Benjamin Toff, Ruth Palmer, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Avoiding the news: reluctant audiences for journalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 2024. ISBN: 9780231205191.
The book's central argument is:
"But our central argument in this book is that who people are, what the believe, and how they access news-- all that they bring with them before even considering a particular news source on its own merits-- often shape news avoidance just as much as or even more than news content. This is the oyster problem" (18).
Among the things we learn is that not everyone avoids the news because they want to. Some avoid the news out of necessity, or there may be more pressing matters besides keeping up with the news. Also news avoidance can be seriously classist. Minorities and low income folks are more likely to be news avoiders.
The authors rely on three major concepts in their study: identities, ideologies, and infrastructures. Identity is defined as social identity, "the aspects of who people are that are shaped by the different groups to which they belong" (76). This is where things like socialization to news can come in. Ideologies here refers mainly to political ideologies; in the U.S. that pretty much means one of the two parties in the political duopoly. This also includes how empowered or not people feel within their political systems. Finally, infrastructures includes digital platforms like social media as well as "legacy" media like radio, television, and news.
The book is well documented and features various charts and graphs to reinforce the authors' points. For me, the most interesting part is the individual interviews. People have a variety of reasons to avoid news. Some do it intentionally. Others may just not have the time or energy to keep up with news, or were not socialized into seeing news as important. One issue that bothered me is the authors mentioning people create narratives to explain their avoidance; there is a sort of condescending undertone when they bring up the concept, as if they are judging their subjects and finding them wanting. Note that for balance the authors also interviewed news lovers. The study was conducted between 2016 to 2020, with the interviews supplemented with survey data.
For some readers interested in the topic, the book can yield some revelations. I would say more journalists and news media folks need to read this. In the Hard Times when news people are concerned their jobs are shrinking and subscription models, online at least, are hotly debated, it may be eye opening to learn, among other things, that you can give the news away and many would still avoid the news.
The book pretty much reads like the academic text it is, so this is not really for popular readers. Libraries with strong collections in journalism, media studies, communications, and political science may want to add it to their holdings. For other small academic libraries I'd say it is optional.
Personally, I would say the book has given me a few things to think about, but I have to say up front I was socialized to news early in life plus I am a librarian. As I mentioned earlier, I cannot afford to fully tune out. I may write a narrative of my relationship to news and how I was socialized into them later on. Anyhow, outside of people with some serious interest in journalism I do not see a big readership for this book. I liked it, but it felt like a chore at times to read it, much like a lot of the news.
3 out of 5 stars.
Additional reading notes:
On addressing news avoidance:
"Addressing news avoidance requires understanding the challenges people face in their daily lives; how they perceive different media as compounding or alleviating those challenges; the ways they go about accessing and selecting sources; and how those sources fit into their understandings of who they are and what they believe in" (4).
On the perception that "news finds me"
"We found that the digital natives we interviewed, perhaps even more than being actively turned off by the form or content of news, felt they did not need to dedicate time specifically to consuming news from a news source because they would see it on social media anyways" (33).
I believe from experience that the above is more than just a perception. Testing that perception may or should be another study because I can assure you that as much as I try to limit news exposure on my social media, including some aggressive filtering, if something is big or urgent it will rise on social media anyhow. I can pretty much guarantee it, and I would bet, if I were a betting man, that I am not the only one.
Why the issue of news avoidance is significant:
"News avoidance would be less worrisome if it were simply a matter of personal taste, but information is deeply linked to power and privilege. How well we are able to navigate the systems that shape our lives depends to a large extent on how much we know about how those systems are organized and how empowered we feel to change them. Paying attention to news can provide people with the keys to unlock those systems, but, as we have seen, groups more likely to avoid news consistently also tend to be those that are already relatively disadvantaged" (47).
Another question not even considered: quality of sources and who can afford them. While legacy news and other high quality (real or perceived) sources build paywalls and isolate, low quality sources such as listicles, click bait, and rage bait are free of cost and free to roam where the disadvantaged can see them when they have the time. That may be another book or a bunch of pundit essays no one outside of an elite audience may read, assuming they subscribed or still have a free article left for the month.
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