Perceived News Overload and Its Cognitive and Attitudinal Consequences for News Usage in South Korea

This study focuses on the ironic situation in which news is more available than ever but people are becoming overwhelmed and thus avoid it. A theoretical model is suggested to investigate the relationships between perceived news overload and its cognitive and attitudinal consequences among South Korean Internet users. A structural model reveals that perceived news overload induced news avoidance by increasing news fatigue and news analysis paralysis. Furthermore, this study finds evidence that news consumers are willing to use news curation services to alleviate news avoidance and thus stay informed.