Avoiding the News: Reluctant Audiences for Journalism

by Benjamin Toff, Ruth Palmer, Benjamin Toff

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 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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Journalism

272 pages, Paperback

Published December 26, 2023

Reviews

[Dimas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Didn’t find a lot of this surprising, even as I was stressed out by a good portion of it. Still very valuable book to keep by your desk if you’re in the news gathering business.

[RYAN PHAM · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can see why this won an award

So it boils down to Identity, Ideologies and Infrastructures. The identity portion felt the most powerful since your social class kind of dictates how much news you consume. Working class people or people who are anxious about their economic stability and are time poor or people with apocalyptic views of societal decline are more prone to have an identity that does not align with news consumption. The anxiety and negativity tend to drive people away from the news.

Ideology is an important part tô news consumption too, as it gives you a filter with which to interpret the news. Ideally, you wouldn’t need an ideology tô do this and you would be able to understand the issues in a complex manner, but most people are not like that.

Infrastructure refers to thể curated information experiences you make for yourself through NPR, conservative podcasts or carefully selected YouTube recommendations. Unfortunately, they tend to be dominated by big tech. Thể book covered mostly traditional, legacy media and not the emerging podcast, streaming or YouTube spaces, which felt like a missed opportunity

[Angel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick impressions: The book pretty much reads like the academic text it is, so this is not really for popular readers. Libraries with strong collections in journalism, media studies, communications, and political science may want to add it to their holdings. For other small academic libraries I'd say it is optional.

(Detailed review with reading notes available on my blog soon.)

[Daniel Silliman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really valuable research and useful analysis, packing a lot into a slim book. I think this is essential for anyone in media and I will be thinking hard about how to put some of their conclusions into practice this year.

[Courtney Tabor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Succinct and informative with lots of useful quotes and statistics from their interviews and surveys. Summarizes the news avoidance literature well and brings in a nice qualitative angle, letting the avoiders spesk for themselves.

[Ksherm1017 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insightful study that did a wonderful job of making this nebulous topic more concrete. I especially enjoyed reading about how the interviews were conducted, and the way the researchers were able to question their own assumptions regarding news consumption and avoidance by interacting so intimately with people on the completely opposite end of the news consumption spectrum as themselves.

[lynne khubchandnai · Rating 1 out of 5]

unnecessary

Repetitive in the extreme. There is nothing in this book that informed me of anything I didn’t already know. A total waste of ink.