Abstract
Political scientists often argue that political trust is critical to democracy. Mishler and Rose (2001: 30), for instance, maintain that trust links ordinary citizens to the institutions that are supposed to represent them, ‘thereby enhancing both the legitimacy and the effectiveness of democratic govern- ment’. It comes as no surprise that this proposition has sparked a large array of research on political trust, from David Easton’s (1965) early study of polit- ical support to more recent endeavors to trace trust across various nations (e.g. the World Values Survey), and to attempts to identify the sources of trust (Campbell, 2004; Lühiste, 2006; Mishler and Rose, 2001). Empirical evidence suggests a rather pessimistic outlook for many of the established democracies, which show alarming signs of widespread public discontent with politics and cynicism about government (Norris, 1999a). Mair (2006: 6) notes that ‘[n]ever before in the history of postwar Europe have govern- ments and their political leaders...been held in such low regard.’
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bennett, L.W. (2008) News: The Politics of Illusion (New York: Longman).
Brandenberg, H. (2005) ‘Political bias in the Irish media: A quantitative study of campaign coverage during the 2002 general election’. Irish Political Studies, 20, 297–322.
Brants, K., de Vreese, C, Möller, J. and van Praag, P. (2010) ‘The real spiral of cynicism? Symbiosis and mistrust between politicians and journalists’. International Journal of Press/Politics, 15(1), 25–40.
Campbell, W.R. (2004) ‘The sources of institutional trust in East and West Germany: Civic culture or economic performance?’ German Politics, 13, 401–418.
Cappella, J.N. and Jamieson, K.H. (1997) Spiral of Cynicism: The Press and the Public Good (New York: Oxford University Press).
Cook, T.E. and Gronke, P. (2005) ‘The skeptical American: Revisiting the meanings of trust in government and confidence in institutions’. Journal of Politics, 67(3), 784–803.
D alt on, R. (2004) Democratic Challenges, Democratic Choices: The Erosion of Political Support in Advanced Industrial Democracies (New York: Oxford University Press).
Deuze, M. (2005) ‘What is journalism? Professional identity and ideology of journalists reconsidered’. Journalism, 6, 442–464.
East on, D. (1965) A System Analysis of Political Life (New York: Wiley).
Fuller, J. (1996) News Values: Ideas for an Information Age (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press).
Gans, H.J. (1979) Deciding What s News: A study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, Newsweek, andTime (New York: Pantheon Books).
Gronke, P. and Cook, T.E. (2007) ‘Disdaining the media: The American public’s changing attitudes toward the news’. Political Communication, 24, 259–281.
Grosskopf, A. (2008) ‘Explaining the democratic trust conundrum: The source of institutional trust in the reunited Germany’. International Social Science Review, 83, 3–26.
Hanitzsch, T. and Berganza, R. (2012) ‘Explaining journalists’ trust in public institutions across 20 Countries: Media freedom, corruption and ownership matter most’. Journal of Communication, 62, 794–814.
Hofstede, G. (2001) Culture’s Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions and Organizations across Nations (Thousand Oaks: Sage).
Hudson, J. (2006) ‘Institutional trust and subjective well-being across the EU’. Kyklos, 59(1), 43–62.
Karlekar, K. D. (ed.) (2003) Freedom of the Press 2003: A Global Survey of Media Independence (New York & Washington, D.C.: Freedom House).
Kepplinger, H.M. (1998) Demontage der Politik in der Informationsgesellschaft (Freiburg and Muenchen: Alber).
Kotzian, P. (2011) ‘Public support for liberal democracy’. International Political Science Review, 3(1), 23–41.
Kunioka, T. and Woller, G.M. (1999) ‘In (a) democracy we trust: Social and economic determinants of support for democratic procedures in central and Eastern Europe’. Journal of Socio-Economics, 28, 577–596.
Lengauer, G. and Vorhofer, H. (2010) ‘Wahlkampf am und abseits des journalistischen Boulevards: Redaktionelle Politikvermittlung im Nationalratswahlkampf 2008’. In F. Plasser (ed.) Politik in der Medienarena (Vienna: Facultas), 145–192.
Lengauer, G., Esser, F. and Berganza, R. (2012) ‘Negativity in political news: A review of concepts, operationalizations and key findings’. Journalism, 13(2), 179–202.
Lijphart, A. (1999) Patterns of Democracy (New Haven: Yale University Press).
Lühiste, K. (2006) ‘Explaining trust in political institutions: Some illustrations from the Baltic states’. Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 39, 475–496.
Mair, P. (2002) ‘In the aggregate: Mass electoral behaviour in Western Europe, 1950–2000’. In H. Keman (ed.) Comparative Democratic Politics (London: Sage), 122–140.
Mair, P. (2006) Polity Scepticism, Party Failings, and the Challenge to European Democracy (Wassenaar: NIAS).
McAllister, I. (1999) ‘The economic performance of governments’. In P. Norris (ed.) Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Governance (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 188–203.
McQuail, D. (2000) McQuail’s Mass Communication Theory (London: Sage).
Miller, A. and Listhaug, O. (1999) ‘Political performance and institutional trust’. In P. Norris (ed.) Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Governance (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 204–216.
Mishler, W. and Rose, R. (2001) ‘What are the origins of political trust? Testing institutional and cultural theories in post-communist societies’. Comparative Political Studies, 34, 30–62.
