Impacts of Internet Use on Political Trust: New Evidence from China

Zhou, Dong; Deng, Weiguang; Wu, Xiaoyu

doi:10.1080/1540496x.2019.1644161

Cited by 11 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…States that set browser defaults to partisan media outlets [36] found a long-term loss of trust in mainstream media. In authoritarian regimes in Asia, increasing unrestricted internet access decreased levels of trust in the political system [56,70,87]. This finding confirms the predominant association observed in most other countries.…”

Section: Few Articles Have Shed Light On Causal Effects Between Social Media Use and Trust A Field Experiments In The Unitedmentioning

confidence: 52%

“…We also found multiple large-scale field experiments conducted on social media platforms [66][67][68][69] as well as various natural experiments [56,58,59,70] (for more details on the techniques, see Fig. 3).…”

Section: Causal Inferencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Common causal inference techniques that were used in our sample include instrumental variable designs that introduce exogenous variation in the treatment variable [56][57][58][59][60], matching approaches to explicitly balance treatment and control groups [61][62][63], and panel designs that account for unobserved confounders with unit and/or time fixed effects [64,65].…”

Section: Causal Inferencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In our sample, causal analyses of the effects of digital media on political participation in Western democracies mostly studied voting and voter turnout [61,64,68,[71][72][73]; articles concerned with other regions of the world focused on political protest behavior [56,58,63]. Other articles considered online political participation [62,68].…”

Section: Effects On Key Political Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2). For example, detrimental associations were found for trust in governments and politics [56,57,63,[75][76][77][78][79], trust in media [80], and social and institutional trust [81]. During the COVID-19 pandemic, digital media use was reported to be negatively associated with trust in vaccines [82,83].…”

Section: Effects On Key Political Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

A Systematic Review of Worldwide Causal and Correlational Evidence on Digital Media and Democracy

Lorenz-Spreen¹,

Oswald²,

Lewandowsky³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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One of today's most controversial and consequential questions is whether the rapid, worldwide uptake of digital media is causally related to a decline in democracy. We conducted a systematic review of causal and correlational evidence (N=498 articles) on the link between digital media and different political variables, such as trust, polarization or news consumption. We further focused on the subset of articles that employed causal inference methods. Across methods, the articles report associations between digital media use and most political variables. Some associations, such as increases in political participation and information consumption, are likely to be beneficial for democracy and were often observed in the Global South and emerging democracies. Other consistently reported associations, such as declining political trust, advantages for populists, and growing polarization, are likely to be detrimental to democracy and were more pronounced in established democracies. We conclude that while the impact of digital media on democracy depends on the specific political variable and the political system in question, several variables show clear directions of associations. We believe that the evidence calls for further research efforts and vigilance by governments and civil societies to better understand and actively design the intimate interplay of digital media and democracy.

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Section: Few Articles Have Shed Light On Causal Effects Between Social Media Use and Trust A Field Experiments In The Unitedmentioning

confidence: 52%

Section: Causal Inferencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Causal Inferencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Effects On Key Political Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Effects On Key Political Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

A Systematic Review of Worldwide Causal and Correlational Evidence on Digital Media and Democracy

Lorenz-Spreen¹,

Oswald²,

Lewandowsky³

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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Does Social Media Penetration Enhance Democratic Institutions? Evidence from Varieties of Democracy Data

Acheampong,

Taden

2024

Soc Indic Res

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We examine whether social media enhances democracy using cross-sectional data from 145 countries. We used Facebook penetration as a proxy for social media. Also, based on the complex definition of democracy, high-level indices, such as egalitarian, participatory, liberal, electoral, and deliberative democracies, were used to capture democracy. Our endogeneity-corrected results documented that high social media penetration, on average, enhances all forms of democracy. In descending order, social media penetration has contributed more to enhancing democracy in high-income economies, followed by lower-middle and upper-middle income economies. In low-income economies, social media penetration has a negative effect on democracy indices. We also documented heterogeneity in the findings based on regions. Marginal analysis also revealed that the positive effect of social media on democracy is higher in countries with higher internet penetration. We suggest that with appropriate interventions, policymakers could leverage social media to enhance democratic institutions.

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Once Accessing the Internet, Less Trusting of Local Officials?

You

Xiao

2022

Soc

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Impacts of Internet Use on Political Trust: New Evidence from China

Cited by 11 publications

References 49 publications

A Systematic Review of Worldwide Causal and Correlational Evidence on Digital Media and Democracy

A Systematic Review of Worldwide Causal and Correlational Evidence on Digital Media and Democracy

Does Social Media Penetration Enhance Democratic Institutions? Evidence from Varieties of Democracy Data

Once Accessing the Internet, Less Trusting of Local Officials?

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