How news consumption in modern media landscapes relates to threats perceptions and fears in public spaces. A scoping review

Author(s)
Ines Katrin Spielvogel, Kevin Koban, Jörg Matthes
Abstract

A high percentage of current news media covers topics relevant to the public such as wars, crime, and terrorist attacks, making threat perceptions and fears in public spaces (TPF-PS) more salient. Due to the unique challenges involved with current media landscapes, research examining how news consumption (NC) is related TPF-PS is still attracting scholarly interest. Therefore, we conducted a scoping review of N = 72 empirical studies since the advent of the smartphone era. The review detects cultivation theory as the main theoretical approach as well as a prevalence of quantitative methods and cross-sectional surveys. Furthermore, most empirical studies are carried out in North America and draw on non-probability sampling methods. Moreover, the review detects (region-based) research trends by breaking down N = 307 identified operationalizations into main classifications of TPF-PS and NC. Additionally, the review indicates a predominance of no associations between NC and TPF-PS. Implications for future research are discussed.

Organisation(s)
Department of Communication
Journal
Journal of Risk Research
Volume
27
Pages
458-480
No. of pages
23
ISSN
1366-9877
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2024.2350717
Publication date
04-2024
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
508007 Communication science
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
General Engineering, General Social Sciences, Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality, Strategy and Management
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/38272700-8aef-4392-bd4b-e67eaf6e02cb