Impact of Social Media News Overload on Social Media News Avoidance and Filtering: Moderating Effect of Media Literacy

Abstract

In the present era of information technology, people tend to seek out news to enhance their current knowledge and awareness and to gain literacy. The reliance on seeking out news and relevant information has become very necessary to accomplish personal and organizational objectives. The present study has undertaken an inquiry to investigate the impact of social media news overload on news avoidance and news filtering with the mediating and moderating mechanisms of the need for news and media literacy, respectively. For this purpose, data were obtained from 358 Chinese social media users through the aid of survey forms. The data obtained were then analyzed through Smart-PLS software. The statistical technique used for analysis is structural equation modeling (SEM) to determine the validity of the proposed hypotheses. The results of the study indicated that social media news overload has a significant effect on news avoidance, the need for news, and news filtering behavior. It was also observed that the need for news had a significant impact on news avoidance. In addition to this, it was also revealed that the need for news significantly mediated the relationship between social media news overload and news avoidance; however, it did not mediate the relationship between social media news overload and news filtering. Lastly, it was identified that media literacy significantly moderated the relationship between the need for news and news avoidance and it did not moderate the relationship between the need for news and news filtering behavior. This study has made important theoretical contributions by advancing the current literature in terms of the empirical evidence that indicates a significant relationship between social media news overload, news avoidance, and news filtering. Practically, this study contributed by emphasizing the need to encourage and train people to use strategies to seek relevant news in a vast repository of information available through information technology.

Information Quality, Social Friendship and Social Interaction in Predicting Web Usage and Online News Readers’ Understanding

“…Inappropriate online news dissemination or recommendations result in biased and irrelevant information and can be detrimental to individual users because it interferes with their understanding of the information (Chopra & Wallace, 2003). Individual users find it difficult to understand the news the sharer receives and will avoid it (Tian, 2022). Apart from that, the results show that social friendship does not affect understanding because online news that is shared or obtained from social friendship is not something to be understood but as a tool to strengthen connectedness (Bondad-Brown et al, 2012;Hampton et al, 2011;Kim & Lee, 2018).…”

“…The higher the quality of the information provided by the web/site as a source of information, the more they will use the website to access online news. Individual users as online news readers only need trustworthy and credible news (Tian, 2022). Information quality from online news provided by news websites can be used to predict web usage (Chiu & Huang, 2015).…”

Yerel Haber Sitelerinin Güncelliği ve Yerelliğinin Tıklanma Oranlarına Etkisi

“…Çin'de 358 sosyal medya kullanıcısı ile gerçekleştirilen araştırma, bireylerin sosyal medyada aşırı haber yüküne maruz kaldıklarını ve bu durumdan kurtulmak için haber aramaktan kaçınabildiğini ya da kendileri için yorucu olan haberleri filtreleme eğilimine girdiklerini ortaya koymuştur (Tian, 2022).…”

Digital News Consumption Behaviour Among Youngsters in Chennai City

“…1.1 Review of Literature Tian (2022) conducted study on the effects of social media news overload on news avoidance and news filtering behaviour using the requirement for news and media literacy as a mediating and moderating mechanism. The study found that if people were overloaded with news, they stop looking for that altogether or became engrossed in the tiresome task of weeding out the news that was actually useful.…”