Do You Trust the European Union? The Influence of Political Trust in New and Traditional Media in Europe

Previous research has shown that the less people trust the media, the less they trust the European Union, but considerations about how trust in new media and trust in traditional media may differently influence trust in European political institutions have remained scarce. Using Eurobarometer data and a methodology combining factor analysis and logistic regression, we find that that trust in new media has a stronger positive association to political trust in the European Union than trust in traditional media. We also consider moderating factors and find that trust in traditional media has a positive association with trust in European institutions via the moderating effects of age, trust in national government, and positive judgments of the European economy, while trust in new media is positively associated with trust in the EU via trust in national governments and the perception of media bias. These findings illustrate the complex interplay between the national character of trust in traditional media and the social-capital-regenerating affordances of trust in new media. Future research exploring the influence of media trust on trust in the European Union should account more clearly for the two distinct types of media trust highlighted in this investigation.