From Lower Disease Risk Perception to Higher News Avoidance: Analysis of News Consumption and Attitude Toward COVID-19 News in Latvia

Sandra Murinska (Corresponding Author), Anda Rožukalne, Ieva Strode

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

8 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Recognizing that regular information during a pandemic helps societies navigate through a period of insecurity, the aim of this study is to understand how news about different aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic affects the attitude of media audiences towards news. This study seeks to explain the society’s news consumption and the attitude towards COVID-19 news in Latvia linking it to self-evaluation of the perceived disease risk. A national survey data (September 2020, N=1,005) analysis shows a statistically significant but weak correlation between disease risk self-evaluation and the attitude towards pandemic news. Respondents who rate the risk of the disease as higher and real are more interested in news, consume news to create a sense of security, feel less fatigue towards news, and are less likely to avoid COVID-19 news. Respondents who believe that the risk of illness is low and unreal, are less interested in news, feel more tired, avoid the news more often.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere202216
Pages (from-to)e202216
JournalOnline Journal of Communication and Media Technologies
Volume12
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 16 Apr 2022

Keywords*

  • COVID-19
  • disease risk perception
  • health behavior
  • news avoidance
  • news consumption
  • news fatigue

Field of Science*

  • 5.8 Media and Communication

Publication Type*

  • 1.1. Scientific article indexed in Web of Science and/or Scopus database

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'From Lower Disease Risk Perception to Higher News Avoidance: Analysis of News Consumption and Attitude Toward COVID-19 News in Latvia'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this