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Abstract

Despite the increasing reliance on online media for news consumption, people generally exhibit lower levels of trust in online news relative to traditional media. To explain the preference disparities in media trust and their potential cross-national variations, this article examines individuals’ trust gap between newspapers and Internet news across 14 countries and regions in East, South, and Southeast Asia. Drawing on nationally representative data and other country-level data (2018–2021), we test two underlying mechanisms, political trust transfer and alternative information orientation, that account for the media trust gap, as well as their boundary conditions. Multilevel analysis reveals that political trust positively correlates with people’s relative trust in newspapers, which is pronounced in societies with lower levels of polarization and limited press freedom. Besides, using the Internet and social media as the main channels of political information seeking may increase people’s relative trust in Internet news, especially in societies with higher levels of press freedom and political polarization. Our findings offer systematic explanations for news trust preferences by combining political characteristics and their contextual conditions, which have implications for understanding today’s media trust crisis.

Keywords

media trust political trust polarization press freedom comparative study

Trust in news media signifies the audience’s willingness to believe the information presented by the media as credible and truthful. It shapes media use and news engagement patterns (Fletcher and Park 2017; Strömbäck et al. 2020) and affects the fostering of an informed citizenry in democratic life (Tsfati and Cohen 2005; Zaller 1992). Although media trust literature has experienced striking growth in recent decades, most studies focus on overall trust in news media (Engelke et al. 2019). This general conceptualization, as Tsfati et al. (2022) pointed out, is quite unclear and overlooks that the degree of news media trust may be contingent on specific media features. A few studies have attempted to uncover the potential differences between multiple trusts, employing criteria such as media ownership (Moehler and Singh 2011), news topics (Tsfati et al. 2022), media reach (Nisbet et al. 2017), and media types (Elvestad et al. 2018; Johnson and Kaye 2014; Yamamoto et al. 2016).

Among these, media types have garnered particular attention, partly due to the prominence of emerging information channels. For example, people are increasingly accustomed to obtaining news from digital platforms rather than newspapers, but they are usually more skeptical of news from these online sources (Fotopoulos, 2023; Mont’Alverne et al. 2022). In fact, the lower degree of mass trust in online news has been globally reported (Newman et al. 2020). Nonetheless, these trust preferences, whether societal or personal, remain relatively underexplained: Why do certain individuals hold more trust in traditional media while others prefer online news? Why do people in certain countries express much less trust in online news while other populations show only a marginal difference? These questions characterize the media trust distribution at both micro and macro levels and may involve the audience’s news choices in their media diets.

To evaluate this trust preference, we employ a conceptual tool, media trust gap, which is defined as the difference in individual trust between any two types of news media. It quantifies the extent of relative media trust and captures the nuanced attitudes toward media types from a comparative stance. In this study, we selected newspapers and online news from various media types to construct the media trust gap because they represent two competing channels of news dissemination in contemporary journalism during the digital transformation era¹. By examining these channels simultaneously, rather than specific media brands, we provide a broader picture of today’s audience trust preferences and offer insights into how digital journalism as a whole can regain public trust. In addition, while existing research has been predominantly conducted in Western contexts, we situate this study within 14 political units in East, South, and Southeast Asia. Asian societies generally exhibit higher media trust than other parts of the world (Haerpfer et al. 2022). Yet, there are considerable internal variations, which are likely tied to the notable heterogeneities in regime types, sociopolitical environments, and media systems within this region². Thus, this Asia-focused study provides a comparative lens to explore contextual differences in how individual characteristics shape the media trust gap.

Drawing on nationally representative data (2018–2021) and multilevel analysis, we combine individual traits and sociopolitical factors into two trust-building mechanisms: (a) the transfer effect from political trust to media trust, which is weakened by press freedom and political polarization, (b) the channel effect of political information seeking, which is strengthened by press freedom and political polarization. This study not only theorizes the roles of trust transfer and alternative information orientation as key political explanations for the trust difference between traditional and online media but also investigates their contextual conditions by highlighting cross-national variations. Our findings also enrich the understanding of the media trust crisis in this polarized time.

