Survey highlights extent of global media switch-off

Much has been made by both sides of the political divide over what the impact of Brexit will be should it ever come about, but a new survey by the University of Oxford's Reuters Institute has revealed that it is already having one effect–turning people off following the news.

The survey, carried out by polling company YouGov, showed that nearly one third of Britons are consciously avoiding watching or reading the news "due to frustration over the intractable and polarizing nature" of the Brexit process.

Conversely, at the same time news websites are recording record levels of traffic from those who do want to stay on top of the political saga which has completely overtaken the British political process for the last three years.

Commonly cited reasons for the great Brexit turn-off are a lack of progress, a sense of exasperation and powerlessness at what is happening, and having a negative impact on people's moods, a reason which is particularly widespread among supporters of the Remain cause. One of the most common reasons cited by supporters of the Leave cause is that mainstream media is not to be trusted.

However, the Guardian newspaper said it had been told by a BBC source that on the day of the first meaningful vote on Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit plans in January, the BBC News website recorded 28 million unique visits, with a further 25 million the following day when May faced a no-confidence vote.

Although Brexit may have accelerated things in the UK, news avoidance is not an exclusively British issue. Internationally, it is recorded at 32 percent, up six percent on the figure from two years earlier.

"It may be because the world has become a more depressing place or because the media coverage tends to be relentlessly negative, or a mix of the two, "Nic Newman, a senior research associate at the Reuters Institute, told the Financial Times.

Katie Vanneck-Smith, publisher of the self-proclaimed "slow news"outlet Tortoise, which is crowdfunded and opposed to the breaking news culture, said many of its readers felt news coverage was little more than background noise, especially over Brexit. "People are desperately crying out for positivity, they are not finding solutions in any Brexit coverage," she said.

Divisive topics, such as the gilets jaunes protest movement in France, are also a contributory factor in making people more skeptical of news outlets.

In France, just one in four people said they trusted the news, a fall of 11 percent from the previous survey, and in the UK, the figure has dropped from more than half the population in 2015–significantly, before the Brexit referendum of 2016–to 40 percent.

"Even the most trusted brands like the BBC are seen by many as pushing or suppressing agendas — especially over polarizing issues like Brexit and climate change," the report said.