Cognitive drives of youth news avoidance: A case of China
Author(s)
Date Issued
2024
Citation
Ma, J., & Wang, D. (2024 Jul 2). Cognitive drives of youth news avoidance: A case of China. Annual International Association of Communication and Media Research (IAMCR) 2024, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Type
Conference Paper
Abstract
This is an ongoing research that investigates the cognitive drives behind news avoidance behavior in China. Particularly, we focus on university students who mainly engage with digital news. On the one hand, this cohort belongs to high cognitive complexity in a society, who are theoretically care about the social changes. On the other hand, digital news has become the main source of information today. Studies have indicated that young people around the world are lack of interest in news due to increasing political apathy. This may be a more complicated issue in China given the unique authoritarian media system. Drawing against the notion of news avoidance, which was defined as consciously, actively ignoring, avoiding, or rejecting some or all news content over a specific period. This article will delve the young audience’s agency and autonomy of news users - although news avoidance appears "negative". Guiding by the heuristics and cues theory, we will identify the explicit cues that lead Chinese university students to avoid news and the corresponding heuristics associated with these cues. In depth interviews will be adopted as the main method to capture varying degrees of news avoidance behavior and subjective viewpoints and thought
processes. Findings will be presented after the team complete coding the interview transcripts. The research contributes to observing and comprehending the dynamic evolution of China’s media landscape in the digital context. Additionally, the study results will effectively complement existing research within the Chinese academic community on news avoidance.
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