Audience Engagement with COVID-19 News: The Impact of Lockdown and Live Coverage, and the Role of Polarization

Existing research on media and the COVID-19 pandemic is largely based quantitative data, focused digital media, limited to single-country studies, often West-centred. As such, it has capacity provide a holistic account of causes consequences audience engagement with news, or consider impact systemic political factors. To compensate for that, we examine large set qualitative interviews diaries collected in four eastern European countries during first wave pandemic. We show that changes news consumption—including resurgence television decline print consumption—were not driven solely by demand up-to-date information, but also practical constrains home-bound life lockdown, introduction live briefings. Our findings underscore disruption uncertainty as key elements experiences highlight markedly privatized depoliticized nature public debate early phase argue was an unpredictable, open-ended, exhausting event high potential divisiveness polarization, especially contexts marked low levels freedom, declining democratic standards, elite-led politicization crisis.