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«Жить жизнь, а не тонуть в бескрайнем новостном болоте»: причины избегания новостей в России
This study analyzes interviews with news avoiders to identify the underlying motivations for this behavior. News avoidance is interpreted by informants as a purposeful action—a deliberate, rational choice based on an assessment of the benefits of news and the costs of consuming it. While interviewees predominantly cite the negative impact on emotional well-being and physical health, avoidance of political and economic news should not be viewed solely as an affective response. The study is based on an analysis of 44 semi-structured interviews with people who reported avoiding the news. The materials were collected between November 20, 2022, and March 30, 2023.
Several justifications for news avoidance emerge: (1) the emotional costs of consuming news content (its impact on mood, social relationships, and the ability to engage effectively in daily tasks); (2) the loss of hope for rapid improvement (people are willing to consume negative news while anticipating a positive resolution of the crisis; otherwise, media consumption is perceived as meaningless and traumatizing); (3) cognitive and time costs (news is difficult to process and requires substantial time and effort to make sense of); (4) distrust in the media, associated with the perceived low informational value of news; (5) low external political efficacy (lack of confidence in one’s ability to influence the situation); (6) high internal political efficacy (belief in one’s own comprehension of events in the country and the world, which makes news consumption unnecessary and is often linked to life experience and age); and (7) perceived low instrumental value of news (news does not help with everyday decision-making or may prompt incorrect decisions by providing unreliable information or intensifying panic reactions). In conclusion, the study emphasizes the contested relevance of uncertainty reduction and media dependency theories and their assumptions for explaining news consumption during the crises of recent years.