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

Michal Tkaczyk — 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

Between Politicization and Securitization: Coverage of the European Migration Crisis in Czech Online News Media

Michal Tkaczyk — Mon, 20 Nov 2017 17:22:42 +0000

ABSTRACT:
According to polls, the proportion of Czech respondents who perceived irregular migration as a real and serious security threat doubled from 32% in 2014 to 65% in 2015. By means of a content analysis of the news stories published by three Czech online news portals, this study examines the extent to which images of a threat and an appeal for security were part of the media coverage of the European migration crisis. While only small differences in extent were observed among the three portals, the findings suggest that the crisis was depicted mainly in terms of governance, i.e. as a burden to the state or as a security threat. All three news portals gave prominence to qualities like urgency, extraordinariness, overload and insecurity, and attributed these qualities to the figure of an indefinite wave of migrants heading to Europe. The humanitarian dimension of the reported events was marginalised. The findings indicate a striking dependence on institutional sources, mainly government officials. Almost exclusive salience was given to the governmental agenda. Authorship of every other news story was assigned to the Czech Press Agency. Aforementioned partial characteristics of the coverage resulted in highly politicized image of the crisis, which to considerable extent was presented as a security threat.

KEY WORDS:
agenda building, European migration crisis, irregular migration, online news, securitization, threat construction

07_Tkaczyk_CT-2-2017 Download

Michal Tkaczyk – 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

Between Politicization and Securitization: Coverage of the European Migration Crisis in Czech Online News Media