Avoiding the News
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Description
A small but growing number of people in many countries consistently avoid the news. They feel they do not have time for it, believe it is not worth the effort, find it irrelevant or emotionally draining, or do not trust the media, among other reasons. Why and how do people circumvent news? Which groups are more and less reluctant to follow the news? In what ways is news avoidance a problem—for individuals, for the news industry, for society—and how can it be addressed?
This groundbreaking book explains why and how so many people consume little or no news despite unprecedented abundance and ease of access. Drawing on interviews in Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States as well as extensive survey data, Avoiding the News examines how people who tune out traditional media get information and explores their “folk theories” about how news organizations work. The authors argue that news avoidance is about not only content but also identity, ideologies, and infrastructures: who people are, what they believe, and how news does or does not fit into their everyday lives. Because news avoidance is most common among disadvantaged groups, it threatens to exacerbate existing inequalities by tilting mainstream journalism even further toward privileged audiences. Ultimately, this book shows, persuading news-averse audiences of the value of journalism is not simply a matter of adjusting coverage but requires a deeper, more empathetic understanding of people’s relationships with news across social, political, and technological boundaries.
Dr. Ruth Palmer is associate professor of Communication and Digital Media at IE University in Madrid and Segovia, Spain. Her 2018 book Becoming the News: How Ordinary People Respond to the Media Spotlight (Columbia University Press) investigated how citizens navigate their interactions with journalists and experience being named in news stories. The book was a finalist for the Tankard Book Award given by the US Association for Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC).
Benjamin Toff is assisant professor at the Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota, where he is also a core faculty member with the Center for the Study of Political Psychology.
From 2020-2023, he was also a senior research fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford where he led the Trust in News Project.
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen is director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and professor of Political Communication at the University of Oxford. In addition, he is also a frequent speaker at academic, industry, and policy-making conferences, and he has provided expert advice to both governments and news media companies in several countries. His work has been covered by a wide variety of media all over the world, and he has written for the Financial Times, El País, The Hindu, the Indian Express, the Washington Post, and many other publications.