“Give me a break!” Prevalence and predictors of intentional news avoidance during the COVID-19 pandemic

Intentional news avoidance describes an intermittent news use practice in which people deliberately turn away from the news. Previous findings point out that the level of intentional news avoidance has increased since the COVID-19 pandemic. Since this might be related to negative consequences both with regard to compliance with measures and for the economic situation of journalism, the current study empirically investigates the prevalence and predictors of intentional news avoidance during COVID-19. For this purpose, we analyze two waves (April 2020 n = 1459, May 2020 n = 1433) of the Austrian Corona Panel that include relevant measures for news avoidance and potential predictors. Our findings show that the vast majority of the participants at least sometimes avoid news about COVID-19 (75% in April and 80% in May). This behavior can be explained by a lack of trust in news about COVID-19 and negative emotional responses to news (e.g. information overload or emotional distress). In sum, the high prevalence of news avoidance can be considered a result of the general burden of the pandemic, but also dissatisfaction with the role of the media.