News is not made for me: A novel scale for measuring audience alienation from news and its outcomes

In this paper, we develop the “News is Not Made for Me” scale for measuring audience alienation from news. Drawing on literature highlighting the importance of recognition, learning, and understanding in journalism, we developed this eight-item scale by utilizing findings from qualitative research exploring the gaps between news media and audiences. Using a three-wave panel survey across the United Kingdom ( n = 1248) and Brazil ( n = 1998), we find that people who score higher on the “News is Not Made for Me” scale tend to be younger, have greater attention problems, lower socioeconomic backgrounds, express lower news self-efficacy, and have greater interest in soft news. We also find that people who believe news is not made for them tend to avoid news more often (despite also reporting higher levels of news consumption), score lower on current affairs knowledge, and score higher on belief in misinformation. Οverall, people who believe the news is not made for them are reaping far fewer benefits from news, despite consuming more of it than their counterparts. The “News is Not Made for Me” scale provides a layer of understanding regarding the growing gap between news audiences and journalists as well as the increasing inequalities in news use and its outcomes.