From Politics to Entertainment: Exploring “News Finds Me” Perceptions Across News Topics

Abstract

The “News Finds Me” (NFM) perception captures the common belief that one can stay informed without actively seeking news. This study aims to extend previous research by comparing the widely used general NFM measure with topic-specific perceptions of entertainment, sports, politics, COVID-19, and climate change news. We assess the strength, predictors, and outcomes of NFM perceptions across those different thematic domains. Our findings show that NFM perceptions are stronger for soft news (entertainment and sports) compared to hard news (politics, COVID-19, climate change). In addition, interest in a news topic is associated with lower NFM perceptions for hard news and higher perceptions for soft news. While the traditional NFM measure reflects “News Finds Me” perceptions in politics and COVID-19 well, it is not as effective in capturing perceptions of climate change and soft news. Our results emphasize the need to explore different news genres to better understand news consumption beliefs and behaviors.

Keywords

News Finds Me soft news hard news political knowledge need for cognition

Introduction

Americans increasingly get their information through digital devices and many obtain news from social media (News Platform Fact Sheet, 2024). What news one encounters on these platforms is determined not only by professional news workers but also by peers and algorithms (Thorson & Wells, 2016), which often expose users to unintentional and unsolicited content. Over time, individuals develop strategies to manage the overwhelming volume of information, often relying on incidental news exposure (Tewksbury et al., 2001) through algorithmic curation and peer networks.

These accidental news encounters have given rise to the “News Finds Me” (NFM) perception, a belief that one can stay informed about public affairs through internet use without actively seeking news (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2017). Understanding such perceptions is important as they could drive users away from important news topics, such as politics, and expose them instead to less critical but more entertaining information (e.g. Skurka et al., 2023). This, in turn, could lead to lower political knowledge (S. Lee, 2020), less interest in politics (Segado-Boj & Said-Hung, 2021), and greater political cynicism (Song et al., 2021).

Previous studies have primarily examined the NFM perception in political news consumption and, to a lesser extent, in health communication, particularly regarding COVID-19 news (Lee et al., 2023; Lin et al., 2024; Segado-Boj & Said-Hung, 2021; Skurka et al., 2023). However, its relevance to other news topics remains underexplored.

While NFM was initially conceptualized in the context of political news, the scale commonly used to measure it covers a broader range of related concepts. Scale items focus on public affairs news and information without specifying precisely what those entail (e.g. Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2017; Song et al., 2021). As a result, it is unclear whether this general NFM perception can reliably reflect people’s attitudes toward news-seeking about different topics. If someone believes that news about politics will find them, would they believe the same about health, science, or celebrity news? Although news in general seems ubiquitous in today’s digital environment, not all types of news and information are easy to access. For instance, not many Americans are confident that they could find the news they need to make informed voting decisions (Wang et al., 2024). Moreover, personal interests vary by topic, influencing people’s motivation to seek news related to their concerns.

Our study addresses this gap in the literature, evaluating the general NFM measure against specific NFM perceptions for news topics, including entertainment, sports, politics, COVID-19, and climate change. To do so, we extend the conceptual scope of NFM research by situating it within distinct topical domains, recognizing that individuals engage with news differently depending on the content, context, and personal relevance of the topic. This shift from a generalized to a topic-sensitive framework is crucial for capturing the varied motivations, habits, and expectations that shape contemporary news consumption. By refining how NFM is conceptualized and measured across different types of news, our study lays the groundwork for more precise and context-aware theories of audience behavior in the digital information environment.

Our findings emphasize the need to understand news consumption beliefs, behaviors, and outcomes for specific topics, rather than assuming similar patterns will hold across news genres. This research underscores the importance of specificity in theory-building as well as methodological operationalization to avoid oversimplifying audiences as a single, homogeneous entity. Overly broad or vague theories risk promoting harmful stereotypes, such as labeling audiences as “distracted” or “uninterested,” which fail to capture the complexity and diversity of their behaviors and needs. By adopting a more nuanced approach, we can better understand the public’s varied characteristics and address their informational needs.

Literature Review

The News-Finds-Me Perception and Why It Matters

In today’s information environment, social media have evolved from a space for social interaction into a major arena for news dissemination and consumption. Recently, more people globally are using social media for news, with half of U.S. adults getting news from these platforms at least sometimes (News Platform Fact Sheet, 2024). This often happens during general information searches and social media engagement (Möller et al., 2020), facilitated by the asynchronous, lightweight, and ever-present nature of online communication, leading to “ambient journalism” (Hermida, 2010) where citizens access a wide range of news sources effortlessly in a digitally fragmented landscape.

Facing information overload, news consumers develop strategies to navigate the media-rich environment. For some, those strategies include relying on social media curation and peer networks to stay informed about public affairs rather than actively seeking out news. This approach relies heavily on encountering news stories unintentionally—a phenomenon known as “incidental news exposure” (Tewksbury et al., 2001).

A closely related construct, the “News Finds Me” (NFM) perception, has been defined as “the extent to which individuals believe they can indirectly stay informed about public-affairs—despite not actively following news—through internet use, information received from peers and online social networks” (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2017, p. 107). Existing literature identifies four key dimensions of NFM. The first three, as outlined by Song et al. (2021), include: an epistemic component, “staying informed”, where individuals feel informed without actively seeking news; an instrumental component, “relying on peers for information” (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2017; S. Lee, 2020; Song et al., 2021; Strauß et al., 2021); and a motivational component, “not seeking” involving dependence on news encounters through friends (Kim et al., 2013; Park & Kaye, 2021). A fourth dimension, algorithmic reliance—recently introduced by Gil de Zúñiga and Cheng (2021)—serves as a foundation for the other three dimensions. Since the data for this study were collected before the introduction of the fourth dimension, it is not evaluated here.

