Dynamic Relations Between Negative News Media Experiences and Mental Distress? Examining Transactional Effects During Times of Health Crises

The current study concentrates on individual's media experiences during public health crises - especially media experiences of fear and issue fatigue regarding COVID-19 news media coverage - and their relationship to mental distress. Specifically, we aim to examine potential transactional effects and ask whether media experiences are only a cause or also a consequence of mental distress throughout a health crisis. Utilizing a three-wave panel survey of German citizens (<i>n</i> = 856), the study employs two random intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPMs). RI-CLPMs distinguish stable between-person differences from temporal within-person changes, facilitating a nuanced understanding of transactional dynamics. Our study shows distinct relationships between media experiences and mental distress. While the respondents' experiences of issue fatigue led to subsequent changes in their depressive symptoms, which, in turn, influenced subsequent changes in their issue fatigue at the within-person level, media-related fear experience was strongly associated with depressive symptoms only at the between-person level. Thus, our findings demonstrate a causal transactional relationship between media experiences of issue fatigue and mental distress that evolves over time. Media experiences of fear, however, appear to be a consequence of trait-like differences between individuals rather than a result of intraindividual change.