WP7. ​Information Environment, Media Use, and Trust

Task 7.1. Setting up the methodological frame.

Societies with one-sided information flows (in closed information societies like China) display greater trust in political authorities than those living in contexts with two-sided information flows (like Sweden). The free press is commonly regarded as an essential condition for an enlightened public. Thus, more informed decisions about trustworthy political leaders, political parties, civil service officials, and state authorities are likely to be maximized in open societies with freedom of expression, media pluralism, and accountability mechanisms, all closely associated with the type of democratic or autocratic regime governing each state, combined with levels of human development, expanding literacy, schooling, and media access in each society. Some of the most troubling indications of democratic backsliding in recent decades concern increasing restrictions on freedom of expression and civil liberties, including through state censorship of the independent media, unofficial government harassment of critical journalists, and expanded libel or defamation laws, illustrated in cases such as Hungary, Turkey, and Poland. The first WP deliverable, the framework paper, will use secondary population (EVS/ WVS, ESS, ISSP etc.) and expert (Freedom House, V-Dem etc.) survey data to provide a comparative cross-country overview of media use patterns and information environments in European and selected world countries to examine the causal links between the media and information environment, on our side, and the types of trust widespread in the society, including rational skeptical vs credulous trust and cynical mistrust. 

Task 7.2. Design of the online survey module with split samples.

Report D7.2 is a methodological paper that discusses how TRUEDEM project measures political trust and perceived trustworthiness in survey-embedded experiments across 24 European countries. The paper motivates the rational of experimental measurement by diagnosing the limits of single close-ended trust items, including problems such as construct validity, aggregation, and comparability. When citizens report to “trust” or “distrust”, they are rarely responding to a single uniform idea. People judge whether politicians can do the job, whether they are following the rules, whether they act in the interest of citizens and treat them equally, among the many other criteria. Conventional survey items often compress these perceptions into one single response. Survey experiments allow to analyse the nuances of political trust and perceptions of trustworthiness.  Analysis of two TRUEDEM split-sample experiments comprises the empirical core of the paper. The list item count experiment on trust in national leaders is employed to assess the response bias – whether citizens, under the influence of norms of public expression or other factors, have a tendency to over-state or under-report trust in the national Head of Government. The findings show that direct trust question in many national contexts across Europe can be inflated by prevailing civic norms and social desirability. Over-reporting of political trust is more common among those with higher education and middle-aged respondents. The second experiment is a single-step vignette that tests the marginal contribution of competence, integrity, impartiality, or authenticity cues to the perceptions of trustworthiness. The findings suggest that citizens primarily reward signals of capacity; impartiality proves greater significance in Central and Eastern Europe, and integrity – in Nordic and Baltic states. The results also reveal heterogeneity by age and education. On average, all vignettes have a greater effect on trustworthiness assessment among the senior respondents, and the smallest – among the youngest. Similar is the association between predicted trustworthiness and education levels, with the effect being particularly pronounced for Competence and Integrity, which have the greatest effect among those with tertiary education.

Task 7.3 Analysis and policy recommendations.

The information environment is also the subject of medium and shortterm policy interventions, exemplified by the protection of independent news media and in public service requirements governing broadcast communications requiring ‘political balance’ in different countries during the period of official election campaigns. Based on the findings of the previous research within this WP, in task 7.3 the project team will develop policy-recommendations aimed at enabling two-sided information flows within the country's information and media environment. The set of policy recommendations will concern countries participating in the project, with the general provisions applicable to different types of societies across the EU identified based on such criteria as democraticness and freedoms. 

Task 7.4. Multi-level model of trust predictors.

Work under WP7 will be based on comparative studies of political trust, considering broad groups of predictors: psychological (individual characteristics of individuals, in particular, emotional and motivational variables) and social (indicators of social consolidation, group identity, social capital). These types will be compared with the study of institutional indicators in particular countries that form the framework for building specific types of political trust. Multi-level model will thus identify the role of all these factors and foremost the significance of information environment and choice of media and information sources among the other factors. Analytical report summarizing the findings will examine the contribution of various factors to the development of political trust, including skeptical, credulous and other types of trust.