Public Cynicism Research Articles

Trust v Want: Tracking Changes in Young People’s Desire to Study Journalism Against Their Trust in News

Studies into why young people choose to study journalism have often been informed by a belief in journalism’s inherent worthiness within civil society. However, as surveys show decreasing trust in journalism and increasing avoidance of news in many countries, this article asks whether young people are being put off studying journalism in part because of rising public cynicism around its societal worth. The research compares data sets across multiple countries to explore whether there is a statistical relationship between attitudes among 18- to 20-year-olds toward trust in news and interest in learning to produce it.

Privacy Behaviour: A Model for Online Informed Consent

An online world exists in which businesses have become burdened with managerial and legal duties regarding the seeking of informed consent and the protection of privacy and personal data, while growing public cynicism regarding personal data collection threatens the healthy development of marketing and e-commerce. This research seeks to address such cynicism by assisting organisations to devise ethical consent management processes that consider an individual’s attitudes, their subjective norms and their perceived sense of control during the elicitation of consent. It does so by developing an original conceptual model for online informed consent, argued through logical reasoning, and supported by an illustrative example, which brings together the autonomous authorisation (AA) model of informed consent and the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). Accordingly, it constructs a model for online informed consent, rooted in the ethic of autonomy, which employs behavioural theory to facilitate a mode of consent elicitation that prioritises users’ interests and supports ethical information management and marketing practices. The model also introduces a novel concept, the informed attitude, which must be present for informed consent to be valid. It also reveals that, under certain tolerated conditions, it is possible for informed consent to be provided unwillingly and to remain valid: this has significant ethical, information management and marketing implications.

Predicting Publics’ Compliance with Containment Measures at the Early Stages of COVID-19: The Role of Governmental Transparent Communication and Public Cynicism

ABSTRACT Despite the agreement on the importance of transparency in pandemic management, few studies have provided empirical evidence to answer the question of how governmental leadership and management teams can communicate strategically in a transparent manner. Integrating public relations, strategic communication and health communication literature, this study examines the effectiveness of CDC’s transparent communication in shaping individuals’ cynicism, self-efficacy beliefs as well as their cooperation during a pandemic, while taking the moderating role of media exposure and political ideology into consideration. A quantitative online survey was conducted with 502 participants who were living in the United States in early April 2020. Results indicated that effective transparent communication could reduce public cynicism and increase public self-efficacy to fight the pandemic, which subsequently leads to more cooperative precautions. Moreover, the relationship between CDC’s transparent communication practices and perceived cynicism toward the institution was moderated by media exposure (i.e., mass media and social media) and political ideology. The findings contribute to the theoretical understanding of pandemic communication and provide implications for practitioners in pandemic management, suggesting that health institutions should guarantee high transparency levels in their communication to encourage public precautionary cooperation.

Do Share Repurchases Promote Efficient Stock Price?

Purpose: This paper examines whether a greater firm’s repurchase intensity translates into more efficient stock price.
 Design/ Methodology/ Approach: An unbalanced panel data, that consists of a sample of 337 US repurchasing firms between 2012 and 2016, was analyzed. Based on the result of the Hausman test, fixed effects estimator was employed to estimate the coefficients. To address heterogeneity across time and firms, time effect and standard error clustered by firms were applied.
 Findings:Agreater firms’ share buyback intensity stimulates faster incorporation of information in price and results more efficient stock prices. The main findings were further confirmed with robustness test and supports the notion that share repurchase serves as signalling tool and price support to promote more efficient stock price.
 Practical implication: The finding has implication on how share repurchase can be used in three ways: to ease panic selling and deep selling pressure during the downtime; enhance informed trading in which is a result of information signalled by managerial share repurchases; and attract investors’ attention on neglected and undervalued stock.
 Originality/value: This research provides new insight and empirical evidenceto reject public cynicism about share repurchases used by firms to manipulate their share prices.

