Following and Avoiding Fear-Inducing News Topics: Fear Intensity, Perceived News Topic Importance, Self-Efficacy, and News Overload

Abstract

A critical human need is attending to the information in one’s environment. Recent studies, however, suggest news consumption is decreasing. Many report they intentionally avoid news because of its distressing nature. This study applies an evolutionary psychology approach to explore when people follow fear-inducing news topics and avoid them. A U.S. National survey tests hypotheses on the impact of fear induced by media messages and describes how evolutionary functionality operates to produce responses of following and/or avoiding the topics. Results show fear is important, but so is the perceived significance of the threat, perceived personal efficacy to cope with the threat, perceived news overload, and news consumption habits. Following news is mainly a function of high news use habits and the perceived importance of topics. Finally, following and avoiding news are not on a single dimension, as the two behaviors are most often uncorrelated.