The Effect of Media and Political Beliefs and Attitudes on Trust in Political Institutions: A Multilevel Analysis on Data from 21 European Countries

Hana Macháčková — Tue, 24 Nov 2020 17:43:15 +0000

ABSTRACT:
While trust in political institutions is a necessary condition for the working of democracy, its level is constantly in decline in Western democracies. Therefore, in this study, we examine factors that are associated with the perceived trust in political institutions. In this investigation, we centred on the role of media, specifically news consumption, internet usage, and cross-country differences concerning the relationship between media and politics. Using data from the 2016 European Social Survey (N = 37,159 respondents, 52% males, age M = 49.47), we tested a multilevel model predicting trust in political institutions by media factors, political beliefs and attitudes, and demographics. We also tested the moderation effects between news consumption and political beliefs and attitudes, as well as for the effect of the media system on a national level. The findings show that news consumption had no single direct effect on trust, but it moderated the effect of political interest. The effect of Internet usage on trust was only negligible and not significant after the inclusion of political beliefs and attitudes in the model. There were also differences between media models. Countries belonging to the Democratic Corporatist Model (but also Ireland and the United Kingdom) were characterised by overall higher trust than countries in the Polarized Pluralist Model and Central and Eastern European Model.

KEY WORDS:
European Social Survey, media effects, models of media systems, multilevel analysis, news consumption, political efficacy, political interest, trust in political institutions

05. MACHACKOVA & TKACZYK – CT 2-2020 Download

When Age Matters: Patterns of Participative and Communicative Practices in the Czech Republic

Hana Macháčková — Sun, 06 Nov 2016 15:59:33 +0000

ABSTRACT:
After a long history, research on the relation between participative and communicative practices was revived in the late 1990s because of the proliferation of new media. New studies have taken into account both online and offline participation and the ability of new media to provide citizens with easier access to information and a broader repertoire of actions. In this article, which is based on a representative survey of the adult Czech population and a survey of Czech adolescents, we address participative and communicative practices as intertwined sets that are typically preferred by certain groups of citizens. As media-related and political practices usually vary due to generational and historical experience, the aim is to discover whether people with similar generational backgrounds and with similar repertoires of action manifest similar sets of communication practices, i.e. similar media ensembles. Hence, we build this study on the assumption that the political-and media-related agencies are structured by historical experience as well as by biographical experience linked with life-cycle phases. Using cluster analysis, we focus on the various participative and communicative practices employed by three distinct adult generational groups and by contemporary adolescents, all of whom experienced the process of socialization in their own specific historical contexts.

KEY WORDS:
adolescents, generations, mass media, new media, news reception, online participation, political participation

04_Macková_et_al_CT-2-2016 Download

Hana Macháčková – Communication Today

The Effect of Media and Political Beliefs and Attitudes on Trust in Political Institutions: A Multilevel Analysis on Data from 21 European Countries

When Age Matters: Patterns of Participative and Communicative Practices in the Czech Republic