News Media Effects on Political Institutional and System Trust: The Moderating Role of Political Values

This article explores the correlation between media effects and political trust, as well as the moderating factor in the equation. Specifically, the authors measured political trust within two categories: institutional trust and system trust. Analyses were based on two waves of surveys conducted among Internet users (2014: N = 2,970; 2017: N = 2,379) in China. Results indicated that (1) exposure to official media was positively correlated with political trust, whereas exposure to individual media and overseas media were negatively correlated with political trust, and exposure to commercial media was a nonsignificant factor; (2) correlation was higher for institutional trust than system trust; and (3) political values were a significant moderating factor. Implications are discussed.