Does Fatigue from Ongoing News Issues Harm News Media? Assessing Reciprocal Relationships Between Audience Issue Fatigue and News Media Evaluations

Abstract

News media covers certain political issues extensively for weeks or months at a time, leading users to become fatigued, avoiding them altogether. Against the background of increasing distrust in and tune out of news media observed in several countries, this study investigates the role of fatigue from ongoing news issues for how audiences evaluate news media. It examines reciprocal causal relations between news users’ fatigue from ongoing news issues and their evaluations of news media with focus on the Brexit issue. A three-wave panel survey was conducted in Switzerland from April 11 to June 11, 2019. Random intercept cross-lagged panel models show that issue fatigue leads to negative evaluations of an issue’s media coverage and vice versa. However, issue fatigue does not predict negative news coverage evaluations in general and hostile media perceptions. Implications of ongoing news issues on news media evaluations are discussed, considering citizens’ attachment to news media faltering in today’s news environment.