Consumers with high NFM perceptions strategically engage with news, considering themselves to be well-informed about political affairs (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2017; Song et al., 2021; Strauß et al., 2021). They rely on peers to fulfill their need for information surveillance (Weeks et al., 2017). Algorithmic reliance further emphasizes the role of curated social media content, shaped by platform algorithms rather than predefined rules (Gil de Zúñiga & Cheng, 2021).

Prior research on the NFM perception predominantly explores this construct within the realm of political information and, to a lesser extent, COVID-19. More recently, however, questions have been raised about the operationalization of the NFM and whether it can explain news consumption behavior in other public affairs issues and news topics (e.g. T. Lee et al., 2023; Lin et al., 2024; Segado-Boj & Said-Hung, 2021; Skurka et al., 2023).

NFM Perception and News Topics

NFM was first conceptualized as a perception specific to political news. Yet, the scale commonly used in the literature to measure NFM encompasses a wider range of related concepts and information. For instance, Song et al. (2021) introduce a six-item NFM scale—which has adopted statements from and modified Gil de Zúñiga et al. (2017)’s four-item scale. Three of their items mention “news” (e.g. “I can be well-informed even when I don’t actively follow the news”). Another item refers to “information” (“I rely on information from my friends based on what they like or follow through social media”). Finally, two items mention “public affairs” (e.g. “I’m up-to-date and informed about public affairs news, even when I do not actively seek news myself”). Therefore, the NFM conceptualization is further compounded by the fact that individuals may have varying definitions of what constitutes news, information, and public affairs (Edgerly & Vraga, 2020; Matthes et al., 2020).

In this light, Segado-Boj and Said-Hung (2021) investigated the NFM perception in relation to hard news topics (foreign affairs, domestic politics, local politics, science and technology, and economy and business) vs. soft news topics (lifestyle, celebrities and entertainment, and sports), surveying a small convenience sample (n = 279) of Spanish Facebook users. Their findings suggest that NFM is negatively associated with interest in hard news topics, including domestic, international politics, and economic news, supporting the concerns that NFM beliefs might lead to greater detachment from political and civic issues (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2018). In contrast, the results indicate that NFM is positively related to interest in soft news topics. Notably, the literature distinguishes between soft and hard news either by subject matter or by format (Boczkowski & Peer, 2011). Following Segado-Boj and Said-Hung’s (2021) approach, this study adopts the subject matter definition when referring to the soft vs. hard new topics dichotomy.

Building on these insights, our study seeks to compare the popular general NFM measure with five topic-specific NFM perceptions in the domains of entertainment, sports, politics, COVID-19, and climate change, within the context of news consumption among the American public. Notably, we treat COVID-19 and climate change as standalone news topics, on par with politics, rather than subsuming them under science or health categories. This decision reflects the evolving nature of these issues—both have become highly politicized and polarized in public discourse. Given that the survey underlying this study was conducted during the pandemic, COVID-19 was particularly salient as a distinct topic. Similarly, climate change has transcended its roots in science to become a deeply divisive issue in the political and social landscape. Consistent with existing research, we chose sports and entertainment as soft news topics (Segado-Boj & Said-Hung, 2021; Skurka et al., 2023) Accordingly, our first hypothesis and research question are as follows:

H1: The general NFM measure predicts NFM perceptions of hard news topics.

RQ1: Does the general NFM measure predict NFM perceptions for soft news topics?

Skurka et al. (2023) and Lin et al. (2024) both advance our understanding of NFM perceptions by emphasizing their topic-specific nature. Skurka et al. (2023) reveal that general NFM perceptions strongly correlate with politics-specific NFM, suggesting that traditional measures may disproportionately reflect attitudes toward political news. They also demonstrate that people with stronger NFM perceptions prefer soft news (e.g. entertainment and sports) over hard news (e.g. politics, science, and COVID-19). Skurka and colleagues argue for viewing NFM as a topic-specific phenomenon, noting reduced engagement with science and political news among those with higher NFM perceptions in these areas. Similarly, Lin et al. (2024) explore the overlap between general and issue-specific NFM perceptions through their study on COVID-19 in Singapore, finding comparable model fits for both due to the saturation of COVID-19 news in media. Their findings suggest that extensive coverage can elevate specific topics to a level comparable with general news, reinforcing the need to consider NFM as a context-dependent construct.

Guided by the existing literature, we pose the following question:

RQ2: Is there a significant difference in the average strength of general and topic-specific NFM perceptions?

Despite the recent attention to the NFM perception nuances across news topics, the literature has yet to explain whether general NFM perceptions can reliably measure a wider range of topic-specific NFM beliefs. Our study addresses this gap by examining key factors related to topical NFM to assess the extent to which these perceptions are distinct or well-represented by the general NFM measure.

In the following sections, we further shed light on factors associated with NFM perceptions.

Factors Associated With the News Finds Me Perception

Similar to other beliefs and perceptions, NFM varies across individuals with different demographic backgrounds, topical interests, news and media consumption behaviors, and prior knowledge.

