This study examines wartime news consumption as a form of emotion regulation enacted through everyday information practices.
A qualitative descriptive study using the framework method. We conducted 19 semi-structured interviews with Hebrew-speaking adults in Israel via Zoom between mid-June and mid-September 2025. Analysis mapped practice narratives to regulatory flexibility, including context appraisal, strategy selection and monitoring/modification.
Participants described a three-step sequence: (1) appraising situational demands and personal limits, (2) configuring channels, formats, timing, and validation routines and (3) monitoring outcomes to cease, adjust, or maintain streams. Cross-cutting trends included narrowing to trusted sources, preferring low trigger formats such as text or audio, household co-regulation and lightweight record keeping (e.g. screenshots, pinned sources, concise checklists). Validation served dual aims, as reducing uncertainty and as moderating arousal, linking information behaviour directly to affective outcomes.
Implications include the need for news platforms and emergency communicators to design adaptive features, such as customisable alert levels, quiet modes, and credibility cues. These would help users regulate exposure and emotional impact while maintaining situational awareness. Limitations include a Hebrew-speaking Israeli sample, retrospective translated interviews and the absence of measures for factors such as threat proximity, prior mental health and media literacy.
The study locates regulatory flexibility at the level of concrete information-practice bundles, offering a model of adaptive wartime news use that integrates information behaviour with emotion regulation and provides practical guidance for communicators and platforms.
