'News just really sparks my interest' : identifying enablers leading to rich and diverse news use

Digitization has fundamentally reshaped how people engage with news and information, providing them with a plethora of options to stay informed about current events (Edgerly, 2015). This era of endless media choice also brings challenges, as evidenced by the strained relationship between audiences and news media. Recent trends show a steady increase in public disinterest in news (Picone et al., 2024), people feeling overwhelmed by the information overload (Park, 2019), and a widespread decline in trust in news media across several markets (Newman et al., 2024). Moreover, increasingly large segments of the population appear to be avoiding news (Anderson, 2024). This convergence of trends is reshaping the relationship between journalism and its audiences, signaling a need for innovative approaches to news production, distribution and audience engagement. In this evolving context, it is essential to understand users’ news use patterns and the enablers or disablers shaping these patterns. To fully grasp these patterns and enablers, we take a unique perspective that has rarely been explored before: we study them within the broader context of an individual’s entire media diet, or media repertoire (Hasebrink & Hepp, 2017). We argue that news uses and other media uses are so intertwined that studying them separately would be limiting. Furthermore, this approach allows us to examine whether news use plays a prominent and diverse role within an individual’s media repertoire, and more importantly, to identify the enablers that shape this prominence and diversity. By analyzing these enablers across different media repertoires and socio-demographic backgrounds, we provide a comprehensive overview of what drives and discourages news use. Previous scholars studying the motivations for media use have applied valuable frameworks, such as the uses and gratifications approach (Ruggiero, 2000) or the notion of perceived worthwhileness (Schrøder & Kobbernagel, 2010). We use these approaches as starting points to guide our inductive exploration. This study uses a mixed-methods approach, conducted in three sequential phases. The first phase is a quantitative phase in which a large-scale survey (n = 2309) is conducted to identify distinct media repertoires using Latent Class Analysis. In the second phase, in-depth interviews (n=48) are conducted with respondents from each of the media repertoires identified in phase 1. These interviews aim to uncover the underlying motivations and meaning-making processes that shape participants’ media choices. The final phase is an analytical phase in which the data from the quantitative and qualitative phases are integrated to further refine the media repertoires, with the Quadruple Articulation Framework serving as theoretical frame (see Evens et al., 2021). The analysis identified six distinct media repertoires, which we termed Superstreamers, Multimedia Masters, News Omnivores, TV and Radio Enthusiasts, Legacy Brand Loyalists and Traditionalists. Our findings showcase that news consumption plays a prominent role primarily for users featuring a News Omnivore and Traditionalist repertoire, while it plays a diverse role for users featuring Multimedia Master and News Omnivore repertoires. Looking at the enablers of news use, we found that each user has a unique combination of factors that place news either centrally or peripherally within their overall media repertoire. However, general patterns emerged, with age and other media uses being important predictors. Enablers frequently mentioned by participants were interest in news topics and availability of news. While the need to stay informed was mentioned by a lot of participants, this intrinsic motivation appeared to play a key role in two repertoires. Finally, young users’ news engagement was mainly indirectly enabled by other media uses that exposed them to news content. Older users’ news use was primarily driven by the fact that it was an established habit in their daily routine.