The harsh contextual conditions threatening the survival of media and news brands have been widely acknowledged and covered by a wide range of approaches at a industrial, economic, social and cultural level. More recently, academics have been reckoning with an added threat, which is the rise of negative behaviors towards news. While sporadic negative behaviours towards journalism in audiences have been signaled before, the scale of phenomena such as the loss of interest, saturation and avoidance have reached concerning levels in recent years and for reasons experts tend to overlook: times have been tough for journalism and journalists, but they have been tough as well for audiences trying to make sense of pandemics, wars, inflationary crisis, etc. among other events. We look at the scale and size of such behaviours, trying to make sense of the ways in which audiences are taking control of their own news experience while also underlining the strategies in which journalism can be mobilised as a tool for problem solving and understanding, rather than a problem highlighter, adding emotional distress to already struggling audiences. This session aims to shed a light on how people, rather than being passive information receivers, are willing to take control of their own news experience in order to find solutions to everyday problems and, most importantly. to make sense of whats around them.

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News,Journalism,Interest in news,News avoidance