How Journalists Perceive News Avoidance: Reactions and Solutions to the Missing Audience as Boundary Work

ABSTRACT

How do journalists think news avoidance can be addressed? We analyze how US journalists (N = 1,543) responded to two survey questions about consistent news avoidance: whether they believed it was possible to convert consistent news avoiders to news consumers (a closed-ended question) and, if so, how (an open-ended question). Two-thirds of respondents (66.3%) believed solutions were possible. Using the concept of boundary work to analyze their open-ended responses, we argue that by recommending solutions to news avoidance journalists rhetorically assert epistemic authority but also suggest scripts for future action to further defend it. Their most-often recommended solutions were that journalists increase relevance and positivity and expel bias and sensationalism—thereby defending some longstanding internal boundaries while redrawing others. We conclude that although these recommendations align well with reasons news avoiders say they avoid news, they often do not account for structural causes of news avoidance and face many barriers to implementation.

KEYWORDS:

• News avoidance
• news consumption
• news audiences
• journalistic boundary work
• news production
• survey

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This included the roles of photographer/videographer, producer, news director, graphic/Web designer, audience strategy/development, social media management, advertising/marketing, host, anchor, columnist, other.