Rethinking news disengagement: Epistemic disconnection from news

This article argues that the term news avoidance is no longer an adequate description of all the circumstances in which young people disengage with journalism. In recent decades, a growing body of research has examined the reasons why people avoid and resist the news. This research has largely been based on the traditional, stable definition of news as a familiar category with democratic characteristics. However, if we accept the premise that avoidance presupposes a certain degree of knowledge and familiarity with this definition, we can observe that this prerequisite is not always met in today’s societies. Rather than deliberate avoidance, this points to a gradual dissolution of shared references and to a weakening of the symbolic, cognitive and cultural dimensions through which news is recognised. Drawing on 15 years of qualitative and participatory fieldwork with young people (2010–), this paper proposes the concept of epistemic disconnection from the news and highlights its implications for journalism, civic life and policy. Epistemic disconnection from the news is not a form of avoidance or resistance. Instead, it describes a situation in which the category of the news is no longer a recognisable or useful reference point in people’s symbolic repertoires or practical reasoning.