Journal of Electoral Studies

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Home Issues Backissues Volume 31, No.1 The Causes of News Avoidance among Taiwanese People and Its Effects on Individual Attitudes toward Democracy

The Causes of News Avoidance among Taiwanese People and Its Effects on Individual Attitudes toward Democracy

Ching-Hsing Wang
2023 / 11
Volume 30, No.2

pp.45-84
10.6612/tjes.202311_30(2).0002
Paper

Appendix

Abstract

News avoidance has a growing impact on the news industry and the functioning of democracy. Not only will the news industry lose its consumers and the news media shrink, but more importantly, the democratic society will lose its “informed citizens,” which will reduce the public’s understanding of and participation in public affairs and will be harmful to the working of democracy. Given the negative impact of news avoidance on a democratic society, many studies have attempted to examine the factors that affect the public’s news avoidance. However, there are not many studies on this topic in Taiwan. In order to fill the gap in the literature, this study employs the data from TEDS2021 to investigate the factors influencing Taiwanese people’s news avoidance. In addition, this study further examines the political effects of news avoidance, that is, whether news-avoidant people will have lower levels of democratic evaluation and support for democracy. The results show that the emotional factors of party sentiment and trust in the media and the cognitive factors of political interest and political efficacy both have significant effects on individuals’ news avoidance. That is, people with more positive party sentiment and higher levels of trust in the media, political interest, and political efficacy are less likely to avoid the news. On the other hand, in terms of the relationship between news avoidance and democratic attitudes, this study finds that news avoidance has a significant negative effect on democratic evaluation and support for democracy. That is, people with higher levels of news avoidance tend to have lower levels of evaluation about Taiwan’s democracy and are less likely to view democracy as the best political system. This implies that news avoidance poses a threat to the proper functioning of democracy.

Keywords

news avoidance

democratic evaluation

support for democracy

TEDS