Delegitimation of Single-Mux Policy on Re-Regulation Process of Indonesian Broadcasting Bill in Media Framing

This study aims to explain the reality behind the framing of negative coverage of the single-mux policy in the re-regulation of Law No.32/2002, from a more macro perspective. Framing negative news by building reader cynicism on the single-mux policy option is associated as one of the efforts to delegitimize the single-mux policy, throughout the process of discussing the policy in Parliament. This research links the reality between negative news framing around single-mux policy options, with the media agenda in the broadcast industry in Indonesia. The author used the concept of framing-strategy analysis Cappella and Jamieson (1997) as an analysis tool, to analyze data from detikcom content as online news media around the debate on single-mux and multi-mux policies on 2017-2018 reporting period. The results identified that the media developed a negative narrative about single-mux policies aimed to rise public cynicism about the policy. Cynicism is built by constructing issues around single-mux policies with policy impacts that conflict with democratic values, such as mass layoffs in the broadcasting industry, the issue of excesses of authoritarian policies because management rights are controlled solely by the government, to the issue of unpreparedness of government infrastructure which results in a waste of budget in the process of procuring new infrastructure. These facts the author associates with the effort to delegitimize single-mux policy options in the legislation process, using the arguments of Berger, Ridgeway, Fisek and Norman, (1998). Keywords: Framing analysis, broadcasting policy, framing-strategy , value framing, delegitimation.

Citizen Journalism and Public Cynicism toward Police in the USA

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the source of media imagery on participant cynicism toward the police and explore the relationship between media source and the severity of sanctions imposed on police as a result of the portrayed actions. Participants (N = 93) completed a semantic differential scale measuring participants’ attitudes toward members of various occupations followed by a survey to measure baseline cynicism. Then, participants viewed a video of police behavior which was manipulated according to media source and completed a second cynicism measure and demographic survey. Participants were then asked whether to impose a sanction on the police officers. Results indicated that there were no differences in cynicism between groups prior to viewing the video; however, there were statistically significant differences in cynicism between groups after exposure to Citizen Video Journalism (CVJ) from different media sources revealing that cynicism was greater with the group that viewed CVJ from the social media source than from the broadcast media source. Furthermore, results indicated statistical significance between groups and severity of sanctions imposed on police after CVJ video exposure.

Conquering Corruption: An Evaluation of the European Union's Efforts in Ukraine

Even after the Revolution of 2014, reducing the level of corruption within Ukraine has remained a challenging goal. Ukraine’s border conflict makes adequately addressing the roots of its corruption without unduly undermining state capacity especially challenging. Despite this delicate situation, the establishment of a stable, lawful, and democratic Ukraine is of vital importance to the European Union given its geopolitical significance. Certain arguments in the literature provide a possible solution to both reducing levels of corruption by expanding civil society and thus improving levels of generalized social trust and social accountability. Accordingly, this paper explores the extent and effect of the EU’s support for civil society and anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine. It also examines any counterproductive results from this assistance, such as fueling public cynicism and distrust. With the limited data available, the preliminary findings of this paper suggest that while the factors influencing corruption are complex and interrelated, civil society and anti-corruption efforts may increase aid effectiveness. For more conclusive findings in the future, it will be necessary for more comprehensive and consistent data collection by the European Union and civil society organizations in Ukraine.

Trust in Politics, Electoral Processes and Influences on Economy in Western Balkans, 2019

The majority of democratic governments consider participating in national elections a right of citizenship, and also a citizen's civic responsibility. Historical legacies play a key role in the process of state-building and democratization. The WB6 countries have never had this historic chance to inherit a collective memory of a strong, well-governed democratic government, elected by voters and in the general interest of voters. In this regional context on the electoral process and the relations between political parties, there remains a continuing concern of regional CSOs' cooperation in the WB6 countries, which may require a strategic future move, which could alleviate the limits of the critical mass of voters. On the other hand, democratic governance in multilateral societies requires a willingness to live together and reach out to its citizens through consensual decisions. The idea of electoral democracies process derives from the understanding that elections are a necessary but not a sufficient condition for modern democracy, because elections alone are not enough. The trust in governments in the WB6 countries is falling. The perception and the reality are in unison that elected people are acting less often in the interests of the voters they elected. People are less trusting of expertise delivered by politicians and analysts related to them. Year after year, trust of voters has been eroded by the perception that politicians don’t always use public funds in the public interest. Public cynicism about politicians and their motives is fed by stories of high officials abusing with entitlements and appointing their former colleagues or related parties with them into generously paid, taxpayer-funded positions. We will try to express in this analyze our own interest in election fraud, but several factors make it difficult to define a common understanding of what election fraud is, much less how to detect and prevent it. Knowledge of politics and public affairs by large numbers of citizens, coupled with their participation through voting and other modes of citizen voice, are important potential checks on the ability of politicians and bureaucrats to not have so much possible ways to realize the electoral fraud. The national economic situation has been shown to have had less impact on the share of votes won by each party at the regional level, as the regional economic situation has had much stronger influence on the voter decision. In particular, for example, rising national per capita income and unemployment rates have strong effects on election results at the national level if they would be clarified and translated into the context of profitability of voters at regional level. In this political and social environment are presented the new political anti establishment organizations, like the nowadays business model of startups. This model is seen that would be the new era of political forces instead of the old-fashioned politic parties.