Topical Interest

Existing studies suggest that NFM perceptions are negatively correlated with interest in political news (Diehl & Lee, 2022; Gil de Zúñiga & Diehl, 2019; Park & Kaye, 2021). As highlighted by Thorson et al. (2021), individuals with a greater interest in politics are more likely to actively seek traditional political information as well as attract such content to their feeds through algorithmic curation. Political interest has further been found to positively influence political engagement, potentially mediating the relationship between NFM perceptions and voter behavior (Gil de Zúñiga & Diehl, 2019). Relatedly, Boukes and Boomgaarden (2015) demonstrate that individuals with more interest in soft news tend to exhibit greater political cynicism compared to those more interested in hard news.

Beyond politics, Lin et al. (2024) observed a positive association between COVID-19-related NFM perceptions and individuals’ intentions to seek information on social media—a behavior closely tied to topical interest, underscoring the nuanced ways in which topical interest intersects with NFM and political engagement. Research has documented a mismatch between the thematic preferences of journalists and those of the public, with audiences tending to favor non–public-affairs topics such as entertainment, sports, weather, and crime, while journalists prioritize public affairs content like international news, politics, and economics (e.g. Boczkowski & Mitchelstein, 2013). Still, there remains a critical gap in understanding the relationship between topical interest and NFM perceptions across a broader spectrum of subjects beyond political and health-related news. This study seeks to examine the following hypothesis and research question:

H2: Topical news interest is negatively associated with NFM perceptions of hard news.

RQ3: Is topical news interest associated with NFM perceptions of soft news topics?

Need for Cognition

The need for cognition (NFC) is a psychological construct that describes an individual’s intrinsic motivation to engage in and enjoy thinking, analyzing, and evaluating information (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982). This trait significantly influences how people process information, particularly in the context of news consumption. Individuals with a high NFC are more likely to employ an analytic strategy when evaluating information, dedicating time and cognitive effort to systematically consider a broad range of cues and engage in deep, reflective thinking. In contrast, those with a low NFC tend to rely on heuristic, less effortful, and more superficial strategies, often depending on intuition or external cues such as expert opinions or readily available resources (Metzger, 2007).

In the context of the NFM perception, the NFC seems particularly relevant. Those with a higher NFC may be less susceptible to NFM perceptions because their intrinsic motivation to engage in cognitive efforts makes them more proactive in seeking out and critically evaluating news. They are likely to question the credibility of the information that comes to them passively and are better at distinguishing between truthful and deceptive content (Reinhard, 2010). Conversely, individuals with a lower NFC might be more prone to accept the passive flow of news as sufficient. For instance, Zhang and Jiang (2024) find that mistaken COVID-19 beliefs associated with NFM are notably more common among those with low NFC compared to those with average or high NFC. This finding indicates that having a high NFC may act as a protective buffer, reducing the likelihood of misperceptions about COVID-19 that can arise from a passive news consumption mind-set.

Thus, even as research investigating how the NFC affects NFM perceptions is scarce, it seems to be a key factor in understanding different approaches to news consumption and the critical evaluation of information in the digital age. We hypothesize that:

H3: The need for cognition is negatively associated with general NFM perception and NFM perceptions of hard news.

Our analyses also explore the role of NFC for soft news topics:

RQ4: Is NFC associated with NFM perceptions of soft news topics?

Topical Knowledge

Examinations of the link between domain knowledge and NFM perceptions have been relatively limited in prior research. Within the realm of politics, research shows that more knowledgeable voters can identify their political preferences and opportunities, which affect their support for a candidate or an issue (Carmines & Stimson, 1980). Importantly, higher NFM perception has been consistently linked to lower political knowledge (Diehl & Lee, 2022; Gil de Zúñiga & Diehl, 2019; Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2017). Moreover, political knowledge mediates the impact of NFM on voting behavior (Gil de Zúñiga & Diehl, 2019).

Lin et al. (2024) replicated the finding of a negative relationship between general NFM perception and knowledge from previous studies (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2017, 2020) in the context of COVID-19 news and information. However, in issue-specific NFM perceptions related to COVID-19, only an indirect link between NFM perception and knowledge has been identified. The study also examined information insufficiency—that is, the amount of required knowledge the participants would need in order to achieve a comfortable understanding of COVID-19—and intentions of information seeking on social media. The results suggest that individuals with stronger NFM perceptions of COVID-19 are less likely to perceive the information they receive as inadequate and seek additional sources, potentially due to the overwhelming volume of COVID-related news and information on social media (Lin et al., 2024). Su et al. (2024) further explore the impact of NFM perceptions on climate change knowledge in China. In a two-wave panel survey, they find that NFM does not have a direct impact on climate change knowledge.

Further research is required to fill the gap in the scholarship about the relationship between topical knowledge across various news topics and the general and topic-specific NFM perceptions. Our study examines how topic-specific NFM perceptions predict knowledge about different hard news topics, including politics, COVID-19, and climate change. We are less interested in soft news knowledge due to its weaker relevance to civic issues and the lack of reliable measures in existing literature.

In the light of the literature discussed above, we also pose the following research question:

RQ5: How do the general and topic-specific NFM perceptions vary in their predictive power with regard to topical knowledge?

Figure 1 summarizes all hypotheses and research questions proposed in this study.

Figure 1.

Summary of hypotheses and research questions.

Methods

Data Collection

We conducted an online survey using the Qualtrics platform between September 28 and October 13, 2020. The design and administration of the study followed Institutional Review Board (IRB) guidelines for human subject research. Participants were recruited by an online polling vendor, PureSpectrum, using quotas for age, gender, race, ethnicity, and geographic region to mirror the characteristics of the U.S. population. A total of 1,098 participants completed the questionnaire. Among the participants, 55% were female, and the average age was 46.2 (SD = 16.2). A total of 64% identified as White Non-Hispanic, 15% were Hispanic, 13% were African American, and 7% were Asian. In terms of party identity distribution, 37% were Democrats, 31% were Republicans, and 32% were Independents or Other.

