A 2022 cross-national survey by Reuters found that an increasing number of people selectively avoid certain news content or deliberately reduce their exposure to specific types of news—a phenomenon known as news avoidance. News avoidance not only reduces the consumer base for the news industry, leading to a decline in media organizations but more importantly, it deprives democratic societies of informed citizens. This weakens public understanding and participation in civic affairs, ultimately harming the functioning of democratic governance.
Professor Ching-Hsing Wang from the Department of Political Science at National Cheng Kung University analyzed data from the 2021 large-scale baseline face-to-face survey of the Taiwan Election and Democratization Study (TEDS2021). His findings indicate that as partisanship, media trust, political interest, and political efficacy increase, the likelihood of someone never avoiding the news also rises. In other words, stronger positive feelings toward major political parties, higher trust in media, greater political interest, and a stronger sense of political efficacy all contribute to reducing news avoidance behavior.
On the other hand, a higher degree of news avoidance negatively impacts democratic attitudes in Taiwan. As news avoidance increases from the lowest level (1) to the highest (4), the likelihood of disagreeing that democracy is the best system rises from 25.6% (or 25.6% in Model 2) to as high as 41.6% (or 44.1% in Model 2). These findings suggest that news avoidance lowers public evaluations of Taiwan’s democratic situation and weakens support for democratic institutions.
Original links：The Causes of News Avoidance among Taiwanese People and Its Effects on Individual Attitudes toward Democracy
