Incidental news exposure in a digital media environment: a scoping review of recent research

Abstract

In digital news environments, incidental news exposure (INE) refers to coming across news when online for other reasons. In this systematic scoping review, conducted to summarize the current state of research on INE, I identified 88 scientific articles via Web of Science, Scopus, EBSCOhost and Google Scholar and systematically analyzed them. In quantitative analysis, trained coders coded categories such as year of publication, method, region of the sample, and the primary topic. In qualitative analysis, I summarized results for the concept of INE (e.g. definition and process of INE), its operationalization (e.g. in surveys and experiments), and published findings (e.g. determinants and effects). Finally, I articulate seven implications for future research.