To improve the representativeness of our findings, we employed post-stratification weighting across various demographic factors such as gender, race, age, education, and geographic region (Northeast, Midwest, South, or West), before conducting data analysis. Given the online survey nature of data collection, it is important to note that respondents may skew toward more active internet users compared to the broader American population.

Dependent Variables

News Finds Me Perceptions

Revising the measurement developed by Gil de Zúñiga et al. (2017, 2020), topical “news finds me” perceptions were measured by asking respondents how much they agreed or disagreed with three statements about the consumption of news about a specific topic. Responses ranged from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree). We measured five topical NFM perceptions focusing on soft news, including sports and entertainment (see Skurka et al., 2023), and hard news. Previous NFM research primarily focuses on political news consumption. In addition to politics, this study expands the scope of hard news by examining two other politicized and polarized issues—COVID-19 and climate change—and explores how NFM perceptions vary across these subtopics.

Statements to measure NFM for political news, for instance, included (1) “I can be well-informed about politics even when I don’t actively follow the news”; (2) “I rely on information about politics from my friends based on what they like, follow, or share through social media”; and (3) “I don’t worry about keeping up with the political news because I know news will find me.” The first two statements capture the “informed” and “reliance on peers” dimensions of NFM (Song et al., 2021). The third statement, although part of the “informed” dimension, reflects a lack of motivation to actively seek out news. We first asked about general NFM perception using the same three statements that did not specify a topic. Then respondents answered NFM questions about five topics in a random order. Table 1 summarizes descriptive statistics of topical and general NFM perceptions.

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics of NFM Perceptions and the Three Items Used to Measure the Construct.

	NFM			I can be well-informed . . .		I rely on information from my friends . . .		I don’t worry about keeping up with news . . .
	Cronbach’s α	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD
General NFM	.63	2.85	.94	3.21	1.18	2.63	1.24	2.70	1.28
Government and politics	.78	2.82	1.10	2.95	1.31	2.65	1.30	2.86	1.35
COVID-19	.79	2.86	1.16	3.05	1.41	2.69	1.36	2.83	1.39
Climate change	.76	2.72	1.04	2.88	1.28	2.53	1.24	2.76	1.28
Entertainment	.73	3.10	1.21	3.10	1.21	2.92	1.24	3.14	1.22
Sports	.76	2.93	1.05	2.98	1.28	2.85	1.28	2.97	1.28

Topical Knowledge

We selected three metrics that capture hard news knowledge of basic facts about politics, COVID-19, and climate change. Each metric included five questions to evaluate the participants’ domain knowledge. Each question item was scored 1 if the respondent gave a correct answer and 0 otherwise (see full measures in Appendix 1). The mean political knowledge score is 2.79 (range: 0–5; SD = 1.56), the mean COVID-19 knowledge score is 3.58 (range: 0–5; SD = 1.35), and the mean climate change knowledge score is 1.70 (range: 0–5; SD = 1.98).

Independent Variable

Topical Interest

We asked respondents how closely they followed news about five different topics: government and politics, COVID-19, climate change, sports, and entertainment. Responses ranged from 1 (Very closely) to 4 (Not at all closely) and were reverse-coded, so a higher score indicates greater interest in the topic. Table 2 presents mean and SD values of topical interest levels.

Table 2.

Descriptive Statistics of How Closely People Follow News About Each Topic.

	M	SD
Government and politics	3.00	.90
COVID-19	3.24	.85
Climate change	2.65	.97
Entertainment	2.45	.99
Sports	2.44	1.13

NFC

NFC refers to “the tendency for an individual to engage in and enjoy thinking” (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982, p. 116). People with a high NFC are more likely to engage in effortful cognitive activity, while those with a low NFC tend to take a heuristic strategy to navigate and evaluate information. Drawing upon the measurement of Maksl et al. (2015), we asked respondents to what extent they agreed or disagreed with five statements on a five-point scale. Sample items include “I don’t like to have to do a lot of thinking” (reverse-coded) and “I prefer complex to simple problems” (see Appendix 1). Reliability analysis suggested that dropping the item “Thinking hard and for a long time about something gives me little satisfaction” (reverse-coded) would increase Cronbach’s α from .68 to .70. Thus, we created a construct by averaging scores of the remaining four statements (Cronbach’s α = .70, M = 3.47, SD = .85).

Control Variables

Control variables in our analysis included gender (55% female); race and ethnicity (13% African American, 7% Asian, 15% Hispanic, 64% Non-Hispanic White); age (range 18–88, M = 46.2, SD = 16.2); education (ranging from 1 = Some High School to 5 = Graduate Degree, M = 3.2, SD = 1.0); household income (ranging from 1 = Under $15,000 to 9 = Over 200,000, M = 4.2, SD = 2.2); political ideology (ranging from 1 = Very Liberal to 5 = Very Conservative, M = 3.0, SD = 1.1); and partisanship (37% Democrats, 31% Republicans, 32% Independents). We also controlled for social media use frequency by asking how often respondents used social media websites and apps (range: 1 = Never to 7 = Most of the day; M = 5.5, SD = 1.6).

