Why more than two-thirds of Australians think no news is good news (at least some of the time)

Over the past 12 months, the news has been full of serious and negative news such as the war in the Ukraine, the surge in the cost of living, interest rate rises, and the climate crisis.

It’s not surprising, then, that more than two-thirds of Australians say they are actively avoiding news some of the time. What is surprising is that Australians avoid news more than consumers in many other countries.

The findings are contained in the latest Digital News Report: Australia 2023^[1] released by the University of Canberra.

The online survey of 2,025 Australians finds 69% say they avoid the news, occasionally, sometimes or often. This is higher than the global average of 63%, which is slightly declining. It also marks a 12 percentage point increase in news avoidance among Australians since 2017.

Not only do we avoid news more in Australia than other countries, we also avoid different news topics. In the majority of countries surveyed, news avoiders are more likely to steer clear of news about the war in the Ukraine, especially people in European countries. In Australia, we are most likely to eschew news about social justice issues such as race and gender inequality and LGBTQ+ rights.

When it comes to avoiding social justice issues, there are strong differences based on people’s political orientation. Australian news avoiders who identify as right-wing are more than twice as likely to say they evade news about social justice issues (56%) than those who say they are left-wing (22%). This highlights the big challenge facing government and advocacy organisations seeking to promote the “yes” and “no” campaigns for the Voice referendum to a news audience that is polarised around particular issues.

There are also big differences in news topics they avoid between Australian men and women. Women are much more likely to avoid news about sport and politics, whereas men will more readily keep away from stories about social justice issues, climate change and culture.

Because women are more likely to get their news from social media platforms than men, they are also more likely to scroll past the news to avoid it; men are more likely to consciously cut news out at particular times of the day.

Women are turning their backs on news

These differences in avoidance behaviour point to a growing gender division in news consumption in Australia. Women are increasingly losing interest in news and consuming less of it, particularly Gen Z women. Over the past six years, the proportion of Australian women in our annual study who say they are very or highly interested in news has fallen 16 percentage points to 43%, compared to a much smaller drop – only 6 percentage points – among men.

Australian women are also among the lightest news consumers globally. Only 41% of Australian women say they access news more than once a day, compared to 59% of men. There are other indicators that point to the widening gender gap. Thirty-nine per cent of women say they trust the news most of the time, compared to 48% of men. The proportion of women paying for news is also declining.

The gendered decline in news interest and consumption this year can be partly explained by the types of stories that have dominated the news cycle, such as the war and federal politics, which women are less interested in than men.

Overall, the longitudinal decline among women points to be a much bigger issue facing the news industry that needs to be addressed if they want to stem the exodus of the female news audience.

But it’s not all bad news

Our Digital News Report for 2023 also finds:

• The proportion of Australians who pay for online news has increased to 22% (+4pp from 2022).
• More than half of Australians (56%) say they are interested in positive news stories, and 50% say they are interested in news that suggests solutions, report on the latest development, and investigates wrong-doing.
• 60% of Australians surveyed say public service media, such as the ABC and SBS is important to society, and 52% say it is important to their lives.
• More than one third of Australian’s surveyed said they were highly interested in politics (35%), a 3 percentage point increase from 2022.
• Trust in news has risen slightly to 43%, higher than the global average.

Digital News Report: Australia is produced by the News & Media Research Centre (N&MRC) at the University of Canberra and is part of a global annual survey of digital news consumption in 46 countries, commissioned by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. The survey was conducted by YouGov at the end of January/beginning of February 2023. The data are weighted for age, gender, and region. Education and political quotas were applied. In Australia, this is the ninth annual survey of its kind produced by the N&MRC.

References

1. ^{^} Digital News Report: Australia 2023 (doi.org)