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An informed citizenry is important to the functioning of democratic political systems. Despite the proliferation of news outlets over the past decade, news consumption among the general American public remains shallow, and an empirical understanding of why people consume news remains limited. Integrating existing theories, this study proposes the Motivational Consumption Model, which explains why age and education predict news consumption through three psychological mediators: news beliefs, news motivations, and news attitudes. Using a national survey ( N = 1,143) and structural equation modeling, this study reveals the psycho-behavioral workings of news consumption.
Lee et al. (Tue,) studied this question.