Balancing Trust in Media and Trust in Government during Political Change in Taiwan

This study examines audience perceptions of news during a change in the press system of Taiwan. Because Taiwan has considerably relaxed its censorship of print media, we speculated that people would trust newspapers more than television. Nevertheless, television news, despite its control by government, was viewed as more credible. However, the gap narrowed considerably when people were asked specifically about political news. People also were expected to increasingly distinguish their trust in government from trust in media as they perceived the media-government relationship to be changing from cooperative or controlled to independent or adversarial. Here, the data revealed a balancing phenomenon: people more conscious of diminishing government control over media were more likely to dissociate the two institutions.