Political trust in the internet context: A comparative study in 36 countries

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Political trust in the internet context: A comparative study in 36 countries Jia Lu, Li Qi, Xin Yu

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School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University, Haidian District, Beijing 100084, China

A R T I C LE I N FO

A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Political trust Internet context Internet infrastructure Internet censorship Internet participation Comparative study

The decline of political trust is often linked to the rise of the Internet. This paper took the perspective of media ecology to explore the Internet's impacts on political trust. The data of the World Values Survey were used for multilevel analyses with 51, 960 respondents in 36 countries. It reported several paradoxical and counter-intuitive results. Instead of being weakened, political trust is strengthened in the new informational context that is created by the Internet infrastructure. For the Internet censorship, political trust is strengthened by the Internet blockage but weakened by the violation of user rights. For the Internet participation, political trust is strengthened by e-information and e-consultation but weakened by e-decision-making.

1. Introduction For decades, research have repeatedly reported the decline of political trust around the world (see Almond & Verba, 1963; Citrin & Luks, 2001; Crozier, Huntington, & Watanuki, 1975; Mishler & Rose, 1997; Thomassen, 2015). This theme appeared again with the advent of the Internet. The Internet's impacts on political trust have been heavily debated. From the perspective of technology determinism, one line of research argued that political trust is weakened by the Internet, which offers a wide range of alternative informational resources that can be used to interrogate and assess the performance of political institutions (Gainous, Wagner, & Abbott, 2015; Im, Cho, Porumbescu, & Park, 2012; Shen & Guo, 2013). From the perspective of social construction of technology, another line of research contended that the Internet has been used to improve political trust through two major mechanisms – the Internet censorship and the Internet participation (Gomez, 2004; Parent, Vandebeek, & Gemino, 2005; Tolbert & Mossberger, 2006; Welch, Hinnant, & Moon, 2004). This paper aimed to empirically test the debate and quantitatively assess the Internet's impacts on political trust. Taking the perspective of media ecology, this paper conceptualized the Internet as a context in which political trust is formed, and explored how contextual changes brought by the Internet affect political trust. A sample of 51, 960 respondents in 36 countries was extracted from the dataset of the World Values Survey (WVS) and was used for multilevel analyses. 2. Political trust and its determinants Although there is still disagreement among scholars, political trust

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can be defined as citizens' trust or confidence in political institutions, which is based on held normative expectations and perceived performance of institutions (Hetherington, 2005; Hutchison, 2011; Newton, 2007). As an evaluation of institutional performance, political trust is decided by citizens' perceived gap between how well political institutions should do and how well they are doing (Choi & Woo, 2016). Political trust is a primary indicator of regime legitimacy, which not only influences the stability and effectiveness of political system but also shapes individual citizens' political attitudes and behaviors (Bauer & Fatke, 2014; Rahn & Rudolph, 2005). Prior studies indicated a variety of factors contributing to political trust, including mass media exposure (Chan, 1997), the Internet use (Ceron, 2015; Shen & Guo, 2013), political interest (Bean, 2001; Catterberg & Moreno, 2006), trust in media (Becker, 2011), interpersonal trust (Moy & Scheufele, 2000; Ulbig, 2008), assessment of political situation (Choi & Woo, 2016; Hakhverdian & Mayne, 2012), and traditional cultural values (Catterberg & Moreno, 2006). The relationship between media and political trust has been debated. While some studies found that the consumption of news from traditional media outlets, such as newspaper and television, increases democratic satisfaction and political trust (Ceron, 2015; Ceron & Memoli, 2016), others contended that the negativity, incivility and conflict found in mass media increase political cynicism and undermine citizens' trust in political institutions (Cappella & Jamieson, 1997; Mutz & Reeves, 2005). Mass media's effects on political trust are also contingent on the types of media (Avery, 2009; Shen & Guo, 2013). For instance, attention to campaign news on television is negatively related to political trust, but attention to newspapers campaign coverage is non-significant (Chan, 1997). While online news consumption in general is negatively

Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (J. Lu), [email protected] (L. Qi), [email protected] (X. Yu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2019.06.003 Received 19 November 2018; Received in revised form 3 June 2019; Accepted 6 June 2019 0740-624X/ © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Jia Lu, Li Qi and Xin Yu, Government Information Quarterly, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2019.06.003

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(2010), the Internet's features, such as connectivity, decentralization, boundlessness, and diversity, differ from traditional news values and contribute to the rise of a bottom-up mode of information flow. In contrast to the Internet, traditional media have been widely criticized for narrow focus and unbalanced coverage of social issues, with much attention paid to the interests of dominant social groups (Margolis, Resnick, & Levy, 2003; Yamamoto, Lee, & Ran, 2016). As an important source of politically radical and marginal news, the Internet provides a channel for marginalized individuals and groups to vent their frustration and disaffection about the status quo as well as defy the hegemony of mainstream political discourses (Tsfati, 2010; Tsfati & Peri, 2006). The Internet users, therefore, have a higher probability of encountering information in conflict with traditional media contents (Jackob, 2010; Tsfati, 2010; Tsfati & Ariely, 2014). In addition, the Internet revolution leads to the relative weakness of the state and the rise of non-state actors, which further contribute to the self-empowerment of citizens and their disobedience to political authority (Frangonikolopoulos & Chapsos, 2012). Thus, individuals with extensive Internet use are likely to learn about dissident information and have critical views about political institutions (Gainous et al., 2015; Im et al., 2012; Shen & Guo, 2013).