Results

Topical NFM Perceptions

To address H1 and RQ1, we first examined correlations between general and topic-specific NFM perceptions. Table 3 summarizes the results. All correlation scores are statistically significant at the p < .001 level. General NFM perception is strongly associated with NFM perceptions of political news. Its associations with COVID-19 and climate change NFMs are moderately strong, and those with entertainment and sports news are weak. Among topic-specific NFMs, associations between hard news NFMs (i.e. politics, COVID-19, and climate change) are also stronger than associations between soft news NFMs (i.e. entertainment and sports). Thus, consistent with our first hypothesis, the general NFM measure predicts NFM perceptions of hard news topics.

Table 3.

Correlation Matrix of General NFM and Topical NFMs.

Note: All correlation scores are statistically significant at the p < .001 level. Different shading indicates varying correlation strengths.

We conducted repeated ANOVA to answer RQ2, whether the strength of general and topic-specific NFM perceptions differ from each other. Results showed that respondents’ NFM perception scores vary significantly among five news topics and news in general, F (3.93, 4302.68) = 31.82, p < .001, η² = .012. Post hoc analysis suggests that NFM perception is strongest when it comes to entertainment news (M = 3.10, SD = 1.21) and weakest for news and information on climate change (M = 2.72, SD = 1.04; p < .001). NFM perceptions for the two soft news topics are higher than general NFM (ps < .001), and higher than hard news NFMs as well. For instance, respondents are less likely to believe that news about politics (M = 2.82, SD = 1.10) and COVID-19 (M = 2.86, SD = 1.16) would find them compared to entertainment news (both p < .001; see Figure 2).

Figure 2.

NFM score by news topics.

In addition, there is no statistically significant difference between general NFM perception (M = 2.85, SD = .94) and NFM perceptions for most hard news topics (ps > .05 for comparisons with both politics and COVID-19), except for climate change NFM, which is significantly lower than all other NFM perceptions (all ps < .001).

Post hoc analyses also indicate that the topic-specific and general NFM perceptions vary significantly in terms of scores for the three separate items used to measure the NFM construct (see Table 1). Respondents more strongly believe that they can stay “well-informed about news” in general (M = 3.21, SD = 1.18) but are less likely to believe so when it comes to specific news topics, except for entertainment news, F (4.70, 5147.21) = 16.78, p < .001, η² = .007. When it comes to relying on friends for information, F (4.51, 4928.33) = 29.54, p < .001, η² = .011, people have significantly higher scores for entertainment (M = 2.92, SD = 1.24) and sports news (M = 2.85, SD = 1.28) than politics (M = 2.65, SD = 1.30), COVID-19 (M = 2.69, SD = 1.36), climate change (M = 2.53, SD = 1.24), and news in general (M = 2.63, SD = 1.24). They also score higher on not worrying about “keeping up with the news” for soft news about entertainment (M = 3.14, SD = 1.22) and sports (M = 2.97, SD = 1.28), compared to news about politics (M = 2.86, SD = 1.35), COVID-19 (M = 2.83, SD = 1.39) and climate change, M = 2.76, SD = 1.28; F(4.51, 4931.88) = 30.55, p < .001, η² = .012.

Key Predictors of Topic-Specific NFMs

Analyses conducted to address H2, H3, RQ3, and RQ4 use OLS regression models with NFM measures as the dependent variables. The models allow us to examine how general and topic-specific NFM perceptions differ in their associations with key predictors, including topical news interest and NFC. Table 4 summarizes the results.

Table 4.

Results of OLS Regression Predicting NFM Perceptions for Each News Topic.

	Politics	COVID-19	Climate change	Entertainment	Sports	General NFM
Topical interest ^a	–.13** (.04)	–.23*** (.04)	.00 (.03)	.16*** (.04)	.16*** (.03)
Social media use	.14*** (.02)	.14*** (.02)	.07** (.02)	.07** (.03)	.08*** (.02)	.10*** (.02)
Need for cognition	–.22*** (.04)	–.23*** (.04)	–.21*** (.04)	–.03(.04)	–.11*** (.04)	–.20*** (.03)
Age	–.14*** (.04)	–.16*** (.04)	–.16*** (.04)	–.13** (.05)	–.14*** (.04)	–.13*** (.03)
Female	–.22** (.07)	–.21** (.07)	–.20** (.06)	–.03(.08)	–.08(.07)	–.17** (.06)
Race
Hispanic	–.12(.09)	–.04(.10)	–.10(.09)	.10(.11)	–.25** (.09)	–.08(.08)
Black	.27** (.10)	.19(.11)	.00(.10)	.11(.12)	–.06(.10)	.14(.09)
Asian	–.02(.13)	.13(.14)	–.06(.13)	–.21(.15)	–.22(.13)	.00(.11)
Education	–.01(.03)	.00(.04)	.02(.03)	.12** (.04)	.07* (.03)	–.02(.03)
Income	.01(.02)	.02(.02)	.01(.01)	–.01(.02)	.01(.02)	.01(.01)
Political party
Democrats	–.15(.09)	–.11(.10)	–.23* (.09)	–.01(.11)	–.11(.09)	–.18* (.08)
Independent	–.14(.08)	–.06(.09)	–.13(.08)	.04(.10)	–.11(.08)	–.09(.07)
Political ideology	.08** (.03)	.09** (.03)	.05(.03)	.07(.04)	.03(.03)	.04(.03)
N	1097	1097	1096	1096	1097	1097
R²	.148	.151	.091	.066	.101	.117
Adjusted R²	.138	.141	.080	.055	.090	.107

Interest in the specific topic was used when predicting NFM perception for each news topic.

p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

H2 and RQ3 focused on the relationship of NFM with topical interest. Model results suggest that this relationship differs by news topic. Consistent with our hypothesis (H2), topical interest is negatively related to NFM perceptions for hard news about politics (b = –.13, p < .01) and COVID-19 (b = –.23, p < .001). However, interest is positively related to NFM perceptions for soft news, including entertainment (b = .16, p < .001) and sports news (b = .16, p < .001). In addition, topical interest is not a significant predictor of climate change NFM.

