Politically Driven Intentional News Avoidance under Democratic Backsliding

Abstract

While extant research on news avoidance has been conducted mainly in democratic societies, this article examines intentional news avoidance in a society undergoing severe democratic backsliding. Given the decline of political freedom and democratic institutions, citizens in such contexts may become frustrated with ongoing political change and withdraw from public affairs and the news. This could result in a form of intentional, politically driven, and topical news avoidance. At the individual level, such news avoidance is likely to be influenced by political attitudes, ability to adapt, and news affect and cognition. Analysis of survey data from post-National Security Law Hong Kong finds that negative news affect and perceived news efficacy explain intentional avoidance of news about social and political change, whereas political trust, belief in civil liberties, and adaptiveness relate to news avoidance only indirectly through negative news affect and perceived news efficacy. Theoretical implications of the findings are discussed.