related to political trust (Shen & Guo, 2013), Ceron (2015) reported that political trust is strengthened by using Web 1.0 websites but weakened by using Web 2.0 social media. Besides, prior research has consistently revealed a positive link between interpersonal trust and political trust (Moy & Scheufele, 2000; Ulbig, 2008). According to Almond and Verba (1963), for example, interpersonal trust is projected onto political trust by creating a civic culture, which can be passed from one generation to the next through early-life socialization. Political trust is also subject to citizens' assessment of political situation. Citizens have a high level of political trust when they are satisfied with political situation (Choi & Woo, 2016). In addition, the decline of political trust is often attributed to intergenerational value change from traditional values to secular – rational values, which have the opposite preferences on a series of topics, such as religion, family, history, authority, divorce, abortion, and euthanasia (Inglehart, 1997). 3. Theoretical approaches to political trust Theoretically, Mishler and Rose (2001) introduced two approaches to explicate political trust. One is the cultural theory, arguing that political trust results from long-standing, deeply-rooted cultural values, which people learn through socialization (Almond & Verba, 1963; Inglehart, 1997). A homogenized, shared culture fosters interpersonal trust, laying a solid base for people to cooperate with each other in local civic associations and national political institutions (Putnam, 1993). Thus, political trust is an extension of interpersonal trust, which is developed through cultural transmission and projected onto political institutions (Lee, 2010b). Inglehart (1997) pointed out that political trust decreases in developed countries with cultural shifts from materialistic values to postmaterialistic values. As a result of economic affluence, the postmaterialistic culture refers to the value orientation that places “greater emphasis on a sense of belonging and esteem and on intellectual and esthetic satisfaction”, as well as prioritizes “quality of life, environmental protection, and self-expression over economic growth and physical security” (Inglehart, 1977, p. 456). Staying at the heart of the postmaterialist culture, freedom is often used to explain the crisis of political trust. For example, Inglehart (1997) pointed out that the postmaterialistic culture calls for freedom of choice and freedom of expression, which liberate people from the dogmatic imperatives of hierarchical social authorities, leading to a decline of trust in political institutions (also see Norris, 1999; Welzel & Inglehart, 2005). Likewise, Tsfati and Ariely (2014) argued that the postmaterialistic culture highlights individual rights, making people more critical and more skeptical of political institutions, including media. The other theory is the institutional theory, arguing that political trust rests with institutional performance (Mishler & Rose, 2001). People trust the institutions that perform well and distrust the ones that fail to meet their demands. Both the cultural theory and the institutional theory highlight the importance of democracy in shaping political trust but come to opposite conclusions. According to the cultural theory, democracy creates a political context in favor of the postmaterialistic culture, which highlights freedom of speech and self-determination, undermining citizens' confidence in political institutions (Tsfati & Ariely, 2014; Welzel & Inglehart, 2005). According to the institutional theory, however, democracy is one of important indicators that are used to evaluate institutional performance, and citizens are inclined to trust political institutions that protect political rights and civil liberties (Levi, 1998; Uslaner, 2003).

5. The internet as a context In the above-mentioned studies, the Internet's impacts on political trust were explored through the individual-level analysis that focuses on what and how information is received from the Internet. On the other hand, little attention was paid to the contextual-level analysis that focuses on the Internet's impacts on social context in which political trust is formed. According to the theory of media ecology, media technologies have greater impacts on the contextual level than the individual level (Ong, 2002). For example, Strate (2008) argued that media function as contexts, which cannot directly determine individual activities, but outline the range of possible activities by promoting some and inhibiting others. Recognizing the importance of media context, therefore, this paper conceptualized the Internet as a context, which refers to how much social context is shaped by the Internet. The Internet alters the informational context by promoting a new way of information distribution, which is decentralized, horizontal, and interactive, displacing the hierarchical, centralized control of information. In this study, the Internet infrastructure was adopted as an indicator to estimate the degree to which the Internet changes the informational context. More advanced the Internet infrastructure is, more widespread information distribution is, and greater changes the informational context has. From the perspective of media ecology, Levinson (1999) argued that the Internet is creating a new informational context in which old mass media are obsolesced (also see Carey, 1998). In the meanwhile, the literature review above reported that political trust is strengthened by mass media consumption and weakened by the Internet use. Thus, political trust is supposed to be weakened in such a new informational context that is created by the Internet infrastructure. H1. The Internet infrastructure is negatively related to political trust. The Internet also shapes the political context by changing the ways of freedom distribution and power distribution. The Internet diffuses freedom in the widest sense. Online freedom is achieved not only in public sphere but also in everyday life (Balkin, 2004). The Internet freedom guarantees the free flow of online information, creating a context in which alternative informational resources are available for citizens to assess institutional performance. In such a context, citizens are better informed of flaws and weaknesses of political institutions, and become more critical of them (Bailard, 2012a, 2012b, 2014; Norris, 2011; Stoycheff & Nisbet, 2014). To strengthen political trust, the Internet censorship is adopted to inhibit the Internet freedom. It is based on the cultural theory of