To investigate why topical interest relates to NFM perceptions in opposite ways for hard and soft news topics, post hoc analyses examine how topical interest predicts the three statements used to measure the NFM construct (see Tables A7 to A9 in the Appendix 1). Results show that topical interest in entertainment and sports is positively related to beliefs of “I can stay well-informed . . .” and “I rely on information from friends . . .” about these two topics. By contrast, topical interest mainly negatively relates to the belief of “not worry about keeping up with the news” for politics and COVID-19 news, but not to the two NFM statements about soft news.

Results also show that when included in the regression models, the general NFM perception predicts all topical NFMs (see Table 6 in Appendix), lending more support for H1. After adding general NFM as a control variable, topical interest is no longer a significant predictor of the topical NFM perception about political news. However, it remains a significant factor in predicting NFM perceptions about COVID-19 (b = –.12, p < .001), entertainment (b = .13, p < .001), and sports news (b = .13, p < .001).

The NFC also significantly and negatively predicts topical NFMs of hard news about politics (b = –.22, p < .001), COVID-19 (b = –.23, p < .001), climate change (b = –.21, p < .001), and general NFM (b = –.20, p < .001), as we hypothesized (H3). Those who have a stronger NFC are less likely to hold NFM perceptions about hard news topics and soft news like sports (b = –.11, p < .01), with entertainment news as an exception (RQ4).

Using Topical NFM to Predict Knowledge

Given that the NFM perception strength varies by topic, we investigated how topic-specific NFM compares with general NFM perceptions in predicting domain knowledge level (RQ5). We conducted regression analysis predicting the same outcome variables with general vs. topical NFM variables. ANOVA results comparing regression models indicate no significant difference in using general vs. topic-specific NFM perception to predict individuals’ knowledge level of politics, COVID-19, and climate change. NFM perceptions—whether general or topic-specific measures–are significant predictors of political and COVID-19 knowledge, and topical NFM does not have stronger predictive power than general NFM for domain knowledge. The stronger someone’s perceptions that news will find them, the less knowledge they have in that domain. However, neither general nor topic-specific NFM perceptions are significantly associated with climate change knowledge. Table 5 summarizes the regression results of knowledge levels.

Table 5.

Results of OLS Regression Predicting Domain Knowledge Level.

	Politics		COVID-19		Climate change
	Model1	Model2	Model1	Model2	Model 1	Model 2
Topical NFM ^a	–.11*** (.04)		–.15*** (.03)		.00(.06)
General NFM		–.16*** (.05)		–.19*** (.04)		.06(.06)
Topical interest ^a	.44*** (.05)	.43*** (.05)	.07(.05)	.08(.05)	.38*** (.06)	.38*** (.06)
Social media use	–.09** (.03)	–.09** (.03)	.00(.03)	.00(.03)	.02(.04)	.01(.04)
Need for cognition	.20*** (.05)	.19*** (.05)	.19*** (.04)	.19*** (.04)	.16* (.07)	.17* (.07)
Age	.34*** (.05)	.34*** (.05)	.27*** (.05)	.27*** (.05)	–.03(.07)	–.02(.07)
Female	–.26** (.08)	–.27** (.08)	.38*** (.08)	.38*** (.08)	–.43*** (.12)	–.42*** (.12)
Race
Hispanic	–.19(.12)	–.19(.12)	–.18(.11)	–.19(.11)	–.51** (.18)	–.50** (.18)
Black	–.32* (.13)	–.32* (.13)	–.69*** (.12)	–.68*** (.12)	–.68*** (.19)	–.69*** (.19)
Asian	.00(.17)	–.01(.17)	–.12(.15)	–.14(.15)	.11(.24)	.1(.24)
Education	.27*** (.04)	.27*** (.04)	.15*** (.04)	.15*** (.04)	.19** (.06)	.19** (.06)
Income	.07*** (.02)	.07*** (.02)	.09*** (.02)	.09*** (.02)	.07* (.03)	.07* (.03)
Political party
Democrats	.14(.12)	.13(.12)	.55*** (.11)	.54*** (.11)	.03(.17)	.04(.17)
Independent	.15(.11)	.14(.11)	.47*** (.10)	.47*** (.10)	–.01(.16)	.00(.15)
Political ideology	–.01(.04)	–.02(.04)	.03(.04)	.02(.04)	–.11(.06)	–.11(.06)
N	1095	1095	1091	1091	1095	1095
R²	.319	.321	.211	.212	.124	.125
Adjusted R²	.310	.312	.201	.202	.113	.113

NFM and interest for a specific news topic was used when predicting knowledge level for each topic domain.

p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Discussion

The “news-finds-me” perception reflects the news-seeking strategies people adopt in an increasingly saturated information environment. However, the existing concept, focusing on news in a general sense, may not fully capture how individuals navigate the information landscape and engage with different types of news that interest them.

