Understanding the Complexity of News Avoidance: Insights from a Delphi Study among Journalism Experts

In this high-choice media landscape, we witness people avoiding news to substantial degrees. This avoidance behavior raises critical questions about its implications for informed citizenship and the normative role of news media. The research on news avoidance surged in the past five years. However, we know little about the interplay between by whom, why and how the news is avoided, and how that determines the implications. Therefore, we seek a framework that addresses these important nuances. This study, therefore, employs a qualitative Delphi method among audience experts from journalism practice and studies. We propose a holistic framework for understanding news avoidance, via community-based participatory research, by including unique expert perspectives complementary to the existing academic knowledge. This resulted in eight different illustrative types of news avoiders, highlighting the multifaceted nature of news avoidance and its underlying causes and manifestations: The Sensitives, The Low Trusters, The Disinterested, The Niche Dudes and Galls, The Mindful Naturalists, The Low Key Avoiders, The Hedonists, and The Media-Illiterates. This interdisciplinary approach demonstrates that news avoidance is a volatile behavior, that there is no single profile of a news avoider, and that the implications of news avoidance require nuanced audience research.