The relationship between personality and media consumption has garnered significant scholarly attention as digital media ecosystems grow increasingly complex and personalized. This paper presents a comprehensive psychometric investigation into how the Big Five personality traits—Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism (OCEAN)—predict diverse media consumption patterns across traditional and digital platforms. Drawing on Uses and Gratifications Theory (Katz et al., 1974) and Mood Management Theory (Zillmann, 1988), the study examines both the direct and indirect pathways through which dispositional characteristics shape media selection, engagement depth, content preferences, and platform diversification. An extensive review of meta-analytic evidence from over 113 studies (N = 53,913) is synthesized alongside theoretical discussion of mediating mechanisms including need for affiliation, mood regulation, information-seeking motivation, and self-presentation drives. The paper advances a personality-based audience segmentation model grounded in empirical evidence, demonstrating that Extraversion predicts social media engagement and broadcast consumption; Neuroticism predicts problematic media use and news avoidance; Openness predicts documentary, cultural, and arts media engagement; Conscientiousness inversely predicts social media time and problematic use; and Agreeableness predicts prosocial content selection and cooperative digital engagement. The investigation highlights persistent methodological limitations including cross-sectional designs, platform-specific sampling biases, and modest effect sizes (r = .10–.25), while advocating for facet-level analysis, longitudinal designs, and ecologically valid behavioral measurement. Implications for media producers, psychologists, digital journalism strategists, and public health communicators are discussed. The study contributes a theoretically grounded framework for personality-informed audience analytics in the contemporary media landscape.

Keywords: Big Five personality; media consumption; Uses and Gratifications; OCEAN model; audience segmentation; psychometric profiling; digital media behavior; mood management

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Individual differences in cognitive processing style constitute a foundational but underexplored determinant of news media preferences, consumption depth, and source selection. This paper develops a comprehensive psychometric framework for audience segmentation based on cognitive style, integrating four validated constructs: Need for Cognition (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982), the Cognitive Reflection Test (Frederick, 2005), Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory’s dual-processing dimensions (Epstein, 1994), and Kahneman’s (2011) System 1/System 2 framework. Drawing on 85 empirical studies and three meta-analyses, the paper synthesizes evidence that high-NFC individuals consume significantly more hard news, prefer analytical and long-form content, demonstrate greater resistance to misinformation, and show higher cross-platform news diversification. CRT performance independently predicts news discernment ability (r = .30–.40) regardless of political ideology, supporting the “lazy reasoning” account of selective exposure. The Rational-Experiential Inventory (REI-40) is proposed as a novel application for news audience segmentation, identifying four cognitive-style audience profiles: Analytical Deliberators (high rational, low experiential), Intuitive Engagers (low rational, high experiential), Cognitive Integrators (high on both dimensions), and Passive Consumers (low on both). Each profile exhibits systematically different news preferences, sharing behaviors, and misinformation vulnerability. The paper identifies critical literature gaps including the absence of a news-specific cognitive style battery, the lack of behavioral validation through digital trace data, and insufficient exploration of cognitive style × algorithmic environment interactions. Methodological recommendations include EFA/CFA validation of a composite News Cognitive Processing Scale and behavioral validation through naturalistic content selection tasks.

Keywords: Need for Cognition; Cognitive Reflection Test; dual-process theory; news preferences; audience segmentation; cognitive style; analytical thinking; media literacy

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The Dark Triad of personality—comprising narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy—has emerged as a critical explanatory framework for understanding disruptive, antisocial, and disinformation-related behavior in digital media environments. This paper provides a comprehensive psychometric investigation of Dark Triad trait–social media engagement relationships, synthesizing evidence from 45+ empirical studies and examining the implications for digital journalism, audience profiling, and media ethics. Drawing on Uses and Gratifications Theory, Goffman’s (1959) self-presentation framework, and Crockett’s (2017) moral outrage analysis, the paper demonstrates that narcissism predicts self-promotional content creation, status signaling, and compulsive self-disclosure; psychopathy predicts online trolling, cyberbullying, and disinformation spreading; and Machiavellianism predicts strategic identity manipulation and information weaponization. The Short Dark Triad (SD3; Jones & Paulhus, 2014) and Dirty Dozen (Jonason & Webster, 2010) are evaluated as primary measurement instruments. Emerging evidence links Dark Triad traits to Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) as a mediating variable for problematic social media use, while emotion dysregulation moderates psychopathy’s effects on compulsive platform behavior. The paper advances a Dark Triad Audience Risk Matrix for digital journalism, identifying platform-specific risk profiles associated with different Dark Triad configurations, and proposes ethical guidelines for incorporating dark personality profiling in audience analytics. Critical gaps in the literature include insufficient research on disinformation spreading specifically, absence of longitudinal designs, and lack of cross-cultural validation of Dark Triad measures. The paper contributes a theoretically grounded, practically applicable framework for understanding the psychological architecture of disruptive digital media audiences.

