What News Outlets do People Have in Mind When They Answer Survey Questions about Trust in "Media?"

While ample research on audience trust in the news media uses survey questions that ask respondents about their trust in a generic "news media,"only scant research has investigated what types of news outlets respondents have in mind when answering such questions. These previous investigations originated mostly in the US and resulted in inconsistent findings. To further investigate this question, we use data from a large-scale survey (N=2,337), collected in Sweden, including both general media trust measures and specific measures about trust in 20 mainstream and nonmainstream news outlets. The results demonstrate that our respondents seemingly averaged across all mainstream sources when they formed their general evaluations of the news media's trustworthiness

Why context, relevance and repetition matter in news reporting: Interpreting the United Kingdom’s political information environment

This study develops a multi-method approach to analysing political information environments, exploring how media and political systems help shape people’s understanding of news. In doing so, we ask a question fundamental to democratic citizenship: how well do news media communicate political responsibility and policy differences across political systems? Our study examines the United Kingdom’s political information environment, where significant power is devolved to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, with different political parties in control. Drawing on a content analysis of 17,765 news items, a representative survey of 3272 respondents and 15 semi-structured interviews, we examine the dominant information sources about UK politics by longitudinally tracing coverage of devolved issues from 2007 to 2016, and gauging how well it was understood by television news viewers. Our results suggest that while BBC news is more sensitive to communicating the devolved relevance of news than more commercial outlets, there remains a democratic deficit in the supply of political information and audience understanding of where power and responsibility lies. If news coverage more regularly communicated the relevance and context of devolved issues, we argue it could open up democratic opportunities for citizens to consider a wider range of policy options debated in all four political institutions

The Effects of Media and their Logic on Legitimacy Sources within Local Governance Networks: A Three-Case Comparative Study

__Abstract__ Although theoretical and empirical work on the democratic legitimacy of governance networks is growing, little attention has been paid to the impact of mediatisation on democracies. Media have their own logic of news-making led by the media’s rules, aims, production routines and constraints, which affect political decision-making processes. In this article, we specifically study how media and their logic affect three democratic legitimacy sources of political decision-making within governance networks: voice, due deliberation and accountability. We conducted a comparative case study of three local governance networks using a mixed method design, combining extensive qualitative case studies, interviews and a quantitative content analysis of media reports. In all three cases, media logic increased voice possibilities for citizen groups. Furthermore, it broadened the deliberation process, although this did not improve the quality of this process per se, because the media focus on drama and negativity. Finally, media logic often pushed political authorities into a reactive communication style as they had to fight against negative images in the media. Proactive communication about projects, such as public relation (PR) strategies and branding, is difficult in such a media landscape