Misztal, B. (1996) Trust in Modern Societies: The Search for the Bases of Social Order (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell).
Moy, P. and Pfau, M. (2000) With Malice Toward All? The Media and Public Confidence in Democratic Institutions (Westport: Praeger).
Moy, P., Pfau, M. and Kahlor, L.A. (1999) ‘Media use and public confidence in democratic institutions’. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 43, 137–158.
Newton, K. (1999) ‘Mass media effects: mobilization or media malaise?’ British Journal of Political Sciences, 29(4), 577–600.
Newton, K. (2006) ‘Institutional confidence and social trust’. In M. Torcal and J.R. Montero (eds) Political Disaffection in Contemporary Democracies: Social Capital, Institutions, and Politics (Abingdon: Routledge), 81–100.
Newton, K. and Norris, P. (2000) ‘Confidence in public institutions: Faith, culture, or performance’. In S. Pharr and R. Putnam (eds), Disaffected Democracies: What’s Troubling the Trilateral Countries? (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
Norris, P. (1999a) ‘Introduction: The growth of critical citizens?’ In P. Norris (ed.) Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Governance (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 1–27.
Norris, P. (1999b) ‘Conclusions: The growth of critical citizens and its consequences’. In P. Norris (ed.) Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Governance (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 257–272.
Norris, P. (2000) A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in Postindustrial Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Patterson, T. E. (1994) Out of Order (New York: Vintage).
Patterson, T.E. (2000) Doing Well and Doing Good: How Soft news and Critical Journalism are Shrinking the News Audience and Weakening Democracy — And What News Outlets Can Do About It (Cambridge, MA: Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy, John. F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University).
Pfau, M. and Moy, Patricia (1998) ‘The influence of political talk radio on confidence in democratic institutions’. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 75(4), 730–745.
Plasser, F., Pallaver, G. and Lengauer, G. (2009) ‘Die (trans-) nationale Nachrichtenlogik in Mediendemokratien. Politischer TV-Journalismus im Wahlkampf zwischen transatlantischer Konvergenz und nationaler Divergenz’. In F. Marcinkowski and B. Pfetsch (eds), Politik in der Mediendemokratie. (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag), 174–202.
Preston, P. and Metykova, M. (2009) ‘Individual influences on news: Journalists’ values and norms’. In P. Preston (ed.) Making the News: Journalism and News Cultures in Europe (New York and London: Routledge), 32–48.
Putnam, R.D. (1993) Making Democracy Work: CivicTraditions inModern Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
Rozell, M.J. (1996) The Press and the Bush Presidency (Westport: Praeger).
Salgado, S. (2008) A influência da televisào e dos jornais na construçào das candi-daturas presidenciais em Portugal. Comunicaçào & Politica, 26, 91–116.
Schmitt-Beck, R. and Voltmer, K. (2007) ‘The mass media in third-wave democracies: Gravediggers or seedsmen of democratic consolidation’. In R. Günther, J.R.
Montero and H.J. Puhle (eds) Democracy, Intermediation, and Voting in Four Continents (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 75–134.
Schramm, W. (1964) Mass Media and National Development: The Role of Information in Developing Countries (Stanford: Stanford University Press).
Slomczynski, K.M. andjanicka, K. (2009) ‘Structural determinants of trust in public institutions: Cross-national differentiation’. International Journal of Sociology, 39, 8–29.
Torcal, M. and Montero, J.R. (2006) ‘Political Disaffection in Comparative Perspective’. In M. Torcal and J.R. Montero (eds) Political Disaffection in Contemporary Democracies: Social Capital, Institutions, and Politics (Abingdon: Routledge), 3–19.
Van Aelst, P., Brants, K., van Praag, P., de Vreese, C, Nuytemans, M. and van Dalen, A. (2008) ‘The fourth estate as superpower? An empirical study of perceptions of media power in Belgium and the Netherlands’. Journalism studies, 9, 494–511.
Van Dalen, A., de Vreese, C. and Albaek, E. (2010) Studying Journalistic Role Conceptions and Content Cross-Nationally: How Wide is the Gap between Theory and Practice? Paper presented at the 3rd European Communication Conference, Hamburg, 12–15 October.
Van Dalen, A., Albzek, E. and de Vreese, C. (2011) ‘Suspicious minds: Explaining political cynicism among political journalists in Europe’. European Journal of Communication, 26, 147–162.
Waisbord, S. (2000) Watchdog Journalism in South America: News, Accountability, and Democracy (New York: Columbia University Press).
Weaver, D.H., Beam, R.A., Brownlee, B.J., Voakes, P.S. and Wilhoit, G.C. (2006) The American Journalist in the 21st Century: U.S. News People at the Dawn of a New Millennium (Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum).
Yang, Q. and Tang, W. (2010) ‘Exploring the sources of institutional trust in China: Culture, mobilization, or performance?’. Asian Politics & Policy, 2, 415–436.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2014 Thomas Hanitzsch and Rosa Berganza
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hanitzsch, T., Berganza, R. (2014). Political Trust among Journalists: Comparative Evidence from 21 Countries. In: Canel, M.J., Voltmer, K. (eds) Comparing Political Communication across Time and Space. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137366474_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137366474_9
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-47417-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-36647-4
eBook Packages: Palgrave Media & Culture CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)