance is an interesting concept in today’s world, when opportunities to consume news are everywhere yet many people still consume news only a little or even not at all. These people are often referred to as news avoiders.
In addition, there is a growing percentage of people who self-report avoiding news – worldwide 36% sometimes or often avoid news, up from 28% in 2017. However, some other studies have found that those who “often” or “sometimes” avoid news consume quite a bit of news nevertheless.
This study sheds more light on the reasons for news avoidance by conducting 45 qualitative interviews on people from the US State of Illinois. They were asked about their experiences with news avoidance and whether they found it difficult or easy. It was found out that news avoidance was difficult for others and easy for others.
The interviewees were classified as frequent and infrequent news users. For infrequent news users, For infrequent users, news avoidance plays a common part in their lives, but often they have quite extensive routines to avoid news on the media they consume. However, many also expressed that it is quite easy to avoid news – as they do not encounter them on social media feeds or discuss it with acquaintances.
For some others, avoidance was more deliberate and required planning. For example, the 61-year old Janet had extensive knowledge of TV schedules so she could avoid news but receive weather forecasts that she was interested in. She muted and unmuted the television in accordance to whether the content was of interest and found other things to do.
For infrequent users, news avoidance was still not absolute. They would not seek the news, but the news would appear on feeds and other places. Some others expressed that news were simply impossible to avoid.
Among frequent users, the group was split evenly by those who said it was easy and those who said it was difficult. Those who said it was easy did it mostly for the reasons involving their own mental health and emotional state – usually there was a tipping point, then break, then they would get back to news.
The ones who found it difficult pointed to the ubiquitous nature of news to make a case why avoidance was difficult. For this group, certain spaces and situations, such as social media sites, were central to their lives. Identity was a second factor – many frequent users considered it a patriotic duty to stay informed, so avoidance would have contrasted with it.
In conclusion, the author states that news avoidance is first about controllability, and second, embedded in larger patterns of media use that vary between individuals. Third, she concluded that even when easy, it required work – either managing social connections or identity work.
The article “Avoiding News is Hard Work, or is it? A Closer Look at the Work of News Avoidance among Frequent and Infrequent Consumers of News” by Stephanie Edgerly is in Journalism Studies. (free abstract).
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