Avoiding the news [electronic resource] : reluctant audiences for journalism / Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Ruth Palmer, Benjamin Toff.

"A small but growing number of individuals in the West identify themselves as news avoiders and are turning away from traditional news organizations. For news avoiders, news as reported by the mainstream press is not worth their time or emotional energy, not relevant to their lives, too partisan, or not to be trusted. Even in the last few years as news has seemed particularly pressing, people are increasingly avoiding it as revealed in a recent surveys. In Avoiding News: Reluctant Audiences for Journalism, Rasmus Nielsen, Ruth Palmer, and Benjamin Toff examine the reasons behind news avoidance, its impact, and what, if anything, can be done about it. Their work is based on interviews and surveys with more than 160 news avoiders in Spain, the UK, and the United States. The authors examine how news avoiders get information - social media, friends and family, alternative news sources - and how they develop "folk theories" about how news organizations work. They also consider the ways in which race, class, and gender shape people's ideas about news and how news avoidance affects already disadvantaged communities. The authors conclude that news avoidance is a problem for civil society and has contributed to the recent rise of reactionary populism in the West. To confront the problem of news avoidance a variety of efforts are needed that not only change the content of the news but seek to understand and address individuals' habits and views about news organizations"-- Provided by publisher.