Excluding and Including: News Tailoring Strategies in an Era of News Overload

This study examines how people tailor their news environment in an era of news abundance. In particular, the researchers attempted to clarify the concept of news tailoring by identifying its structures in the context of digital news consumption. The study’s findings show that news tailoring takes place either through excluding (decreasing the quantity of news to process) or including (lowering the complexity involved in news processing) specific types of news. Specifically, two excluding behaviors (ignoring and filtering) and two including behaviors (customizing and saving) constitute the dimension of news tailoring. The results demonstrate that those who suffer from higher levels of news overload are more likely to adopt two types of exclusionary approaches (ignoring and filtering) and a saving strategy. However, news overload and news customizing were not significantly associated. The implications of these findings are discussed.