“双重文化路径”:媒体使用影响政治信任的中介机制

“Dual Cultural Paths”: Mediation Mechanisms of How Citizen’s Media Uses Affected Their Political Trust in China

本文利用中国综合社会调查2010年的数据分析媒体使用对政治信任的影响及其具体中介机制。研究发现,中国城市居民的传统媒体使用与新媒体使用都对他们的政治信任产生消极影响。但基于结构方程模型的中介效应分析表明,媒体使用并不能直接影响居民的政治信任,而是存在一种＂双重文化路径＂的中介机制。一方面,媒体使用通过直接弱化居民的威权主义并增强他们的权利观念而负作用于政治信任。另一方面,权利观念与法律意识等新观念的形成又进一步消解了居民的威权价值观并对政治信任产生叠加的消极效果。在社会转型背景下,文化观念更新成为解释政治信任水平下降的重要变量。

Using the quantitative data from Chinese General Social Survey 2010,this study analyzed the specific mediation mechanisms of howmedia uses affected Chinese residents’ political trust. The data analysis revealed that both traditional media uses and newmedia uses had negative effects on individual’s political trust. A further mediation test based on structural equation model,however,revealed that there was only an indirectly relationship between media use and political trust. Media uses exerted a negative influence on political trust through a"dual cultural paths",in which media use not only directly Weakened individual authoritarianism and enhanced their right perceptions,but the right perceptions and legal consciousness strengthened by media use would in turn weaken citizen’s authoritarianism. It was such changes in citizen’s cultural perceptions lead to accumulated negative results of media uses on political trust. In a background of transitional society,the changing cultural perceptions had become important variables to understand the decline of public trust in political institutions.