Unpacking Public Sentiment Toward the Government: How Citizens’ Perceptions of Government Communication Strategies Impact Public Engagement, Cynicism, and Communication Behaviors in South Korea

ABSTRACTIn this study, we explore the relationship between two types of public sentiment toward the government (i.e., public engagement and cynicism) on publics’ information transmission behaviors, i.e., megaphoning, about the government. In doing so, we unpack how citizens’ perceptions of the communication strategy adopted by the government, as well perceived authenticity of the government’s communication impact their sentiments toward the government. An online survey was conducted in South Korea (N = 1112) to understand these relationships. The results revealed that perceived use of bridging strategy by the government is associated with public engagement, and perceived use of the buffering strategy is related to public cynicism. We also found perceived authenticity to be significantly associated with public engagement and negatively associated with cynicism. Finally, the two types of public sentiment were found to partially mediate between perceived government communication strategies and citizens’ positive and negative megaphoning. Theoretical and empirical implications are discussed.

The Effect of Political Trust in National Elections Under Unified and Divided Government

Under what conditions is public distrust in government electorally consequential, and whom does it harm? The Republican Party appears to think that stoking the fire of public cynicism towards “Washington politicians” will benefit the party’s chances in the 2016 elections both for the White House and for Congress. Yet the academic literature is less clear. On the one hand, Hetherington (1999) and Hetherington and Rudolph (2015) suggest that individuals’ distrust in government reflects displeasure with the incumbent party in the White House. If voters go to the polls looking to hold the president’s party responsible for government’s lack of trustworthiness, the strategy of current GOP candidates may indeed be fruitful, given that Barack Obama is president. On the other hand, these electoral expectations seem a bit odd given that temporal variation in public trust in government is driven primarily by citizens’ attitudes towards Congress, not the president (e.g., Keele 2007). If voters go to the polls looking to hold the party that controls Congress responsible for government’s lack of trustworthiness, Republican efforts to foster distrust in government may backfire, given that their party currently presides over the legislative branch. In addition to these two alternative hypotheses, this study explores a third: that voters look to hold both branches of government responsible for governmental untrustworthiness. In this case, the effect of trust in elections will depend on whether party control of the two branches is unified or divided. Under unified government, distrust would be expected to harm the electoral prospects of the sole ruling party in both presidential and congressional races. Under divided government, voters would have to decide whether to hold neither party more responsible than the other, or hold the president’s party responsible in the presidential contest and the congressional majority party responsible in congressional races. No existing studies attempt to distinguish among these several hypotheses. Using individual level data, this study finds that distrust in government affects both presidential and congressional races. However, these effects are felt mainly during unified government, with candidates from the ruling party being held accountable in both congressional and presidential elections. The effects are much more muted during divided government, when responsibility is more evenly shared across both parties in both types of contests.

Winning the War on Tobacco-and Public Cynicism, Too.

The Milbank QuarterlyVolume 94, Issue 4 p. 704-707 Op-Ed Winning the War on Tobacco—and Public Cynicism, Too JONATHAN COHN, Corresponding Author JONATHAN COHN CitizenCohn@gmail.com Address correspondence to: Jonathan Cohn, The Huffington Post, 77 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 (email: CitizenCohn@gmail.com).Search for more papers by this author JONATHAN COHN, Corresponding Author JONATHAN COHN CitizenCohn@gmail.com Address correspondence to: Jonathan Cohn, The Huffington Post, 77 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 (email: CitizenCohn@gmail.com).Search for more papers by this author First published: 19 December 2016 https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0009.12221Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume94, Issue4December 2016Pages 704-707 RelatedInformation

Communicating Corporate Social Responsibility on Social Media

The purpose of this study was to explore what corporations with good reputations communicate on social media. Based on a content analysis of 46 corporate Facebook pages from Fortune’s “World’s Most Admired Companies,” this study found that corporations communicate noncorporate social responsibility messages more frequently than corporate social responsibility (CSR) messages. When communicating CSR activities, corporations employed an informing strategy more often than an interacting strategy and included internal publics’ activities more than external publics. This study also found that publics engage more with noncorporate social responsibility messages than CSR messages, which may reflect public cynicism of CSR communication.