Extant literature has typically investigated the relationship of NFM perception with political interest and knowledge (e.g. Gil de Zúñiga & Diehl, 2019; Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2017). Our study takes a different approach by assessing the strengths, predictors, and outcomes of NFM perceptions across different news topics. In addition, we examine the general NFM metric’s effectiveness in capturing individuals’ attitudes toward topic-specific news consumption. Our research shows that NFM perceptions of political news are strongly correlated with general NFM metric; however, this may not be the case for other news topics, especially soft news such as entertainment and sports. Respondents in our study hold stronger NFM perceptions for news about entertainment and sports compared to hard news topics, such as politics and COVID-19. Participants were least likely to believe that they can stay informed about climate change without actively seeking out news about it. These results are consistent with previous research on topic-specific NFM perceptions conducted among a small population of Spanish Facebook users (Segado-Boj & Said-Hung, 2021). Moreover, the higher Cronbach’s alpha scores for topic-specific NFMs, compared to the general NFM, suggests that narrowing the scope of news can improve the reliability of NFM measures. Overall, a nuanced, topic-specific approach is essential for accurately assessing news consumption beliefs across different domains.

This work is particularly relevant in the context of news fatigue and widespread NFM perceptions. While existing research already finds strong NFM perceptions across societies (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2020), our study offers more nuanced findings. Our results highlight a disparity among topics: individuals are more likely to hold a news-finds-me perception about soft news, such as sports or entertainment, compared to hard news on critical topics like politics, COVID-19, or climate change. When news is defined broadly, people report stronger NFM belief that they can be “well-informed.” However, when focusing on specific news topics, respondents are less confident that they can stay informed, except when it comes to entertainment news (which is ubiquitous in the online space). Thus, the general NFM metric may overestimate public confidence in being well-informed, especially when it comes to civic information needs, such as staying on top of local communities and global issues.

These patterns align with previous research indicating that users engage with political and health news on social media in distinct, purposeful ways. Political content often encourages commentary, serving as a vehicle for expressing or shaping social and political identities, while health news is commonly shared to inform, support, or protect others within one’s network. In contrast, entertainment news tends to be shared less frequently, likely because users assume it is already widely available and familiar to most people (Tenenboim, 2022). By focusing on topical NFM, our research challenges existing assumptions about public engagement with news, advocating for more targeted and effective strategies to address diverse informational needs.

Our study further explores factors related to NFM perceptions of different news topics. Notably, topical interest is an important factor in predicting topic-specific NFM perceptions. Results suggest that those who are more interested in politics and COVID-19 are less likely to believe that news in these areas will find them without active news seeking. In contrast, those more interested in entertainment and sports news tend to hold stronger NFM perceptions about these two topics. The fact that interest and NFM have a positive relationship for some topics and negative for others might be linked to people’s attitudes toward hard vs. soft news and the availability of different topics in the information environment. Our survey was administered in the fall of 2020, amid the COVID-19 outbreak and presidential elections in the U.S., when political events and the pandemic affected everyone’s daily lives. Thus, people interested in these topics might have been especially motivated to actively seek them out and gain accurate information. The post hoc analysis supports this explanation, as topical interest in hard news is negatively related only to the NFM statement of not worrying about keeping up with politics and COVID-19 news, which reflects motivation strength. Individuals who are more interested in these topics are less likely to believe that they don’t need to actively seek out such news.

In contrast, entertainment and sports events may not directly impact people’s lives and news consumers may be less invested in seeking them out. For people who closely follow entertainment and sports, those topics are likely to be very visible in an online information environment, both as a result of personal choice and the affordances offered by social media platforms. Our analysis shows that topical interest is particularly positively related to NFM beliefs that “I can be well-informed” and “I rely on information from my friends” for entertainment and sports news, suggesting that news consumers’ confidence in their information environment and social networks to receive updates about soft news topics of interest. Social media tend to be highly entertaining, which is a major reason why people use these platforms (McClain et al., 2024). This abundance of entertaining content may lead users to believe that they can easily stay informed about soft news. Skurka et al.’s (2023) research is also suggestive in this context, demonstrating that participants preferred soft news content on social media, even when exposed to news feeds populated primarily with hard news. A similar preference is likely to operate in real-world news media environments, where soft news content is also considerably more abundant.

Notably, NFM perceptions about climate change are not associated with climate knowledge, which may reflect the unique characteristics of the topic and its fragmented media coverage. Unlike politics or COVID-19—widely covered and framed as urgent—climate change is often portrayed as distant, complex, or abstract. Coverage varies significantly across outlets, frequently shaped by political polarization and inconsistent framing, which may weaken the impact of incidental exposure. Moreover, the overall volume of climate reporting is lower, making it harder for even active news seekers to access clear, reliable information. This may explain why the expected link between low NFM and higher knowledge does not appear. Supporting this interpretation, we observed that the majority of respondents in our study scored zero on climate knowledge—far more than in the other topics—highlighting the broader challenges of accessing and absorbing information on climate change.

NFC was found to be a strong negative predictor of NFM perceptions across all topics except entertainment. Although information overload may bother many social media users, not everyone adopts a passive strategy for acquiring news or holds NFM perceptions. The NFC reflects an intrinsic motivation to engage in extensive thinking (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982; Sohlberg, 2016), and our study shows that those who enjoy critical and analytical information processing are less likely to believe that news will find them or rely on social feeds for news. The results align with existing research on NFC’s role in explaining how people navigate complex information environments and engage with politics (O’Hara et al., 2009; Zhang & Jiang, 2024). Our research thus offers direct evidence that NFC is an important factor linked to news consumption attitudes and behaviors.

