News is the main way through which the public learn about anthropogenic climate change (ACC) and its consequences, and research over many years has found a largely positive relationship between news exposure and ACC beliefs. Although there has been much research on the association between news consumption and ACC beliefs, research investigating the potential impact of avoiding the news is much less common. Evidence suggests, however, that news avoidance is growing across high choice media environments at the same time as other studies observe that ACC scepticism is worryingly able to flourish.
This paper is one of the first large-scale examinations of this relationship across countries, examining whether anthropogenic climate change sceptics are burying their heads in the sand and avoiding the main source of ACC information. It seeks to determine if there is evidence of widespread motivated avoidance and what drives this, and, what role political ideology, and a high choice media system might play. The analysis is based on survey data from 17,839 respondents across 18 democracies. The research was conducted as part of a project funded by Norface Project “Democratic governance in a turbulent age”.
Three key results emerge from the data. First, news avoidance has a notable effect on climate scepticism, though this relationship is driven primarily by politically interested respondents who nevertheless opt to ignore the news. Second, although news consumption is correlated with anthropogenic climate change scepticism, its substantive effect is comparatively smaller, especially outside of self-identified right-wingers. Third and finally, the relationship between news avoidance and anthropogenic climate change scepticism also appears to be moderated by the media choice environment in a given country.
