Trust in News and Trust through News: The Role of Media Consumption in Social, Political, and Media Trust

On the one hand, media is an instrument of social and political trust building: Through it, trustful citizens are formed and socialized as members of a political community. On the other hand, the media is also an object of trust. And the degree people trust the media and its products has important consequences for the legitimacy of government. The authors use data from their own survey to help answer the question of how trust correlates with patterns of media consumption. They find that consumption of legacy media increases social, political and media trust, whereas social media use demonstrates differing platform-specific patterns. The authors could also state some country differences in terms of how media consumption is related to trust.