A Study on the Effect of Information Encountering on Netizens’ News Avoidance in Digital Media Ecology

Increasing changes in Internet technology have transformed the digital media ecosystem, the original mode of news production and consumption has been continuously deconstructed. The algorithmic distribution mechanism provides technical conditions for “Information Encountering”, and the news circulation is increasingly generalized based on media platforms. Information Encountering, Information Overload, Opinion Polarization, and other new media chaos have occurred frequently, and users are using a kind of “News Avoidance” to alleviate the dilemma of news consumption in the digital era. Based on the Stressor-Strain-Outcome theoretical model, this study constructs a structural equation model around the influence of Information Encountering on netizens’ News Avoidance, and analyzes 389 questionnaires collected by the correlation analysis and entropy value method for empirical testing. The study found that: Information Encountering positively affects News Avoidance; Information Overload plays a mediating role in the process of Information Encountering positively affecting News Avoidance; and Opinion Polarization plays a mediating role in the process of Information Encountering positively affecting News Avoidance.