Fatigued by Ongoing News Issues? How Repeated Exposure to the Same News Issue Affects the Audience

ABSTRACT

When a news issue is of ongoing topicality and covered by news media extensively for a prolonged period, news users can be exposed to this issue repeatedly for weeks, months, or years. There are indications from several countries that citizens become fatigued from ongoing political issues in the news and, consequently, try to avoid them. News users’ fatigue from, and avoidance of, current political issues would be detrimental to a politically informed citizenry. This study examines the potential effects on news users from repeated exposure to a news issue by applying a qualitative, longitudinal, mixed-methods approach. The findings from the qualitative content analysis of data obtained from semi-structured diaries combined with semi-structured interviews with the same participants reveal that, along with repeated exposure, news users hold specific cognitions, such as redundancy, regarding the issue and its media coverage. They show emotions regarding the issue, such as annoyance, and behaviors, such as avoidance during news exposure. It becomes apparent that fatigue with an ongoing political issue can carry further implications for the user’s knowledge of the issue, their evaluations of political actors, and their trust in news media.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Notes

¹ A media content analysis on the Brexit issue was conducted as part of a larger research project.

² Further information on the sampling procedure and the sample can be found in the supplemental material file.

³ The diary questionnaire and the interview guideline can be found in the supplemental material file.

⁴ Education levels (1 = low; 2 = medium; 3 = high); interest in the issue (from 1 = not interested at all to 5 = very interested); political interest (from 1 = not interested at all to 5 = very interested); the last information refers to the date of the diary entry or interview.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Gwendolin Gurr

Gwendolin Gurr is a research assistant and Ph.D. student in the Department of Communication and Media Research (DCM), Université de Fribourg/Universität Freiburg, Switzerland. Her research interests include political communication, news media use use and effects and attitudes toward news media and politics.

Julia Metag

Julia Metag is a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Muenster, Germany. Her research interests include science communication, political communication, online communication and media effects.