4. The internet and political trust The decline of political trust is often linked to the rise of the Internet. In general, prior studies pointed out a negative relationship between the Internet use and political trust. Proliferation of online information challenges traditional communication order and sabotages the state's monopoly over information control. According to Tsfati 2

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political trust, which attributes the crisis of political trust to the postmaterialistic culture that advocates free flow of information and protection of civil liberties. The Internet censorship takes two forms – the Internet blockage and the violation of user rights (see Table 1). The Internet blockage is to restrict the flow of online information by blocking users from either the Internet technologies/applications or certain online contents. The violation of user rights is to restrain user rights on the Internet, such as privacy, free speech, and civil activism. There is a reciprocal relationship between the Internet blockage and the violation of user rights. On the one hand, the Internet blockage limits users' access to informational resources, which can be employed to fight for their online rights. On the other hand, the violation of user rights deprives users of informational rights and undermines their contribution to the free flow of information. Thus, the Internet blockage and the violation of user rights work together to repress the Internet freedom. Research showed that the Internet censorship is an effective means to strengthen political trust. Wang and Mark (2015) pointed out that political power is derived from information control, which is a prime motive for governments to censor the Internet. In authoritarian countries where increasing exposure to the Internet erodes citizens' regime support through the enhancement of democratic values, the Internet censorship effectively nullifies the weakening effect of the Internet exposure by constraining the dissemination of alternative information (Huhe, Tang, & Chen, 2018; Jiang, 2010). In the meanwhile, self-censorship has been encouraged among citizens to stifle expression of harsh criticism of governments and participation in political protest due to the fear of being punished by authorities (Lee, 2016; Roberts, 2014). Kalathil and Boas (2003) studied eight authoritarian countries and reported that the Internet does not necessarily threaten the stability of authoritarian regimes. In fact, sophisticated regulation and censorship on the Internet have successfully reinforced political trust in these countries (Kalathil & Boas, 2003). According to the recent global survey by the Edelman Trust Barometer (2019), over 80% of citizens show trust in government in Russia and the United Arab Emirates, where the Internet freedom is restricted, but less than 45% of citizens have trust in government in nearly uncensored countries, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Australia, and Japan. Another report by Gallup International Association (2017) showed that 74% of citizens in Vietnam are satisfied with the government, and no more than 31% of citizens satisfied in lightly censored Western countries. Thus, political trust is supposed to be high in the countries where the Internet is strictly censored.

Table 1. The internet censorship framework. The internet blockage Obstacles to access: Assesses infrastructural and economic barriers to access; government efforts to block specific applications or technologies; and legal, regulatory, and ownership control over internet and mobile phone access providers. Limits on content: Examines filtering and blocking of websites; other forms of censorship and self-censorship; manipulation of content; the diversity of online news media; and usage of digital media for social and political activism. Violation of user rights Measures legal protections and restrictions on online activity; surveillance; privacy; and repercussions for online activity, such as legal prosecution, imprisonment, physical attacks, or other forms of harassment.

Source.Freedom House (2016, p. 22).

three stages from one-way communication with citizens to two-way communication between citizens and political institutions, and to direct involvement in decision-making (also see Rooks, Matzat, & Sadowski, 2017). In the United Nations E-Government Survey (2014), these stages were specifically defined as e-information, e-consultation, and e-decision making (see Table 2, Fig. 1). H4. E-information is positively related to political trust. H5. E-consultation is positively related to political trust. H6. E-decision-making is positively related to political trust.

