News Use and News Avoidance
News Use and News Avoidance
News play a crucial role for democracy. Through news, political processes become visible for citizens. Citizens, in turn, have the possibility to acquire the knowledge necessary to make informed political choices. In this research area, we study how people choose news media to obtain political information in changing media environments and how these choices affect the formation of attitudes and (perceived) knowledge. Also, we are interested in drivers and effects of news avoidance which refers either to extremely low levels of news exposure or the intermittent turning away from news. We want to learn how individual and contextual factors influence news avoidance and also explore consequences, for example for knowledge, participation and attitudes.
Participating Researchers
Svenja Schäfer
Recent Research
- Schäfer, S., Betakova, D., & Lecheler, S. (2024). Zooming in on Topics: An Investigation of the Prevalence and Motives for Selective News Avoidance. Journalism Studies, 1–18. doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2024.2338114
- Betakova, D., Boomgaarden, H., Lecheler, S., & Schäfer, S. (2024). I Do Not (Want To) Know! The Relationship Between Intentional News Avoidance and Low News Consumption. Mass Communication and Society, 1–28. doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2024.2304759
- Schäfer, S., Betakova, D., Aaldering, L., & Lecheler, S. (2022). Opting out of News. Medienjournal-Zeitschrift für Medien-und Kommunkiationsforschung, 45(3), 31.
- Schemer, C., Masur, P., Geiß, S., Müller, P. & Schäfer, S. (2020) The impact of electronic media use on well-being: A longitudinal analysis of adolescents across nine years. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmaa014