Trust in Chinese state media: The influence of education, Internet, and government

Abstract

Abstract The current study conducted a series of data analyses of the China General Social Survey (CGSS) 2008, the latest national survey of urban and rural households investigating the social structure and quality of life in China. Based on a recently conducted national survey, the study focuses on trust that Chinese citizens place in their state media, and explores the extent to which the trust is influenced by viewers' education, online news exposure, and trust in government. Overall, this study demonstrates a great amount of trust the Chinese people place in state media. The trust is negatively associated with education levels and online news exposure. The correlation between trust in state media and trust in government is higher than the correlation between trust in state media and trust in other two information sources (experts and word-of-mouth communications). There is also a significant interaction between education and evaluation of government. As education level gets higher, the association between evaluation of media and evaluation of the government becomes weaker. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.