6. Method 6.1. Sample The sample consisted of two levels of data. The individual level used the dataset of the sixth wave (2010–2014) of the World Values Survey (WVS), which has a total of 90, 350 respondents from 60 countries and regions. The country level used the data released by the Freedom House and the United Nations E-Government Surveys. The individual-level data and the country-level data were pooled to construct the final sample. To be included in the sample, a country or region needs to be simultaneously listed in the three sources of data – the WVS, the United Nations E-Government Surveys, and the Freedom House.1 Otherwise, it 1 The World Values Survey (WVS) is the largest transnational investigation of human beliefs and values. Social scientists from all over the world make contributions to the questionnaire development and survey implementation. To ensure a representative sample of the country population aged 18 and older, full probability sampling is implemented in most countries and stratified multistage sampling is used in other cases. The minimum sample size in most countries is 1200 and respondents are mainly interviewed face-to-face. Internal consistency is checked and stringent data cleaning procedures are followed to ensure good reliability and validity of the WVS data. The E-Participation Index (EPI) and the Telecommunication Infrastructure Index (TII) are released by the United Nations E-Government Surveys. The United Nations has a solid reputation in collecting, collating, and analyzing global data. The EPI is a qualitative assessment based on multiple features of einformation, e-consultation and e-decision-making. Researchers follow detailed guidelines and stringent procedures to rate e-participation performance to ensure the reliability and validity of the index. The TII is an arithmetic average composite of five indicators – Internet users/100 inhabitants, fixed telephone lines/100 inhabitants, mobile subscribers/100 inhabitants, fixed Internet subscriptions/100 inhabitants, and fixed broadband subscriptions/100 inhabitants. The data used to construct the TII are primarily taken from the International Telecommunication Union and supplemented by the World Bank to ensure a wide coverage of over 190 countries. The Freedom House has long experience and professional expertise in conducting assessments of the status of freedom in the world. The Freedom Index has been published annually since 1972 and now contains numerical ratings of political rights and civil liberties for 194 countries and 14 territories. The Net

H2. The Internet blockage is positively related to political trust. H3. The violation of user rights is positively related to political trust. The Internet alters imbalanced power relations by enhancing citizen participation in public issues. The Internet's information capacity creates greater information exchange between individual citizens and political institutions, and facilitates the delivery of public services (Brewer, Neubauer, & Geiselhart, 2006; Macintosh & Whyte, 2008). Its interactivity allows greater and more direct involvement of ordinary people in public policy decision-making (Kim & Lee, 2012; Tolbert & Mossberger, 2006). The Internet participation is based on the institutional theory of political trust, which argues that citizen participation can improve public sector performance, political efficacy of citizens, and the satisfaction of citizens, all of which contribute to a favorable environment for political trust (Berner, 2003; Franklin & Ebdon, 2004; Irvin & Stansbury, 2004). Several empirical studies reported that the Internet participation strengthens political trust by improving procedural transparency, cost-effectiveness, and service quality (Parent et al., 2005; Tolbert & Mossberger, 2006; Welch et al., 2004). The Internet participation is generally regarded as a multidimensional concept (Andersen & Henriksen, 2006; Coursey & Norris, 2008). According to a meta-analysis by Lee (2010a), it goes through 3

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or none at all?

Table 2. The Internet participation framework.

The list of organizations includes the government (in your nation's capital) (V115), political parties (V116), parliament (V117), and the civil service (V118). The answers have four categories from a great deal to none at all. They were summated into a scale to measure political trust. Multiple group confirmatory factory analysis was run to examine measurement equivalence of political trust across different countries. The result shows that partial metric equivalence holds across countries,

E-information: Enabling participation by providing citizens with public information and access to information without or upon demand. E-consultation: Engaging citizens in contributions to and deliberation on public policies and services. E-decision-making: Empowering citizens through co-design of policy options and coproduction of service components and delivery modalities.

Source. The United Nations E-Government Survey (2014, p. 197).

Fig. 1. Theoretical framework. Table 3. The list of countries and the years of their surveys. Armenia 2011 China 2013 Germany 2013 Lebanon 2013 Philippines 2012 Thailand 2013

Argentina 2013 Colombia 2012 India 2012 Libya 2014 Russia 2011 Tunisia 2013

Australia 2012 Ecuador 2013 Japan 2010 Malaysia 2012 Rwanda 2012 Turkey 2012

Azerbaijan 2011 Egypt 2012 Jordan 2014 Mexico 2012 Singapore 2012 Ukraine 2011

Belarus 2011 Estonia 2011 Kazakhstan 2011 Nigeria 2012 South Africa 2013 United States 2011

Brazil 2014 Georgia 2014 Kyrgyzstan 2011 Pakistan 2012 South Korea 2010 Zimbabwe 2012

providing the validity of further analysis. Media exposure was measured by the statement below:

is eliminated. As Table 3 shows, 36 countries with 51, 960 respondents comprise the final sample.

People learn what is going on in this country and the world from various sources. For each of the following sources, please indicate whether you use it to obtain information daily, weekly, monthly, less than monthly, or never.

