Representations of Trust to Public Service in Russian Newspapers during Election Time: Corpus-based Content Analysis in Public Administration Sociology

Oleg Pavenkov,Elena Vasilieva,Vladimir Pavenkov

doi:10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n4s1p436

Oleg Pavenkov, Elena Vasilieva + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n4s1p436

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Abstract

This article presents a study of the trust as social and public administration categories from the sociological and corpus-based perspective. To study the trust as the social category was elected a newspaper corpus (corpus of contemporary media). The corpus includes the texts of the seven media: printed Newspapers (Novosty, Sovetsky sport, Trud, Komsomolskaya Pravda), and electronic agencies (RIA Novosti, RBC, New region) in approximately equal volume. The study has revealed that the category ‘trust’ in the Russian newspapers is used in the context of political institutions. The political context means that the text describes the relationship of the actors of public administration, who, in Russia, often are the staff of public service. We believe that this fact highlights the loyalty of people to the authorities. It is indirectly confirmed by the data of positive mentions of trust in the context of ‘respect’ and ‘authority’. In 2011, State Duma elections took place, with the number of mention of trust in political institutional context decreasing more than twice. Thus, in the pre-election period, the significance of the problem of recognition and respect for the subjects of political institutions in the media decreases, but increases the importance of social harmony. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n4s1p436

Highlights

This article presents a study of the trust as social and public administration categories from the sociological and corpusbased perspective, and includes a small-scale study that analyses the way in which this concept is used in Russian
The category ‘trust’ is mentioned in the following institutional contexts: Economic Institutions: The texts describing the relationship of actors in production, distribution, exchange and the consumption of material goods; Political Institutions: The texts describing the relationship of the actors of public administration, including civil society institutions within the state and on the international level
Most of the mentions of categories in which ‘trust’ occurs are seen in the context of political institutions (451 mentions, equating to 35.8%) and social network (404 mentions, equating to 32%)

Summary

Introduction

This article presents a study of the trust as social and public administration categories from the sociological and corpusbased perspective, and includes a small-scale study that analyses the way in which this concept is used in Russian. Garfinkel (1963) considers trust a necessary background condition of any mutually intelligible interaction, and states that trust requires the mutual approval of the norms and rules regularising public life (Watson, 2009). In this vein, Luhmann (1979) distinguishes this concept as a relation of dependence, which could lead to risk, social activity and the situation of choice. Economists emphasise that trust is a prerequisite for the activity in the risk situation, describing it as ‘a mechanism that can reduce uncertainty in contexts of interaction and facilitate the functioning of organizational systems’ (Malsch & Gendron, 2009). As Watson (2009) established, in modern social research, there are two main technologies of the operationalisation of trust, namely as terms of something else (choice, risk, game etc.) or as habitus (function)

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