Horseshoe Patterns: Visualizing Partisan Media Trust in Germany

A trusted media is crucial for a politically informed citizenry, yet media trust has become fragile in many Western countries. An underexplored aspect is the link between media (dis)trust and populism. The authors visualize media trust across news outlets and partisanship in Germany, for both mainst...

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Main Authors: Bernhard Clemm von Hohenberg, Paul C. Bauer
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: SAGE Publishing 2021-07-01
Series:Socius
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231211028786
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author Bernhard Clemm von Hohenberg
Paul C. Bauer
author_facet Bernhard Clemm von Hohenberg
Paul C. Bauer
author_sort Bernhard Clemm von Hohenberg
collection DOAJ
description A trusted media is crucial for a politically informed citizenry, yet media trust has become fragile in many Western countries. An underexplored aspect is the link between media (dis)trust and populism. The authors visualize media trust across news outlets and partisanship in Germany, for both mainstream and “alternative” news sources. For each source, average trust is grouped by partisanship and sorted from left to right, allowing within-source comparisons. The authors find an intriguing horseshoe pattern for mainstream media sources, for which voters of both populist left-wing and right-wing parties express lower levels of trust. The underlying distribution of individual responses reveals that voters of the right-wing populist party are especially likely to “not at all” trust the mainstream outlets that otherwise enjoy high levels of trust. The media trust gap between populist and centrist voters disappears for alternative sources, for which trust is generally low.
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spelling doaj.art-26298981506c4359834fa069d962a6d72022-12-21T17:59:59ZengSAGE PublishingSocius2378-02312021-07-01710.1177/23780231211028786Horseshoe Patterns: Visualizing Partisan Media Trust in GermanyBernhard Clemm von Hohenberg0Paul C. Bauer1Amsterdam School of Communication Research University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the NetherlandsMannheim Centre for European Social Research, University of Mannheim, Mannheim, GermanyA trusted media is crucial for a politically informed citizenry, yet media trust has become fragile in many Western countries. An underexplored aspect is the link between media (dis)trust and populism. The authors visualize media trust across news outlets and partisanship in Germany, for both mainstream and “alternative” news sources. For each source, average trust is grouped by partisanship and sorted from left to right, allowing within-source comparisons. The authors find an intriguing horseshoe pattern for mainstream media sources, for which voters of both populist left-wing and right-wing parties express lower levels of trust. The underlying distribution of individual responses reveals that voters of the right-wing populist party are especially likely to “not at all” trust the mainstream outlets that otherwise enjoy high levels of trust. The media trust gap between populist and centrist voters disappears for alternative sources, for which trust is generally low.https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231211028786
spellingShingle Bernhard Clemm von Hohenberg
Paul C. Bauer
Horseshoe Patterns: Visualizing Partisan Media Trust in Germany
Socius
title Horseshoe Patterns: Visualizing Partisan Media Trust in Germany
title_full Horseshoe Patterns: Visualizing Partisan Media Trust in Germany
title_fullStr Horseshoe Patterns: Visualizing Partisan Media Trust in Germany
title_full_unstemmed Horseshoe Patterns: Visualizing Partisan Media Trust in Germany
title_short Horseshoe Patterns: Visualizing Partisan Media Trust in Germany
title_sort horseshoe patterns visualizing partisan media trust in germany
url https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231211028786
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