6.2. Measurement The items in the questionnaire of the WVS were adopted to measure the individual-level variables. Political trust was measured by the following statement:

Three sources are mentioned – “daily newspapers” (V217), “TV news” (V219), and “Internet” (V223). V217 and V219 were combined into a scale to measure media exposure. V223 was also included into the statistical models to measure individual use of the Internet. Interpersonal trust was measured by asking respondents (V24) “Generally speaking, would you say that the most people can be trusted or that you need to be very careful in dealing with people?” They are required to choose from two categories – “most people can be trusted” and “need to be very careful”. The traditional/secular-rational values index in the WVS was employed to measure traditional cultural orientation. It is a ready-made composite index, where the traditional orientation and the secular-rational orientation have the opposite preferences on a series of topics, such as religion, family, history, authority, divorce, abortion, and euthanasia. Assessment of political situation was measured by a combined scale of two items in the WVS. V141 asks “how democratically is this country being governed today?” The answer is a 10-point scale from not at all

I am going to name a number of organizations. For each one, could you tell me how much confidence you have in them: is it a great deal of confidence, quite a lot of confidence, not very much confidence,

(footnote continued) Freedom Index was first released in 2010 to evaluate global internet freedom, and expanded from 37 countries in 2010 to 65 countries in 2014. To ensure the reliability and validity of the data, the Freedom House follows rigorous procedures to assign rating scores to each country in collaboration with local researchers. Multiple sources are used by the analysts to assess freedom developments in each country. To form the Freedom Index, a point of 0 to 4 is allotted to each of 10 political rights and 15 civil liberties indicators by a group of experts. Likewise, the Net Freedom Index is composed of scores for three subcategories (obstacles to access, limits on content, violations of user rights) through a set of 21 methodology questions. Updates have been made to the methodology over time. The scores from the previous year are treated as benchmarks, and major numerical changes are subject to rigorous scrutiny. 4

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democratic to completely democratic. V142 asks “How much respect is there for individual human rights nowadays in this country?” The answer is a 4-point scale from a great deal respect to no respect at all. The two scales were recoded and added up to measure political situation. At the country level, the Telecommunication Infrastructure Index was adopted to estimate the development of the Internet infrastructure. It is a composite index released by the United Nations E-Government Surveys, including five components – individuals using the Internet, fixed (wired)-broadband subscriptions, wireless broadband subscriptions, mobile-cellular subscriptions, and fixed-telephone subscriptions. The Net Freedom Index was used to measure the Internet censorship. It is released by the Freedom House, including three primary indicators – obstacles to access, limits on content, and violation of user rights (please see Table 1). In this study, obstacles to access and limits on content were combined into a scale to measure the Internet blockage. The E-Participation Index was used to measure the Internet participation. It is released by the United Nations E-Government Surveys, including three primary indicators – e-information, e-consultation, and edecision-making (please see Table 2). In addition, this paper controlled two country-level variables – the Human Development Index (HDI) and the Freedom Index. Research showed that they are correlated with the Internet infrastructure, the Internet censorship, and the Internet participation, and have confounding effects on political trust (Nisbet, Stoycheff, & Pearce, 2012; Rose & Mishler, 2011; Van der Meer, 2010; Van der Meer & Hakhverdian, 2017). The HDI is a composite index released by the United Nations, including three components – life expectancy, education, and income. The Freedom Index was adopted to estimate the overall status of democracy in a country. It is a composite index released by the Freedom House, including two components – political rights and civil rights. Within the period of the sixth wave (2010–2014) of the WVS, the surveys in different countries were launched at different time. For the data that are updated every year, such as the Internet blockage, violation of users' rights, the Freedom Index, and the HDI, the annual data when a country was surveyed were used for statistical analyses. For the Telecommunication Infrastructure Index that is updated every 2 years, the data published in 2012 were used for the countries that were surveyed in 2010 and 2011, and the data published in 2014 were used for the countries that were surveyed in 2012, 2013, and 2014. For e-information, e-consultation, and e-decision-making, the data were obtained from the United Nations E-Government Survey, 2014, which is the only source that is available to measure the Internet participation across countries in the period of 2010–2014. We also run multicollinearity test and normality test on the countrylevel data. The results are non-significant, indicating no serious problems of multicollinearity and outliers. In addition, income (V239), gender (V240), age (V242), and education (V248) were also input into the statistical models as control variables. (See Fig. 2)

