Trust in Government: What’s News Media Got To Do With It?

• In Event: ICA Interactive Paper/Poster Session II
  In Interactive Paper Session: Political Communication Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

In modern democracies, trust in government is a key indicator of political legitimacy and stability. Drawing on theories of media effects, this paper investigates whether traditional media use has a negative (media-malaise-hypothesis) or a positive (virtuous-circle-hypothesis) impact on trust in the national government. For that reason, the study introduces a novel measurement for trust in government and suggests a serial-mediation model. To test the model empirically an online survey with 1115 German respondents was conducted. The results suggest that traditional media use has a positive direct impact on trust in government. The positive effect is further mediated by people’s evaluations of politicians and their evaluations of political processes. In addition, there is a positive serial-mediation effect of traditional media use on trust in government that runs first through evaluations of politicians and second through evaluations of political processes.

Authors

• Christopher Starke, U of Muenster

• Frank Marcinkowski, U Duesseldorf - D