Neuroscience

Social psychology

Variety (cybernetics)

Public relations

Collectivism

Cognition

Uncertainty avoidance

Journalism

Developmental psychology

Computer science

Business

Internet privacy

Individualism

Digital media

Advertising

Psychology

Political science

Avoidance behaviour

Sociology

Artificial intelligence

News media

Media studies

History

Digital Journalism

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.

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