Do the police really protect and serve the public? Police deviance and public cynicism towards the law in Nigeria

This study empirically examines the everyday problem of corrupt policing and other related abuses in Nigeria, and how these deviant behaviours engender public cynicism towards the law. In any democratic society, police officers are expected to be accountable for their actions and inactions. But the perennial problem in Nigeria is that the police are not accountable to anyone. The history of Nigeria policing is littered with accounts of deviance, malevolent attitudes towards the public and failures of the police organization in detecting or disciplining errant officers. Using a sample of 462 participants from a cross-sectional survey, this study examines whether actual or vicarious experiences of police deviance are likely to predict public cynicism towards the law. This current study corroborates previous assertions that the relationship between the police and the public in Nigeria is poor and that police deviance engenders cynicism towards the law. Implications for policymaking and law-abiding behaviour are discussed.

Applying Sustainable Development Principles and Sustainable Operating Practices in Shale Oil and Gas Production

Shale oil/gas is one of the most rapidly growing types of unconventional fossil fuel development and the abundance of this resource has postponed peak oil and gas. Physical scarcity of hydrocarbons is now less likely to occur in the near future; however, the likelihood of social scarcity is increasing. Despite the clear economic benefits of production in terms of jobs, tax revenue, and the provision of energy resources and industrial feedstocks, there is hostility toward shale oil/gas extraction in many parts of the world. This is due to concerns about how environmental, social, and economic impacts are managed and mitigated,and how risks and benefits are distributed among industry, governments and civil society.The application of sustainable development principles and sustainable operating practices is recommended as a partial remedy for this situation. Sustainability accounting frameworks based on criteria and indicators of sustainability and best practice codes of conduct represent two possible approaches for tracking how sustainable a firm’s practices are. These also provide a foundation for corporate social responsibility and can assist firms in gaining social license to operate. Also needed are estimates of a given operation’s net contribution to sustainable development. Possible methods include benchmarking against industry standards,achieving mature business conduct, gaining sustainability certification, demonstrated use of both design for environment and shared value creation methodologies, and integrated sustainability assessment. Conceptual progress has been made in applying sustainability to shale oil/gas; however, significant progress in applying these tools and methods in the field is needed because the sector tends to be judged by the behavior of the least responsible firm. Moreover, if best practices and shared value creation are set aside during the current or a future downturn, public cynicism about the sector will increase, and social license may be lost and even more difficult to regain.

The Committee on Standards in Public Life: Twenty Years of the Nolan Principles 1995–2015

AbstractIn his recent memoir, William Waldegrave wrote that no country run by John Major and Robin Butler was likely to be in much danger of systemic corruption. The fact remains that a quarter of a century ago, John Major, with the guidance and support of his cabinet secretary, decided to establish the Committee on Standards in Public Life under the chairmanship of Lord Nolan. The apparent prevalence of ‘sleaze’ issues in public life—most notably the ‘cash for questions’ scandals involving Tory MPs—provoked the decision. Lord Nolan's committee immediately enunciated seven principles of public life: honesty, accountability, integrity, selflessness, openness, opportunity and leadership. Over the years, many of the Committee's recommendations have been accepted. There is today vastly greater transparency. The principles have been widely accepted; it is clear the public expects that they should be observed by public servants, including, perhaps especially, MPs. Yet it is equally clear that there is a widespread and still deepening mood of public cynicism on standards matters. The Committee is determined to defend the Nolan principles, but without more help from the political class it will be like Mrs Nupkins in The Pickwick Papers: inculcating moral lessons of great importance and generally ignored.

Knowledge of campaign finance regulation reduces perceptions of corruption

AbstractWe use an experimental survey design to measure how campaign finance regulation influences perceptions of political corruption and trust in politicians when citizens are exposed to information about regulation. Unlike most observational studies, results of this experimental study suggest that knowledge of campaign finance regulation substantially reduces citizens’ perceptions of corruption but has only limited effect on trust in politicians. Findings have crucial implications for public policy. At a time when public cynicism about politics is high, a significant reduction in perceptions of political corruption through successful dissemination of campaign finance regulation would be a boost to the legitimacy of democracies.