7. Results According to Table 5, the hypothetical negative relationship between the Internet infrastructure and political trust (H1) is rejected by a significant positive correlation between them (β = 0.040, t = 2.536, p < .05). The hypothetical positive relationship between the Internet blockage and political trust (H2) is supported (β = 0.137, t = 3.878, p < .001). The hypothetical positive relationship between the violation of users' rights and political trust (H3) is rejected by a significant negative correlation between them (β = −0.090, t = −2.340, p < .05). The hypothetical positive relationship between e-information and political trust (H4) is supported (β = 0.017, t = 2.334, p < .05). The hypothetical positive relationship between e-consultation and political trust (H5) is barely supported (β = 0.019, t = 1.761, p < .1), as the result is only significant at the confidence level of 90% rather than 95%. The hypothetical positive relationship between e-decision-making and political trust (H6) is rejected by a significant negative correlation between them (β = −0.016, t = −2.758, p < .01). 8. Discussion The statistical result on the Internet infrastructure rejects H1, challenging the informational theory of political trust, according to which the Internet weakens political trust. Lash (2002) argued the advanced Internet infrastructure produces and distributes a tremendous amount of disinformation, misinformation, and out-of-control information. As a result, a context of information overload is created, where uncertainty and chaos are pervasive (Flanagin & Metzger, 2000; Lash, 2002). Such a context threatens social orders through which people's self-identities are constructed. In response, people rely more on traditional authorities, such as political institutions, to reduce risk, restore order in life, and defend their self-identities (Castells, 1996). In a country with a high level of the Internet infrastructure, therefore, trust in political institutions is strengthened, instead of being weakened. The statistical result on the Internet blockage supports H2, providing evidence for the cultural theory of political trust. The Internet blockage restricts the informational context in which postmaterialistic values are nurtured by obstructing free flow of online information and citizens' access to alternative news. In contrast, H3 is rejected by a significant negative relationship between the violation of user rights and political trust. The violation of user rights adopts a variety of legal and administrative measures to repress the Internet freedom. As a result, political trust is not strengthened but weakened. It challenges the cultural theory of political trust, which argues that the advocacy of postmaterialistic values makes people more critical and skeptical of political institutions. The paradoxical results on the Internet censorship reflect two different views of the Internet freedom. One is ideological, seeing the Internet freedom as an essential feature of the postmaterialistic culture, which highlights the principle of freedom by letting everyone speak and enhances criticism and skepticism toward political institutions (Dworkin, 1996). In this study, the ideological view of the Internet freedom was directly inhibited by violation of users' rights. The cultural theory takes the bottom-up model of trust building, which suggests that political trust is derived from shared cultural values among individual citizens (Bachmann & Hanappi-Egger, 2014; Farivar, Turel, & Yuan, 2017; Harris & Wicks, 2014). Postmaterialistic values are lived in everyday life and disseminated through interpersonal contacts. The violation of user rights is a top-down measure to prohibit the postmaterialistic culture through a series of structural arrangements. As a result, it incurs the resistance of individual citizens, leading to the negative assessment of political institutions as well as the decline of political trust. The other view is instrumental, seeing the Internet freedom as an instrument that is used to create an open, free public sphere in which citizens are well informed of true facts and diverse opinions about

6.3. Analysis Considering the sample's nested nature of respondents in countries, this study employed hierarchical linear regression models (HLM) for data analysis. The individual-level data were group mean centered and the country-level data were grand mean centered. The descriptive statistics of key variables are listed in Table 4. The Intraclass Correlation Coefficients (ICC) is 20%, referring to the percentage of the variance that can be explained by the country-level variables. Four models were constructed in sequence. One is randomcoefficient regression model (Model 1), and the others are intercepts-asoutcomes model (Model 2, 3, & 4). The R squares are 11% for the individual-level variables and 34% for the country-level variables.

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Fig. 2. Research design.

ideological, seeing the Internet participation as an education process in which online participants learn about civil liberties and political rights (Bowler & Donovan, 2002; Frey & Stutzer, 2002; Smith & Tolbert, 2004). Thus, the Internet participation fosters the awareness of postmaterialistic values, heightening citizens' demands and expectations of political institutions. The other is instrumental, seeing the Internet participation as a transparency process in which online participants are exposed to more and more information about the actual functioning of political institutions, which are used to make assessment of their performance (Grimmelikhuijsen & Welch, 2012; Meijer, 2009; Porumbescu, 2017; Porumbescu & Im, 2015). At the first two stages, e-information and e-consultation improve education and transparency within limits. The demands and expectations of online participants are increased but still moderate. Being controlled by political institutions, the information they acquire is

political institutions (Balkin, 2004). In this study, the instrumental view of the Internet freedom was directly inhibited by the Internet blockage. It works on affecting the informational context in which assessment of political institutions is made and postmaterialistic values are cultivated. A lack of necessary informational resources prevents the postmaterialistic culture from being accepted by individual citizens. Thus, the Internet blockage succeeds in strengthening political trust. The statistical results on e-information and e-consultation support H4 and H5, providing evidence for the institutional theory of political trust, which argues that democratic governance through the Internet can improve political trust. However, the result on H6 is counter-intuitive, showing that e-decision-making weakens political trust, instead of strengthening it. The paradoxical results on the Internet participation reflect two parallel processes the Internet participation involves. One is

Table 4. Descriptive statistics. Variables

N

Mean (SD)

Min, Max

Description

Political trust Media exposure Interpersonal trust Traditional culture Political situation Internet use Income Sex Age Education E-information E-consultation E-decision-making Blockage Violation of rights HDI Infrastructure Freedom Index

51,960 51,960 51,960 51,960 51,960 51,960 51,960 51,960 51,960 51,960 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 36

9.36 (3.01) 7.75 (2.09) binary 0.77 (0.52) 11.99 (4.22) 2.68 (1.76) 4.89 (2.11) binary 41.26 (15.99) 5.79 (2.37) 45.01 (21.98) 37.63 (25.38) 16.67 (30.80) 22.22 (10.10) 17.14 (7.35) 0.74 (0.12) 40.94 (20.87) 3.67 (1.67)

