Knowledge or Trust?

Participation as a key component of democracy has been the focus of considerable research, with the body of scholarship focusing overwhelmingly on voting. However, because political interests and opinions can be conveyed and expressed outside the voting booth, this study examines political activity in a nonelectoral context, specifically, World Trade Organization (WTO) policies and issues as well as the WTO ministerial meeting held in Seattle, Washington, in the fall of 1999. Within this context, this study explores the process of media effects on participation, focusing on knowledge and trust in the organization as intervening variables between attention to WTO news and anticipated behaviors related to the WTO. Survey data collected from 277 adults from the greater Seattle area prior to the WTO meeting were used to test seven hypotheses and address two research questions. Results indicate that newspaper and television reliance had differential effects on knowledge about the WTO and trust in the institution. Moreover, the effects of trust on political behavior were considerably stronger than those of knowledge.

[1]  Roy C. Anderson.  Out of order , 1998, Nature.

[2]  M. Fennema,et al.  Political participation and political trust in Amsterdam: Civic communities and ethnic networks , 1999 .

[3]  Steven J. Rosenstone,et al.  Mobilization, participation, and democracy in America , 1993 .

[4]  J. Citrin,et al.  Comment: The Political Relevance of Trust in Government , 1974, American Political Science Review.

[5]  Jeffrey M. Ayres.  TRANSNATIONAL POLITICAL PROCESSES AND CONTENTION AGAINST THE GLOBAL ECONOMY , 2001 .

[6]  S. Keeter,et al.  What Americans Know about Politics and Why It Matters , 1996 .

[7]  S. Chaffee,et al.  Measurement and Effects of Attention to Media News , 1986 .

[8]  Edgar F. Borgatta,et al.  Factor analysis and measurement in sociological research : a multi-dimensional perspective , 1981 .

[9]  Matthew S. Seligmann,et al.  The Public Perspective , 1998 .

[10]  G. E. Lang,et al.  The Paradox of Mass Politics: Knowledge and Opinion in the American Electorate , 1987 .

[11]  Thomas A. McCain,et al.  Community Influentials' Media Dependence in Dealing with a Controversial Local Issue , 1983 .

[12]  David Domke,et al.  The Spiral of Silence and Public Opinion on Affirmative Action , 2001 .

[13]  D. Hallin.  We Keep America on Top of the World: Television Journalism and the Public Sphere , 1993 .

[14]  Susan T. Fiske,et al.  On the Varieties and Utilities of Political Expertise , 1990 .

[15]  William Schneider,et al.  Book Review: Direct Response Marketing: A Comparative Review , 1986 .

[16]  N. Lovrich,et al.  Media Reliance and Public Images of Environmental Politics in Ontario and Michigan , 1990 .

[17]  Arthur H. Miller,et al.  Type-Set Politics: Impact of Newspapers on Public Confidence * , 1979 .

[18]  Differences Among Newspapers, Television, and Radio in their Contribution to Knowledge of the Contract with America , 1997 .

[19]  James B. Lemert.  Does Mass Communication Change Public Opinion After All?: A New Approach to Effects Analysis , 1981 .

[20]  John P. Robinson,et al.  Television News and the Informed Public: An Information-Processing Approach. , 1990 .

[21]  S. Dunwoody,et al.  Media Use, Public Affairs Knowledge and Voting in a Local Election , 1982 .

[22]  N. Nie,et al.  PSR volume 66 issue 3 Cover and Front matter , 1972, American Political Science Review.

[23]  John P. Robinson,et al.  News Media Use and the Informed Public: A 1990s Update , 1996 .

[24]  S. Fiske,et al.  The Handbook of Social Psychology , 1935 .

[25]  Leo W. Jeffres,et al.  Mass Media Effects , 1986 .

[26]  J. Cappella,et al.  Spiral of Cynicism: The Press and the Public Good , 1997 .

[27]  Hugh M. Culbertson,et al.  “Media Malaise”: Explaining Personal Optimism and Societal Pessimism About Health Care , 1985 .

[28]  Ann N. Crigler,et al.  Common Knowledge: News and the Construction of Political Meaning. , 1993 .

[29]  Douglas M. McLeod,et al.  RESURVEYING THE BOUNDARIES OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION EFFECTS , 2002 .

[30]  Gaye Tuchman.  Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality , 1978 .

