Abstract
<p><span lang="EN-US">Political trust in governments and political organs is a significant determinant of legitimacy. This quantitative study, using survey and questionnaire, has studied and investigated the effects of two variables of the state’s governing method and performance, as well as soft power on students’ political trust. The sample of the study included 400 bachelor’s and master’s students studying at Shiraz University. The result revealed a positive relationship students’ use of domestic media and trusting their contents and their political trust on the government and the political institutions. There was a negative and inverse relation when it came to the Internet and satellite channels. In terms of government performance indicators (including sense of security, notion of rule of law, services, accountability and political effectiveness) and political trust, a positive relationship was observed. However, an inverse and significant relationship was seen between the thought that there’s discrimination and corruption and political trust. </span><span lang="EN-US">The multivariate analysis showed that the variables namely Trust in news of local media, </span><span lang="EN-US">notion of corruption in institutions, notion of accountability, responsibility and supervision in the government and administration, sense of security</span><span lang="EN-US">, </span><span lang="EN-US">notion of rule of law, and </span><span lang="EN-US">sex (being man), totally explained 49.7% of changes in political trust.</span></p>
Highlights
Trust is the pivot and the essence of social capital, whose extrinsic co mponents are social and voluntarily civil networks, partic ipation and cooperation are the warp and woof of these networks
Based on the data presented in table 1, the mean score of trust in political institutions among wo men (37.61) was more than that observed among men (33.75)
According to the difference observed between two means, i.e. -3.91, and significant level of 0.000 with 99% confidence interval o f the difference, there was a significant difference between men and wo men in terms of t rust in political institutions
Summary
Trust is the pivot and the essence of social capital, whose extrinsic co mponents are social and voluntarily civil networks, partic ipation and cooperation are the warp and woof of these networks. Politica l trust is one of the significant co mponents of political legit imacy. If the demands and needs are not met and responded to by the state, polit ical legitimacy and cit izens’ trust in the state and ad min istrators will be damaged, probably leading to civil disobedience, movements or public protests. In Castells’ words, ‘defined within the media space’ and media have a highly symbolic power in shaping public opinions, attitudes and faith, as well as civ il and political behaviors. The extent of media influence, transnational and cyber media is different, depending on the quality of governance (good or bad) and the output of government performance, ad min istrations and governing institutions. Because of Iran ’s political attitudes in foreign policy in recent decade, soft power has intensified mo re than before through the Internet, satellites and cyber space against Islamic Republic of Iran
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