Abstract
ABSTRACT News avoidance is associated with misperceptions and lower political knowledge and participation. Synthetizing the research results in differentiating between intentional news avoidance, a conscious choice, and news avoidance as low news consumption. Although these two types seem to be driven by different factors and have distinct consequences, the current research has predominantly ignored to consider this distinction and the dimensions’ interplay. Our study contributes to closing that gap. We conducted an online survey in Austria (N = 1,007) and identified different types of avoiders based on the intentionality (high/average or low) and news consumption (high or average/low). The results show that only a small proportion of our sample avoids news intentionally and displays low news consumption. In fact, most intentional avoiders retain average/high news consumption, suggesting that intentional news avoidance can be a by-product of news use and not opting out. Concerning predictors, both dimensions can be partly explained by a lower perceived civic duty to keep informed and lower political interest. However, they have unique predictors indicating that high intentional news avoidance is an expression of dissatisfaction with news negativity, while low news consumption is connected to a lack of trust in media and politics.
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