The more information we have, the less we know

News overload has been a research focus in the information age. Abundant news media compete for user’s attention. Information is no more a scarce resource, on the contrary, user’s attention becomes scarce. Perhaps the more information users have, the less they know due to news fatigue.  Earlier studies examined the factors influencing news overload(Holton & Chyi, 2012). Other studies also looked into the effect of news overload(York, 2013). Those studies address the influence on perception and attitude. Few study look into the impact of news overload on behavior (news consumption). As a result, I want to focus on how has news overload affected news consumption/media selection.

 Previous study indicates that the more exposure to news, the more people feel overload(York, 2013). It is important to see that will the feeling of new overload lead to selective exposure. If the relationship between news overload and selective exposure is positive, the implication would be that the more information news organization provide, the less readers will get.

On the other hand, readers are assumed to be “Consumer sovereignty”, which means readers can search the information based on their interest(Chyi,2009), in other words, readers should be more informed among overabundance information. Thus, based on the assumption of “consumer sovereignty”, readers tend to select the information they are interested or the information they need, rather than being overwhelmed. Thus here comes the hypothesis that

H1: the feeling of news overload is positive associated with selective perception

H2: the feeling of news overload is positive associated with selective exposure.

Previous study has proved that the positive relationship between news overload and news exposure, it is also important to know what would the news overload influence media use. Some study mentioned news segment and nichfication(Nordenson, 2008), but they didn’t points out the relationship between news overload and news segment or nichfication. It might be critical to examine the relationship between news overload and news segment or nichfication, which means, news overload may not be that bad. Readers know how to find what they need among overabundance information. Thus the media use under news overload is worthy to examine.

RQ1: What is the relationship between news overload and multiplatform news use.

RQ2: What kind of news media (news paper, TV news, online news, mobile news) will users tend to use under the feeling of news overload

RQ3: Will the users who feel less news overload tend to use more news media than the users who feel more news overload 

    Based on the previous research, more news exposure leads to the feeling of news overload. However, users may avoid too much information. Since there are the most information on the Internet. Comparing to the Internet, there are less information on the traditional media, so here come another hypothesis that

H3: the more feeling of news overload, users tend not to use Internet to get the news in order to avoid too much information.

H4: the more feeling of news overload, users tend to read newspaper to get the news rather than using Internet.

Chyi, Hsiang Iris. 2009. “Information Surplus in the Digital Age: Impact and    

          Implications.” In Journalism and Citizenship: New Agendas, edited by Zizi   

          Papacharissi, 91–107. New York: Taylor & Francis.

Davenport, Thomas H., and John C. Beck. 2002. The Attention Economy:     Understanding the New             Currency of Business. Watertown, MA: Harvard  

 Doyle, G. (2010). From Television to Multi-Platform: Less from More or More for Less? Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 16(4), 431–449. doi:10.1177/1354856510375145

Holton, A. E., & Chyi, H. I. (2012). News and the overloaded consumer: factors influencing information overload among news consumers. Cyberpsychology, behavior and social networking, 15(11), 619–24. doi:10.1089/cyber.2011.0610

Nordenson, B. (2008). Overload ! Columbia Journalism Review, (December), 30–42.

York, C. (2013). Overloaded By the News: Effects of News Exposure and Enjoyment on Reporting Information Overload. Communication Research Reports, 30(4), 282–292. doi:10.1080/08824096.2013.836628