Turning off Populism? Applying the Theory of Motivated Information Management on Political Information Avoidance
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19478285 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nico Spreen (0009-0002-7982-2084, Hanover University of Music Drama and Media, corresponding author), Elena Link (0000-0001-6861-5288, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 1-19 |
| Publication date | 2026-04-16 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Mass Communication & Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1520-5436 • E-ISSN: 1532-7825 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/15205436.2026.2658711 |
| OpenAlex | W7154592349 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 76 |
Informed citizens play a critical role in deliberative democracy. However, contemporary challenges in the political information environment, including digitalization, fragmentation, and misinformation, can contribute to political information avoidance. This study investigates the predictors of the decision-making process leading to disengagement from information about populism. The Theory of Motivated Information Management (TMIM) was applied to examine the manner in which uncertainty discrepancies give rise to political information avoidance through emotions such as anxiety and hope, as well as citizens’ efficacy and outcome assessments. The results of an online survey of 456 German residents indicated that anxiety and hope were indirectly associated with information avoidance through efficacy assessments. In contrast, outcome expectancies were not associated with political information avoidance. This research sheds light on the decision-making processes underlying political information avoidance, providing a promising starting point for theory specification
Complete information · Information governance · Information management · Information seeking · Information system · Information technology · Politics · Media Influence and Politics · Misinformation and Its Impacts · Social Media and Politics · Management Information Systems
Emotion and Political Psychology
What motivates Chinese consumers to avoid information about the Covid-19 pandemic?
The dark side of information
Avoiding Health Information
Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis
Antecedents of News Avoidance
Taking a Break from News
Information Avoidance
Risk perception, affect, and information avoidance during the 2016 U.S. Presidential election
The People’s Champions? Populist Communication as a Contextually Dependent Political Strategy
To Seek or Not to Seek? An Assessment of Partisan Media Avoidance and Its Correlates
Avoidance of Interpersonal Discussions About the Covid-19 Vaccination
Disentangling the Effects of Cognitive, Affective, and Sociocultural Factors on Risk Information Avoidance
Information Seeking and Avoiding in Health Contexts
Uncertainty, Value, Communication, and Problematic Integration
Communication and Uncertainty Management
On the Distinct Political Effects of Anxiety and Anger
Information Avoidance
Prism
Articulations of populism
Theory of Motivated Information Management
News media trust and its impact on media use
Discursive constructions of populism in opinion-based journalism
Navigating High-Choice European Political Information Environments
Knowledge and the News
News Media as Gatekeepers, Critics, and Initiators of Populist Communication
Risky Politics
Doomscrolling, Monitoring and Avoiding
Conceptualizing News Avoidance
Mobile information seeking and political participation
Social Media Use for News and Individuals' Social Capital, Civic Engagement and Political Participation
Toward a Theory of Motivated Information Management
Media Attention and Radical Right-Wing Populist Party Sympathy
The role of information avoidance in managing uncertainty from conflicting recommendations about electronic cigarettes
Being Open without Talking about It
Examining the Decision to Talk with Family About Organ Donation
Campaigns and Information Seeking
The disinformation order
Media and information literacy for developing resistance to ‘infodemic’
What do we mean when we talk about populism? Local politics, global movements and ‘the people’ in political coverage of the 2016 Australian federal and United States presidential elections
Thrown around with abandon? Popular understandings of populism as conveyed by the print media
Progress on a cognitive-motivational-relational theory of emotion
Crisis and populism
Populism, Democracy, and Party System Change in Europe
Applying the Theory of Motivated Information Management to adult children’s discussions of caregiving with aging parents
Election Night’s Alright for Fighting
The ambivalence of populism
A Meta‐Analytic Assessment of the Effects of Emotions on Political Information Search and Decision‐Making
What, Me Worry? The Role of Affect in Information Seeking and Avoidance
How terrorism cues affect attitude polarization over undocumented immigrants via negative emotions and information avoidance
The Populist Zeitgeist
Political communication in a high-choice media environment
Seeking interpersonal information over the Internet
Avoidance among adolescents in conversations about their parents' relationship
Some Explorations in Initial Interaction and Beyond
| Highly cited | No |
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