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Social Trust and Trust in the Chinese Government New Media Platforms

Hong Chen (School of Communication, East China Normal University)
Yungeng Xie (Institute of Arts and Humanities, Shanghai Jiao Tong University)

Keywords: Public opinion theory and/or methods

Abstract

The trust of citizens in government new media platforms is an important indicator for examining the efficiency of the E-government, at the same time, it is critical to the construction of government new media platforms and the understanding of public opinion. The study aims to understand the relationship between social trust (including interpersonal trust and political trust) and trust in the government new media platforms, and demographic factors, use of government new media, and government satisfaction were also included as the controlled variables. A total of 2467 participants were included in the survey, and their mean age was 21.39 (SD = 2.51). Among them, 42.6% were males. Results showed that after controlling for the effect of demographic variables, government new media use, and government satisfaction, there is still significant influence of interpersonal trust (β = .15, p < .001) and political trust (β = .38, p < .001) on the trust in government new media platforms. Factors related to trust in different government new media platforms were compared. Implications of the findings were also discussed.