4, 16 2, 10 0, 1 0, 2 2, 20 1, 5 1, 10 0, 1 16, 99 1, 9 7.41, 100 0, 90.91 0, 88.89 4, 48 6, 38 0.46, 0.93 8, 87 1, 6.50

16 being the highest level 10 being the highest level No = 0 (76%), Yes = 1 (24%) 2 being the highest level 20 being the highest level 5 being daily and 1 being never 10 being the highest income Male = 0 (50%), Female = 1 (50%) Age 9 being the highest level 0–100, higher score, better information 0–100, higher score, better consultation 0–100, higher score, better decision 0–60, higher score, more blockage 0–40, higher score, more violation 0–1, higher score, better development 0–100, higher score, better infrastructure 1–7, higher score, better democracy

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Table 5. Linear multilevel regression on political trust. Model 1

Model 2

Model 3

Model 4

β (SE)

β (SE)

β (SE)

β (SE)

⁎⁎⁎

(0.225)

Intercept

9.051

Individual level Media exposure Interpersonal trust Traditional culture Political situation Internet use Income Gender (female) Age Education

0.100⁎⁎⁎ (0.014) 0.464⁎⁎⁎ (0.068) 0.224⁎⁎⁎ (0.063) 0.211⁎⁎⁎ (0.013) −0.018 (0.023) 0.027⁎ (0.012) 0.038 (0.024) 0.003^ (0.002) −0.043⁎⁎ (0.015)

Country level HDI Freedom Index Infrastructure Blockage Violation of rights E-information E-consultation E-decision-making Variance in intercepts -2Log Likelihood

1.729⁎⁎⁎ 1.229

9.051

⁎⁎⁎

(0.212)

9.051

⁎⁎⁎

(0.187)

9.051⁎⁎⁎ (0.165)

0.100⁎⁎⁎ (0.014) 0.464⁎⁎⁎ (0.068) 0.224⁎⁎⁎ (0.063) 0.211⁎⁎⁎ (0.013) −0.018 (0.023) 0.027⁎ (0.012) 0.038 (0.024) 0.003^ (0.002) −0.043⁎⁎ (0.015)

0.100⁎⁎⁎ (0.014) 0.463⁎⁎⁎ (0.068) 0.224⁎⁎⁎ (0.063) 0.211⁎⁎⁎ (0.013) −0.018 (0.023) 0.027⁎ (0.012) 0.038 (0.024) 0.003^ (0.002) −0.043⁎⁎ (0.015)

0.100⁎⁎⁎ (0.014) 0.463⁎⁎⁎ (0.068) 0.224⁎⁎⁎ (0.063) 0.211⁎⁎⁎ (0.013) −0.018 (0.023) 0.027⁎ (0.012) 0.038 (0.024) 0.003^ (0.002) −0.043⁎⁎ (0.015)

−2.831 (2.996) 0.308^ (0.161) 0.024 (0.020)

−4.260 (2.675) −0.068 (0.221) 0.039⁎ (0.020) 0.137⁎⁎⁎ (0.035) −0.090⁎ (0.038)

1.623⁎⁎⁎ 1.229

1.370⁎⁎⁎ 1.229

−5.408⁎ (2.359) 0.017 (0.181) 0.040⁎ (0.156) 0.135⁎⁎⁎ (0.035) −0.102⁎ (0.040) 0.017⁎ (0.007) 0.019^ (0.011) −0.016⁎⁎ (0.006) 1.144⁎⁎⁎ 1.229

Note. Unstandardized coefficients. N = 51, 960. Countries = 36. ^ p < .1. ⁎ p < .05. ⁎⁎ p < .01. ⁎⁎⁎ p < .001.

which is based on the cultural theory and the institutional theory. Instead, they reveal the tension between the ideological call for freedom and the instrumental transparency of information, which are embedded with both the Internet censorship and the Internet participation. For the Internet censorship, the inhibition on ideology and instrument leads to the opposite effects on political trust. For the Internet participation, likewise, the opposite effects result from the different degrees to which ideology and instrument are advocated. The low and medium advocacy builds up the reciprocal relationship between ideology and instrument, while the high advocacy expands their gap. Ideology and instrument consist of a paradox of the principle of freedom. Third, the paradox raises an important concern for political institutions. In practice, they need to keep a delicate balance between ideological freedom and instrumental transparency. On the one hand, they should stop any infringement of the Internet freedom, and, at the same time, find a way to lower down people's demands and expectations. On the other hand, they should become transparent to some extent, and, at the same time, maintain independence and autonomy to avoid too much direct involvement of citizens into everyday decisionmaking processes.

