Taking a Break from News: A Five-nation Study of News Avoidance in the Digital Era

This article comparatively examines news avoidance in a rapidly changing media environment. We utilize findings from a large dataset of 488 in-depth interviews with media consumers, conducted in Argentina, Finland, Israel, Japan, and the US. We aim to make a contribution to the study of news avoidance by providing a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the drivers, practices, and patterns of news avoidance as they occur in and are shaped by a variety of national contexts. We argue that news avoidance is shaped not only by individual characteristics, but is also manifested and performed as part of specific time frames and socio-cultural factors. We distinguish two drivers of intentional news avoidance: cognitive and emotional. The cognitive drivers are accentuated by distinct country-level contextual factors, whereas the emotional drivers for news avoidance are shared across diverse national contexts.

Automated summary

This article comparatively examines news avoidance, utilizing findings from a large dataset of in-depth interviews with media consumers in different countries. It aims to contribute to the study of news avoidance by providing a comprehensive understanding of the drivers, practices, and patterns of news avoidance, influenced by national contexts. The study argues that news avoidance is shaped by individual characteristics, as well as specific time frames and socio-cultural factors, with cognitive and emotional drivers playing distinct roles.