[31]  Richard R. Lau,et al.  Political Cynicism Revisited: An Information-Processing Reconciliation of Policy-Based and Incumbency-Based Interpretations of Changes in Trust in Government , 1990 .

[32]  John P. Robinson,et al.  The Main Source: Learning from Television News , 1986 .

[33]  D. H. Mills.  The Logic and Limits of Trust , 1983 .

[34]  W. Russell Neuman,et al.  Common Knowledge: News and the Construction of Political Meaning. , 1993 .

[35]  James S. Fishkin,et al.  The Voice of the People: Public Opinion and Democracy , 1995 .

[36]  Robert P. Hawkins,et al.  UNIFORM MESSAGES AND HABITUAL VIEWING: UNNECESSARY ASSUMPTIONS IN SOCIAL REALITY EFFECTS , 1981 .

[37]  P. Kemeny.  Power and Discontent , 1969 .

[38]  Jackie Smith,et al.  Globalizing Resistance: The Battle of Seattle and the Future of Social Movements , 2001 .

[39]  William J. Crotty,et al.  Political participation and American democracy , 1991 .

[40]  R. Hoyle.  Structural equation modeling: concepts, issues, and applications , 1997 .

[41]  R. Ericson,et al.  Globalization and the policing of protest: the case of APEC 1997. , 1999, The British journal of sociology.

[42]  J. Cappella,et al.  Does Disagreement Contribute to More Deliberative Opinion? , 2002 .

[43]  Freda Kemp.  Applied Multiple Regression/Correlation Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences , 2003 .

[44]  John Gastil,et al.  Increasing Political Sophistication Through Public Deliberation , 1999 .

[45]  Robert C. MacCallum,et al.  Model specification: Procedures, strategies, and related issues. , 1995 .

[46]  L. Becker,et al.  Newspaper and television dependencies: Effects on evaluations of public officials , 1979 .

[47]  E. Lambeth.  With Malice toward All? the Media and Public Confidence in Democratic Institutions , 2000 .

[48]  M. V. Meerhaeghe,et al.  The World Trade Organization , 2021, Essentials of WTO Law.

[49]  R. Dahl.  A Preface to Democratic Theory , 1956 .

[50]  K. Stamm,et al.  The Relationship of Attitudinal Components to Trust in Media , 1994 .

[51]  Arthur H. Miller,et al.  Rejoinder to “Comment” by Jack Citrin: Political Discontent or Ritualism? , 1974, American Political Science Review.

[52]  M. Defleur,et al.  A Dependency Model of Mass-Media Effects , 1976 .

[53]  Thomas E. Mann,et al.  The New Congress , 1981 .

[54]  P. Kaniss.  Making local news , 1994 .

[55]  D. Charles Whitney,et al.  Effects of Media Dependencies , 1980 .

[56]  Jan Nederveen Pieterse,et al.  Globalization North and South , 2000 .

[57]  J. Bryant,et al.  Media effects : advances in theory and research , 2002 .

[58]  E. Austin,et al.  Relationships of media use and political disaffection to political efficacy and voting behavior , 1998 .

[59]  Dietram A. Scheufele,et al.  Community, Communication, and Participation: The Role of Mass Media and Interpersonal Discussion in Local Political Participation , 1999 .

[60]  A. Raftery.  Bayesian Model Selection in Social Research , 1995 .

[61]  David E. RePass.  Why Americans don't vote : turnout decline in the United States, 1960-1984 , 1988, American Political Science Review.

[62]  William W. Streeter.  Is Anyone Responsible , 1997 .

[63]  Michael J. Robinson.  Public Affairs Television and the Growth of Political Malaise: The Case of “The Selling of the Pentagon” , 1976, American Political Science Review.

[64]  Jack M. McLeod,et al.  A Longitudinal Analysis of Communication Effects , 1976 .

[65]  D. Hoad.  The world trade organisation: The events and impact of seattle 1999 , 2000 .

[66]  S. Iyengar.  Is anyone responsible? How television frames political issues. , 1991 .

[67]  P. Lazarsfeld,et al.  Voting: A Study of Opinion Formation in a Presidential Campaign , 1954 .

[68]  Henry E. Brady,et al.  Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics , 1996 .

[69]  Edgar F. Borgatta,et al.  Sociological Methodology, 1969. , 1969 .

[70]  P. McMichael.  Sleepless since Seattle: what is the WTO about? , 2000 .

[71]  Eric Fredin,et al.  Newspapers, Television and Political Reasoning , 1978 .