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Trust in professional and alternative media in the context of societal polarization of the Czech society
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Experimental study of effects of affective cues on policy positions of citizens. The book presents a series of experiments examining how feelings towards political actors influence citizen's positions on political issues. The book focuses on how affective source cues work in the context of Czech multiparty environment. It is the first book in Czech political science which used experimental approach to test hypothesis connected to the topic of political attitude formation and public opinion.
Trust in media as sources of news and information is usually considered as an important, constitutive part of social actor’s general attitude to political and public spheres. However, most of the existing researches fail in their attempts to explore satisfyingly the current increase of audiences’ interest in so called alternative (mostly online) information sources. The presentation drawing on survey datasets collected in CATCH EyoU project maps patterns of trust in professional and alternative media of the Czech young population (aged 20-25, N=814). While usual measures used by other surveys for indication of trust in media focus on trust in media types (TV, print, radio, internet), the questionnaires used in CATCH EyoU employ measures better fitting to current media environments that, along with professional mainstream media, typically include a wide range of alternative news sources: instead on trust in media types, the measures enable to identify distinction between trust in mainstream and alternative news sources. Therefore, the analysis aims to provide a path to a more plausible picture of relation between (dis)trust in media and demographic factors, opinions on the EU and refugee crisis, opinions on politics, (dis)trust in politics and other people and several other measures.
Questions surrounding trust in news media have preoccupied scholars for almost a century. Based on a review of interdisciplinary literature, this paper provides an overview of the evolution of conceptions of news trust over the past 80 years. In doing so, this paper highlights key problems with the question of trust in this context. First, despite the volume of research on this topic, there is no agreed definition or measure of ‘trust’ in news media. Second, there is a growing disconnect between the normative ideal of an informed citizenry and the complex range of influences on perceptions of news credibility in the digital era. Third, in an age of uncertainty about the veracity of online information, is ‘trust’ in news even desirable? In response to these issues, this paper asks whether research based on undefined general questions about public ‘trust’ in news media continues to be relevant.
While an association between congruent exposure to ideological news and affective polarization is well documented, we know little about the mechanisms underlying it. This article explores two possible mechanisms: 1) acceptance of media frames and 2) the effects on the audience's reasoning, and specifically their knowledge of claims supporting their and the other camp's positions. Mediation hypotheses were tested on data collected using an online survey of users of ideological and mainstream Israeli news websites (N= 787). Op-eds from these websites (N= 259) were content-analyzed to determine the frames used by ideological and mainstream websites. Results demonstrate that acceptance of frames plays a more important role than audience reasoning in mediating the effect of selective exposure on political polarization.
The paper presents a research project focused on the role of audiences’ trust in news and information sources in radicalization and polarization of the Czech public discourses and politics. This shift in the public and political sphere revives important questions about the democratic role of media as sources of a shared agenda, trustworthy content and public knowledge and as platforms for public negotiations of societal and political consent: Namely it remains apparent that new as well as broadcasting and print media – as communication platforms and institutions – can yet play their part in moderating the radicalization of public opinion. However, a topical, detailed, evidence-based and theoretically rich understanding of the situation is thus far missing. The situation can be partly explained as a result of a long-term crisis of democracy linked with a distrust in democratic institutions accompanied by a decrease in traditional forms of political participation (elections, political party membership, etc.) and an increase in alternative forms of political and public participation, often linked with various uses of new media. At the same time, the crisis is usually linked with economic situation of the country and with individuals’ economic insecurities. Nevertheless, such explanations do not provide the full picture. Therefore, we employ ”ontological security thesis”: rather than just economic insecurity, an overall sense of an anomic insecurity - or, more specifically, a lack of sense of Giddensian ontological security - has to be considered as one of the key sources of the polarization and radicalization. And, at the same time, we consider important the way it is linked with reception of media agendas as well as the way it is amplified by discourses on social networking sites and by so-called alternative information sources. In other words, in the project we focus on the relation between (a) the social actors’ trust/distrust in particular information/news sources, (b) their attitude towards the political sphere and (c) their experience of the locus of control (expressed in external and internal efficacy and in the sense of ontological security).
The report concludes descriptive findings of survey in Czech media audiences. The data from 1998 respondents was collected in October and December 2014 by Median; the collection employed quota sampling and computer-assisted personal interviewing. Besides the standard socio-demographic indicators, the questionnaire included questions regarding the full range of possible media-related practices including obtaining and reception of films, TV series and other TV content, news, sports, music, books, magazines and spoken word; online activities and use of social networking sites; playing computer- and videogames; ownership of media and computer technologies and access to the Internet; respondents' political and public activities. The report is published in Czech and English version.
Social identity theory is an interactionist social psychological theory of the role of self-conception and associated cognitive processes and social beliefs in group processes and intergroup relations. Originally introduced in the 1970s primarily as an account of intergroup relations, it was significantly developed at the start of the 1980s as a general account of group processes and the nature of the social group. Since then, social identity theory has been significantly extended through a range of sub-theories that focus on social influence and group norms, leadership within and between groups, self-enhancement and uncertainty reduction motivations, deindividuation and collective behavior, social mobilization and protest, and marginalization and deviance within groups. The theory has also been applied and developed to explain organizational phenomena and the dynamics of language and speech style as identity symbols. Chapter 1 provides a relatively comprehensive and accessible overview of social identity theory, with an emphasis on its analysis of intergroup conflict.
Since September 11th, we frequently hear that political differences should be put aside: the real struggle is between good and evil. What does this mean for political and social life? Is there a ‘Third Way’ beyond left and right, and if so, should we fear or welcome it?
Although politics at the elite level has been polarized for some time, a scholarly controversy has raged over whether ordinary Americans are polarized. This book argues that they are and that the reason is growing polarization of worldviews – what guides people's view of right and wrong and good and evil. These differences in worldview are rooted in what Marc J. Hetherington and Jonathan D. Weiler describe as authoritarianism. They show that differences of opinion concerning the most provocative issues on the contemporary issue agenda – about race, gay marriage, illegal immigration, and the use of force to resolve security problems – reflect differences in individuals’ levels of authoritarianism. This makes authoritarianism an especially compelling explanation of contemporary American politics. Events and strategic political decisions have conspired to make all these considerations more salient. The authors demonstrate that the left and the right have coalesced around these opposing worldviews, which has provided politics with more incandescent hues than before.