Benefit corporations at a crossroads: As lawyers weigh in, companies weigh their options

Should your company become a benefit corporation? In a comprehensive set of law review opinions, this installation of Business Law & Ethics Corner uncovers several fundamental issues to consider. First, the main premise for the benefit corporation—the legal preeminence of the shareholder primacy norm—may be unfounded. Second, benefit corporations may increase director liability and company costs. Third, contrary to the stated goal of such laws, benefit corporations do not empower stakeholders, and therefore are not substantially different from traditional corporations. Many legal analysts argue that, paradoxically, benefit corporations actually inhibit corporate social responsibility efforts by perpetuating the myth that business corporations do not have the flexibility to pursue social missions, and by claiming to, but failing to, empower stakeholders. They argue that the benefit corporation form is likely to increase corporate greenwashing, and that it enhances public cynicism about all corporations by creating competing sets of ‘beneficial’ and ‘other’ corporations. In the face of widespread acclaim for the benefit corporation, both corporate directors and researchers should take these significant concerns into account.

Australia’s rocky nuclear past and uncertain future

Australia’s pro-nuclear lobby is calling for a major expansion of the country’s nuclear infrastructure, including an ambitious and controversial proposal to dispose of some of the world’s high-level nuclear waste on Australian territory. These calls have recently attracted the support of the premier of the state of South Australia, who launched a royal commission to explore the economic opportunities offered by the nuclear fuel cycle—even though Australian federal law forbids the development of nuclear energy. But due to a series of tragic blunders and abuses over the past 60 years, a serious lack of trust has been created between the nuclear industry and the Australian people—for which successive federal governments must share some of the responsibility. This has bred widespread public cynicism toward all things nuclear, which is likely to prevent bipartisan consensus on all but the most modest nuclear proposals.

Public Trust and Regulatory Governance as represented through the Media

Media coverage of politics often comments on decline of public's trust in institutions. There is a notion that public trust of is steadily decreasing. Many factors contribute to this reduced trust, including: unhappiness with performance, negativity of election campaigns, distrust of traditional political parties, scandalous behavior of officials (unethical, incompetent or corrupt conduct) and changing role of media. (1) The media is said to be more interpretive in its reporting and critical of politicians and government (2) and thus, politicians and are subject to criticism on a daily basis. The use of the eight-second spot, quotable quote, sound bite and live television in House of Commons (3) has assisted in turning politics into a public spectacle. The framing of political coverage in these negative tones stimulates public cynicism which leads to distrust in government. Past studies have suggested that increased public confidence in institutions, particularly regulatory agencies, results in increased public comfort with work of those agencies. (4) This is particularly important for regulators of new technologies such as agricultural or health biotechnology. In order for public to accept new technologies, a high level of public comfort is needed. Where regulatory processes are transparent and public is informed of new research and developments in regulatory process, public comfort (and public trust) increases. When there is a lack of trust in generally, and in regulatory systems specifically, producer and consumer utilization of new developments in biotechnology may decrease. There is no doubt that media exerts some influence on interactions between public and institutions. However it is unclear whether media shapes public opinion, or if media coverage is a mere reflection of public's opinion. This study examines level of public trust/confidence in regulatory agencies through public opinion data from 1990 to present. We collected and compiled data in three separate categories: politicians, civil/public service and regulatory agencies. We found that politicians have lowest levels of public trust, ranging from 18% to 46%. The civil/public Service has much higher levels of public trust, ranging from 47% to 72%. Finally, regulatory agencies (in this case Health Canada, Environment Canada and Canadian Food Inspection Agency) all maintained high levels of public trust, approximately 70% for every year surveyed. (5) The second part of this study examines newspaper coverage of Canadian regulatory agencies for agricultural and health biotechnology. …

Knowledge of Campaign Finance Regulation and Attitudes towards Politics

We use an experimental design to measure how campaign (political) finance regulation influences perceptions of political corruption and trust in politicians when citizens are actually exposed to information about regulation. Unlike most of the observational studies in the literature, results of this experimental study suggest that knowledge of campaign finance regulation substantially reduces citizens’ perceptions of corruption but has only limited effect on trust in politicians. Our findings regarding the positive effect of knowledge of campaign finance regulation on perception of political corruption have crucial and urgent implications for public policy, as well as for informing the public about campaign finance regulation. At a time when public cynicism about politics is high, a significant reduction in perceptions of political corruption through successful dissemination of campaign finance regulation would be a boost to the legitimacy of democracies. The findings, however, suggest that the effect of information on regulation could be dependent on the context.