" #Newsavoidance can become “news aversion” (more emotional, more visceral), turning away from the #news not because of some deliberate rational judgment (“I’ll reduce my viewing a little, according to American Psychological Association guidelines”) but because of overwhelming feelings of #anxiety or disgust when confronted by certain stories or individuals."

Why #Democrats are switching off the news – a psychologist explains
https://theconversation.com/why-democrats-are-switching-off-the-news-a-psychologist-explains-248512

#emotionalwellbeing
#cognitiveoverload

#Media #Journalism #News #NewsAvoidance: "Q. How many people avoid the news in the United States?

A. According to this year’s Digital News Report, up to 43% say they avoid the news in some form. It doesn’t mean that 43% of the country is not consuming any news at all. But it’s a sign of a clear decline in interest in news. There is a smaller group of people that we call consistent news avoiders. They consume news less often than once a month or never, and this group is around 8% of the US public, which is still millions of people.

Q. Who are these news avoiders in the US?

A. A lot of things are similar across countries. These people are more likely to be younger and working-class and less likely to be college-educated. They are also slightly more likely to be women than men. Lack of interest in politics is a huge predictor, so people who are consuming little to no news (or avoiding news often) are less interested in politics and less likely to participate in political life.

But here’s one of the things that’s different about the US. In addition to those patterns, you also have a larger segment of people who are on the right ideologically and who are also avoiding news, and part of what they are expressing is dissatisfaction with conventional sources of journalism.

Q. What are the reasons they give for avoiding the news?

A. It’s a mix of things. There’s a set of people who emphasise that it’s not about the news at all, but about the structural barriers in their lives. They just feel like they don’t have time to focus on the news because they are taking care of three kids and an ageing parent and working full time, and it feels too exhausting to make time for the news at the end of the day.

But there’s another segment of people who emphasise that it’s about the news itself, and here it’s a mix of things ranging from an emphasis on how anxiety-inducing the news itself can be to frustrations with sensationalism..."

https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/why-millions-americans-avoid-news-and-what-it-means-us-election

Nachrichtenmüdigkeit ist eine der großen Sorgen der Medienwelt. Konstruktiver Journalismus soll Abhilfe schaffen. Welche Zukunft er hat, darum geht es in der vorerst letzten Folge von „Zurück zum Thema“.

#Journalismus #KonstruktiverJournalismus #Medien #Nachrichtenmüdigkeit #NewsAvoidance #ZurückZumThema

https://detektor.fm/gesellschaft/zurueck-zum-thema-konstruktiver-journalismus-2?utm_campaign=share_on_mastodon&utm_medium=mastodon&utm_source=mastodon

#Journalism #Media #News #TV #Newspapers #NewsAvoidance: "A few serious news media will survive as special-interest publications, like ham-radio magazines in bygone days. Their content is mostly argued about by well-educated men with polarised views, notes the Reuters Institute. Politicians will disproportionately woo this group, ignoring the apathetic mainstream.

The no-news era will change politics. “If a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was & never will be,” wrote the American founding father Thomas Jefferson. Expect rising abstention at elections, as is already happening in France. Polarisation pushed turnout in the US’s 2020 election to 66 per cent, the highest since 1908, but that should prove a peak. Internet influencers may displace TV personalities such as Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy as election-winners. And with citizens losing interest, leaders will find it easier to dismantle democracy à la Viktor Orbán.

We marvel at Russians, switched off and immobilised while their government commits horrors. That could be us very soon." https://www.ft.com/content/451e7466-7a91-4784-aa37-02993ff0fc9e

#News #Media #Journalism #Newspapers #NewsAvoidance: "Let us start with news content and the way it is presented. News avoidance is not only a response to content. But make no mistake: content is still a big part of the problem. When so many people explain their news avoidance by saying, “it’s not me, it’s news,” a first response should be to look closely at the coverage that turns them off.

Many people – and not just consistent news avoiders – say that news is depressing, irrelevant, unintelligible, and that there isn’t anything they can do about the problems they see in the news anyway. These complaints are a starting point for meeting people where they are culturally. If our goal is to address consistent news avoidance, it fundamentally does not matter whether these beliefs are fair or accurate. What matters is the social fact that millions of people hold these views, and that these preconceptions lead some to systematically avoid the news, and many others to approach it only hesitantly.

It does not have to be this way. A news organisation that wanted to could say, “we hear you.” It could differentiate itself from an abundance of relentlessly depressing news-as-usual by stating clearly and explicitly, “we want to be different,” and telling people –over time, showing people – that they are not afraid to lead with news that is uplifting, closer to people’s lived experience, presented in more accessible ways, and focused on things they can influence."

https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/five-things-news-media-can-do-respond-consistent-news-avoidance

"Some of these patterns are quite similar around the world. In general, consistent news avoidance tends to be more common among young people, women, and lower socioeconomic classes."

Read a longer excerpt from "Avoiding the News: Reluctant Audiences for Journalism" (by Benjamin Toff, Ruth Palmer, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen) in this @niemanlab post:

https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/11/so-who-are-the-consistent-news-avoiders/

#news #newsavoidance

"And yet I sympathise with anyone who now reaches for the dial when the news comes on. I get the lure of avoidance, which is not the same as apathy." Rafael Behr

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/19/trivia-british-political-discourse-times-of-war

#PoliticalDiscourse #NewsAvoidance