Political trust in the internet context: A comparative study in 36 countries

Abstract

The decline of political trust is often linked to the rise of the Internet. This paper took the perspective of media ecology to explore the Internet's impacts on political trust. The data of the World Values Survey were used for multilevel analyses with 51, 960 respondents in 36 countries. It reported several paradoxical and counter-intuitive results. Instead of being weakened, political trust is strengthened in the new informational context that is created by the Internet infrastructure. For the Internet censorship, political trust is strengthened by the Internet blockage but weakened by the violation of user rights. For the Internet participation, political trust is strengthened by e-information and e-consultation but weakened by e-decision-making.