How Does Social Media Influence Government Trust Among Chinese Youth Groups? A Chain Mediation Study Based on Trust Theory and Planned Behavior Theory

Recent theoretical developments have revealed that women's government trust is higher than men and political participation may mediate social media and government trust. Political knowledge and political efficacy may also play such a role. Based on the trust theory and planned behavior theory, this paper makes a multi-group analysis with gender as a grouping variable through a structural equation model. This paper analyzes the intermediary chain role of political knowledge, political participation, and political efficacy between social media and government trust of the youth groups in Beijing. Results show that social media directly affects young females' political participation and has no such effect on young males. In both groups, political knowledge and political participation have a mediating chain role in social media and government trust. These results implicate that the government should pay attention to the development of social media, make good use of the indirect effect of social media on youths' government trust, focus on promoting correct and healthy political knowledge on social media, cultivate youth political consciousness, create more opportunities for youth political participation, and let the youth understand the significance of political activities, so as to achieve the purpose of improving government trust.