The political foundation of mainstream media trust in East and Southeast Asia: A cross‐national analysis.

POLITICAL trust (in government); TRUST; MASS media; PATRIOTISM; INTERNET censorship; FREEDOM of the press; POLITICAL scientists; POLITICAL participation

SOUTHEAST Asia; EAST Asia

Declining levels of trust in the media in Western democracies have drawn the attention of political scientists, but much less attention has been paid to East Asia. This paper sets out to examine the logic behind media trust in three different types of regimes in East and Southeast Asia: countries with, partial, and no press freedom, respectively. Our findings show that while respondents' trust in government and support for socioideological control of the government have consistent and significant associations with their media trust across all 12 countries, Internet usage, online political participation, support for media censorship, and patriotic belief have different associations with the variable being studied as the degree of press freedom varies. The findings indicate that citizens are well aware of the role mass media plays in the political system and thus their trust in the media reflects the expectation‐perception gap of the government‐media relationship accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resumen: Declining levels of trust in the media in Western democracies have drawn the attention of political scientists, but much less attention has been paid to East Asia. This article examines the logic behind media trust in three different types of regimes in East and Southeast Asia: countries with, partial, and no press freedom, respectively. Our findings show that while respondents' trust in government and support for socio‐ideological control of the government have consistent and significant associations with their media trust across all 12 countries, the Internet usage, online political participation, support for media censorship, and patriotic belief have different associations with the variable being studied as the degree of press freedom varies. The findings indicate that citizens are well aware of the role mass media plays in the political system and thus their trust in the media reflects the expectation‐perception gap of the government‐media relationship accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

摘要: 西方民主国家中媒体信任度的下降引起了政治学家的关注，但东亚地区的相关研究却很少。本文分析了东亚和东南亚地区三种不同类型政权中媒体信任背后的逻辑:这三类政权分别为完全具有新闻自由、部分具有新闻自由和没有新闻自由的国家。我们的研究结果表明，虽然在所有12个国家中，受访者对政府的信任以及对政府的社会‐意识形态控制的支持，与媒体信任存在一致且显著的关联，但互联网使用、网络政治参与、对媒体审查的支持、以及爱国信仰会随着新闻自由度的变化而与研究变量产生不同的关联。研究结果表明，公民十分清楚大众媒体在政治系统中的作用，因此，他们对媒体的信任反映了政府‐媒体关系的期望‐感知差距。 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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