Abstract
ABSTRACT The relationship between news consumption via new media and political trust has been constantly contested in prior research. This dispute has become more salient in an authoritarian context. Both “networked authoritarianism” and “non-confrontational digital activism” are concepts that have been used to capture the methods of political control or resistance by appropriating new media technologies under an authoritarian regime. This study responds to the dispute by investigating news media effects on hierarchical political trust to parse the mechanism of effective governance using national survey data (N = 3781) in China. We found that the effects of news consumption from various media sources on political trust in both central and local governments were mediated by perceived happiness and moderated by the authoritarian values of Chinese netizens. These findings remind us that the formation of political trust is a sophisticated socio-psychological process in which diachronic social and economic changes, as well as the persistent political culture need to be fully considered.
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