Keywords:Dark Triad; narcissism; psychopathy; Machiavellianism; social media; trolling; audience profiling; digital journalism ethics.

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The proliferation of digital news platforms, social media feeds, push notifications, and 24-hour news cycles has created an unprecedented information environment that systematically challenges human cognitive capacity. This paper provides a comprehensive examination of cognitive overload as a measurable psychological phenomenon in digital news consumption, synthesizing theoretical frameworks, empirical evidence, and psychometric approaches to attentional depletion measurement. Grounded in Cognitive Load Theory (Sweller, 1988), Lang’s Limited Capacity Model of Motivated Mediated Message Processing (LC4MP; 2000, 2006), and Information Overload Theory (Eppler & Mengis, 2004), the paper demonstrates that the digital news environment creates systematic intrinsic overload through information complexity and volume, extraneous overload through suboptimal presentation design, and attentional competition through multi-platform simultaneity. A meta-analytic summary of LC4MP research (142 articles, 683 effects) reveals pooled effect sizes of r = .314–.398 across cognitive load and memory domains, establishing the empirical magnitude of media-induced cognitive limitation. The paper documents the “doomscrolling” phenomenon—compulsive threat-monitoring news consumption—as a behavioral manifestation of anxious cognitive engagement under overload conditions, validated through the Doomscrolling Scale (DSS; Sharma et al., 2022). Validated measurement instruments are evaluated including NASA-TLX, the Cognitive Load Scale (Leppink et al., 2013), and dual-task methodology. Critical literature gaps include the absence of a news-specific cognitive overload scale, insufficient real-time physiological measurement, and inadequate modeling of notification overload effects. The paper proposes a measurement framework integrating self-report scales, physiological indicators (pupillometry, EEG), and behavioral trace data for comprehensive cognitive overload assessment in digital journalism research.

Keywords:cognitive overload; LC4MP; information overload; doomscrolling; attentional depletion; digital news; cognitive load measurement; news avoidance.

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News framing—the selection and emphasis of particular aspects of reality to promote specific interpretations, evaluations, and policy prescriptions—represents one of the most extensively studied phenomena in political communication research. This paper provides a comprehensive synthesis of framing effects research spanning Entman’s (1993) canonical definition through contemporary social media framing dynamics, with particular focus on the cognitive mechanisms through which frames shape audience interpretation, belief formation, and political attitudes. Drawing on Dual Process Theory (Kahneman, 2011), Prospect Theory (Tversky & Kahneman, 1981), and Chong and Druckman’s (2007) theoretical integration, the paper distinguishes equivalence framing (logically equivalent messages with differently emphasized aspects) from emphasis framing (different substantive perspectives on the same issue) and examines the distinct cognitive pathways through which each operates. Meta-analytic evidence confirms framing effects are “real but limited”—typically small to moderate in magnitude (d = .15–.35) but practically significant given the scale of political communication. Key moderators including political knowledge, need for cognition, and motivated reasoning are systematically examined. The paper advances a Cognitive Mechanism Model of Framing (CMMF) integrating applicability, accessibility, and availability effects within a unified computational account. Research on competitive framing, temporal dynamics, visual versus textual framing, and social media amplification of framing effects is synthesized. The paper identifies critical literature gaps including the absence of longitudinal framing research, insufficient attention to visual framing in digital news, and limited cross-cultural evidence. Implications for democracy, political communication design, and journalistic responsibility are discussed.

Keywords:framing effects; political communication; dual-process theory; news interpretation; belief formation; cognitive mechanisms; media effects; equivalence framing.

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