enhanced but still general and abstract (Porumbescu, 2017). A lack of detailed information about how specific policies are made and implemented restricts public attention to the generally improved responsiveness of political institution, which results in positive evaluations (Dhar & Kim, 2007; Porumbescu, 2017). Thus, the gap between how well political institutions should do and how well they are doing is narrowed, leading to an increase of political trust. At the last stage, however, education and transparency are achieved to the full extent through e-decision-making. Online participants have high demands and expectations, and are exposed to a large volume of detailed information about specific policies. Thus, they are likely to be aware of incapability and ineffectiveness of political institutions, and make negative evaluations (Dyck, 2009; Liberman, Trope, & Wakslak, 2007; Trautmann & van de Kuilen, 2012). Thus, the gap between how well political institutions should do and how well they are doing is widened, leading to a decrease of political trust. 9. Implications Taking the Internet as a context, this paper run a contextual analysis of its impacts on political trust. The findings reveal several paradoxical and counter-intuitive effects on political trust. First, the hypothetical negative effect of the Internet infrastructure (H1) was rejected. It is based on the approach of technology determinism, arguing that the Internet development changes the informational context in which political trust is formed by altering the traditional way of information distribution. The rejection shows that the approach of technology determinism fails to explain the Internet's impacts on political trust. It is people's choices rather than technological attributes to determine the Internet's impacts. Facing a new informational context created by the Internet, people turn to traditional authorities that they are familiar with to reduce uncertainties and potential risks. Second, the results on the Internet censorship and the Internet participation reject the simplified position that political trust is strengthened by the Internet censorship and the Internet participation,

10. Limitations and future research directions Despite of the insights this paper offered, some limitations need to be acknowledged. The first limitation refers to the unidimensional conceptualization of political trust. Due to the questionnaire design of the WVS, political trust was defined as a single-dimensional construct of respondents' confidence in political institutions. This study failed to consider its multidimensionality and ignored such specific dimensions as competence, benevolence, and integrity (Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995). These dimensions capture the core characteristics of political institutions, which are critical for citizens to evaluate their performances (Colquitt, Scott, & LePine, 2007; Grimmelikhuijsen & Meijer, 2012; Yang & Anguelov, 2013). 7

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References

The second limitation comes from inadequate attention to interrelated factors that are associated with political trust. Prior studies revealed two major lines of factors affecting citizen trust in political institutions (see Janssen, Rana, Slade, & Dwivedi, 2018). One is about performances of political institutions, such as responsiveness, transparency, and service quality (Beldad, van der Geest, de Jong, & Steehouder, 2012; Tolbert & Mossberger, 2006). The other is about individual characteristics, such as propensity to trust, political attitudes, prior knowledge, perceived risk, satisfactory experiences, attitudes toward ICTs, information safety, and privacy concerns (Beldad et al., 2012; Grimmelikhuijsen & Meijer, 2012; Robinson, Liu, Stoutenborough, & Vedlitz, 2012; Shareef, Kumar, Kumar, & Dwivedi, 2011; Vigoda-Gadot, 2006). In this study, however, these factors were excluded from statistical analyses and might confound the significant effects of the Internet infrastructure, censorship, and participation on political trust. The third limitation is about the possible exaggeration of the role of the Internet in shaping political trust. Although this study revealed the impacts of the Internet infrastructure, censorship and participation on political trust, the technological changes may be overstated. On the one hand, there is a lack of consensus on the transformative effects of new technologies on political institutions (Bannister & Connolly, 2011). For example, some scholars contended that new ICTs have fundamentally changed the ways governments operate (Bellamy & Taylor, 1998; Ho, 2002), but others argued that existing power structures and relationships can be little transformed despite of technology-enabled transparency and efficiency (Kraemer & King, 2006). On the other hand, the formation of political trust is a complex intertwining process involving a variety of political, social, and individual factors, which cannot be achieved by information technologies alone. According to Bannister and Connolly (2011), for example, new ICTs can do little to transform individual characteristics and nothing to foster empowerment and cultivate benevolence if the authorities are unwilling to do so. The fourth limitation is related to the causality problem that is derived from the cross-sectional design of the WVS data. The statistical results only show significant correlations between variables. The changing of political trust might not necessarily result from the differences in the Internet infrastructure, censorship, and participation (see Yamamoto et al., 2016). The fifth limitation results from the unavailability of data in a certain year, which were substituted by the published data in the closest year. Although this kind of substitution has been frequently used in prior studies, it indeed compromises the accuracy of measurement. In the future, research could explore the following directions. First, political trust needs to be conceptualized into multiple dimensions. The independent variables might have different effects on specific dimensions. Second, the emphasis needs to be placed on the interrelated factors that are associated with political trust. Future research should examine how the independent variables shape social context in which these factors contribute to the formation of political trust. Third, the causal relationships between variables need to be clarified by using a time-series analysis when cross-national longitudinal survey data are available. Fourth, in contrast to contextual effects, individual experiences with the Internet infrastructure, censorship, and participation need to be examined. The results could be compared with the ones in this study, because contextual-level and individual-level effects might be, if not opposite, very different.

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Jia Lu is associate professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at Tsinghua University. His research focuses on new information communication technologies and social change. Li Qi is master student in the School of Journalism and Communication at Tsinghua University. Her research focuses on political communication and media effects. Xin Yu is assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at Tsinghua University. His research focuses on comparative journalism and political communication.

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