We further examined how general and topic-specific NFM perceptions vary in their predictive power regarding topical knowledge. Results show that both general and topic-specific NFM perceptions were negatively related to people’s knowledge levels of politics and COVID-19, with no statistical difference between models using these two measures, consistent with Lin et al.’s (2024) study in the context of COVID-19. Since we did not collect data on soft news knowledge, it remains unclear how well it would be predicted by topic-specific NFM perceptions. More research is needed to examine and compare various civic and non-civic issues and individuals’ news consumption attitudes in those areas.

When it comes to climate change news, our research found no significant relationship between topical interest, NFM perceptions—either general or topic-specific—and knowledge level. Although we consider the environment to be an important hard-news topic, the patterns we observed in that area did not match those we see for politics and COVID-19. Other factors, such as perceived importance and familiarity with the topic, as well as its prominence at the time under observation, might influence attitudes toward climate change news. Knowledge about climate change was also generally lower than that for the other two topics. Political orientation may also play a role: Newman et al. (2023) found that right-leaning individuals in the U.S. are significantly more likely to avoid climate change or environmental news than their left-leaning counterparts, potentially contributing to disengagement and lower knowledge levels across segments of the population. These findings suggest that structural, cognitive, and ideological factors may all contribute to the unique dynamics of climate change news engagement.

One limitation of this research is that the cross-sectional nature of the survey study does not allow for causal inferences between factors we examined and different NFM perceptions. Longitudinal studies similar to that of Gil de Zúñiga and Diehl (2019) are needed to investigate how personal traits and news consumption behaviors affect beliefs about “news finds me” and vice versa. It is also particularly important to further dissect individuals’ news diets through multiple sources, as news consumption has become increasingly personalized and fragmented in the digital age. For instance, people may use different social media platforms for various types of information and news topics, which may shape topic-specific NFM perceptions to varying extents. It is also worthwhile to focus on the news consumption habits and NFM attitudes of the younger generation. Previous research has identified distinct age patterns in news consumption, particularly in the use of news sources and consumption frequency (e.g. Boulianne & Shehata, 2022; Eddy, 2022; Shearer et al., 2024; Social Media and News Fact Sheet, 2023). In our study, even after controlling for social media use, younger people still tend to exhibit stronger NFM perceptions–both for general news and across news topics–than older people. This finding aligns with previous research on the age gap in NFM perceptions (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2020; Strauß et al., 2021). Further research is needed to understand why younger people are more likely to hold the news-finds-me belief.

Despite its limitations, our study makes significant contributions to the scholarship on incidental exposure and the NFM phenomenon by evaluating its psychological foundation and topic dependence across news about entertainment, sports, politics, COVID-19, and climate change. This research reveals that the NFC is a critical factor in shaping individuals’ attitudes toward news-seeking. Moreover, we found that the strengths of NFM perceptions vary between soft and hard news genres, and interest in news topics relates to NFM perceptions in varying ways. The NFM belief results from evaluations of the information environment, uses of news sources, plus individual motivation for news-seeking, all of which vary by personal interests and information needs concerning specific issues. By illustrating nuances in news consumption habits and NFM attitudes across specific topics, this study calls into question the adequacy of using a general NFM measure to assess individuals’ news-seeking behaviors across diverse domains. While the general NFM scale performs reasonably well for major hard news topics such as politics and COVID-19, it falls short when applied to niche social issues like climate change or soft news content. Our findings underscore the methodological importance of specifying news topics in NFM measures–especially for niche issues and soft news–for future research to capture more accurate and nuanced insights into how people interact with different types of news. This tailored approach deepens our theoretical understanding of how the public navigates an information-saturated environment and engages with news in the digital age. It also opens new avenues for exploring how people define “news” in their daily lives, their varied exposure to content, and how these perceptions shape knowledge and civic engagement.

Footnotes

Appendix 1 Authors’ note

Dr. Wang is now a research associate at Pew Research Center. The study was conducted during her PhD program and is not affiliated with Pew Research Center.

ORCID iDs

Afrooz Mosallaei

Luxuan Wang

Katherine Ognyanova

Ethical considerations

The study is approved by the Rutgers Institutional Review Board (IRB) with the study ID of Pro2020001851.

Author contributions

Luxuan Wang and Katherine Ognyanova collected the data; Wang conducted the analyses; Afrooz Mosallaei and Wang drafted the manuscript; and Mosallaei, Wang, and Ognyanova contributed to revisions.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Data availability statement

The data underlying this article will be shared on reasonable request to the corresponding author.

Author Biographies

Afrooz Mosallaei is a fourth-year PhD candidate in Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University. Her research focuses on visual communication, particularly on using imagery to enhance public awareness of climate change and social movements through the strategic dissemination of news on social media platforms. Her work aims to provide insights for journalists, media organizations, digital news scholars, and media policymakers.

Luxuan Wang received her doctorate in Communication, Information & Media Studies from Rutgers University. She is now a research associate at Pew Research Center. This study is based on her work at Rutgers University and does not represent the views of Pew Research Center. Wang is interested in Americans’ experiences with news and attitudes toward new engagement in a changing information environment.

Katherine Ognyanova is an associate professor at the School of Communication & Information, Rutgers University. Her research examines the effects of social influence on civic and political behavior, confidence in institutions, information evaluation, and public opinion formation. Ognyanova’s methodological expertise is in computational social science, network science, and survey research. She is the director of the Rutgers Computational Social Science Lab and one of the founders for the COVID States Project and the Civic Health and Institutions Project.

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