Examining How Public Service Media Shapes Citizens’ News Media Attitudes and News Avoidance: A Cross-National Comparative Analysis

A normative democracy presumes that citizens keep themselves informed on current events that provide them with the knowledge and capability to participate in political and civic life. Recent years, however, have seen an increasing global trend of intentional news avoidance among citizens, even doubling in some countries within a few years. Based on the premise that quality journalism could be an effective strategy against this trend, this study examines the role of public service media (PSM) in news avoidance and its antecedents. Drawing on national surveys in 22 countries, the findings showed that PSM news access was generally related to news trust and perceived media independence and negatively related to perceived media cynicism across the countries. News trust was also consistently negatively related to news avoidance. The study suggests that PSM as a proxy for quality journalism could play a role in attenuating news avoidance by engendering news trust, even in countries where PSM has a relatively small market presence and low audience reach.