Browsing by Author "Green, Melanie"
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- ItemExposure to political news via media and political trust in South Africa : a quantitative study(2020-12) Green, Melanie; Schulz-Herzenberg, Collette; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Political Science.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Media usage to gather political news and the attitude of political trust are both key theoretical ingredients for a successful democratic state. Citizens’ political trust in the state is essential in ensuring that the decisions made by the political authorities on their behalf are accepted. The media not only fulfils a watchdog function in a democratic state but is also an important communication link and vessel of information between the citizens and government. Despite their recognised importance, however, media usage and political trust have a contentious relationship. Two key schools of thought exist when referring to the way in which media usage to gather news influences political trust, with supporting evidence found for each. The first is the media malaise school of thought, which argues that an increased exposure to political news will negatively shape the trust that citizens hold towards government and the state. The second school of thought is the virtuous circle, which argues that the increased political knowledge gained through news consumption will promote democratic learning and political trust. Studies on these schools of thought and the conclusions drawn have largely been conducted in advanced democratic states. This study explored the association between the frequency of media usage to gather political news and political trust in the South African context. South Africa presented an interesting case study to further explore the relationship between these variables and this study contributes to filling this gap in the literature. Firstly, there is a high rate of media usage to gather news in by South African citizens. Secondly, the South African political landscape has been tumultuous in recent years and various corruption and other scandals have been covered widely by the media. Some examples of this include the Nkandla scandal and the allegations of state capture involving the Gupta family. This study explored the way in which the frequency of media usage to gather political news affects political trust in South Africa. This was achieved through a quantitative approach using Afrobarometer data from survey Round 6 (2015) and Round 7 (2018). The methodology and the operationalisation of the concepts in this study drew from a large body of international literature that fits the context of this research. The media platforms examined in this study were radio, television, newspapers and the internet. Political trust was operationalised using Norris’(1999) conceptual framework and included the following objects of trust: political actors, political institutions, regime performance and regime principles.