Literature Review

Trust in News Media and the Trust Gap

News media trust refers to the audience’s willingness to expose themselves to news content based on the expectation of media performance (Hanitzsch et al. 2018). Scholars have recognized the conceptual variability of media trust, with one fundamental distinction being between specific and generalized trust. While the former concerns attitudes toward a concrete media outlet, the latter encompasses the overall attitude toward unspecified media-related objects (Fawzi et al. 2021). Moreover, media trust can be analyzed at various levels, including content, journalists, media brands, media types, and news media as a whole (Strömbäck et al. 2020). Despite this, the comparison of trust across different media types is relatively scarce, with most relevant studies only covering those traditional forms (e.g., Hopmann et al. 2015; Kõuts et al. 2013; Yamamoto et al. 2016). Although a few exceptions, such as Elvestad et al. (2018) and Markov and Min (2020), have simultaneously investigated citizens’ differing attitudes toward traditional and online news sources, they did not fully consider the extent or causes of trust preferences at the individual level. In this study, we focus on generalized trust in two prevalent types of news media: newspapers and Internet news.

Recent research has begun to adopt a cross-national perspective and reported a lower level of trust in news on digital platforms (Mont’Alverne et al. 2022) and social media (Elvestad et al. 2018; Newman et al. 2020). There are several major reasons that may account for this unequal distribution of news trust (for a systematic analysis, see Grosser 2016). First, traditional media have long established well-recognized journalistic professionalism, which has served as a guiding principle for trained professionals (Waisbord 2013). The journalistic norms, values, and practices largely ensure the information quality, while online news is usually viewed as from non-mainstream or alternative sources (Ardèvol-Abreu and Gil de Zúñiga 2017; Tsfati and Ariely 2014). Second, journalism is traditionally considered to be a disseminator, coordinator, and watchdog in public life (Hanitzsch and Vos 2018). Its normative role and indispensable position in the existing social power structure lead to high expectations from the public. In contrast, social media accounts, as well as some other digital news sources that lack established institutional legitimacy, face greater challenges in gaining similar public trust (Fotopoulos 2023). Even for online extensions of established media brands, the credibility evaluation of these sources may tend to be more context-dependent on site or message cues (Metzger and Flanagin 2015). Third, the circulation of user-generated comments and misinformation on the Internet and social media raises people’s concerns about the credibility of online messages (Benkler et al. 2018) and poses threats to online media trust (Grosser 2016). Therefore, we anticipate that a positive trust gap between newspapers and Internet news will also exist in Asian contexts.

H1: People exhibit higher trust in newspapers than in Internet news in Asian societies.

Explaining the Media Trust Gap

Scholars have documented a series of political determinants that could impact people’s trust in news media (Fawzi et al. 2021). Although they rarely investigate any trust gap between news media types, these determinants still provide insights into how this gap forms and evolves. In essence, each trust gap arises from distinct mechanisms or intensities of the same causes in different types of media. There are two major theories that contribute to public trust in certain news media: Institutional theories posit that media trust stems from the performance of journalistic systems and related social environments, whereas cultural theories emphasize the importance of individual ideologies, values, and experiences (Fawzi et al. 2021; Mishler and Rose 2001). Combining personal political characteristics and institutional conditions, we develop two underlying trust-building mechanisms, political trust transfer and alternative information orientation, to explain the trust gap between newspapers and Internet news in Asia.

The Transfer Effect of Political Trust

Our first mechanism stems from the trust transfer theory, which posits that a person’s trust in an entity can be derived from her or his trust in another target with certain associations (Stewart 2003). When a trustor perceives a close relationship (e.g., proximity or belongingness) between a third party and the trustee, the trustor’s attitude toward the third party can be transferred to the trustee (Stewart 2003). For example, people’s trust in governmental institutions has been found to influence their evaluations of relevant public services (Belanche et al. 2014) and information on television (Stockmann et al. 2018). Given that the media industry relies heavily on other societal systems, people’s trust in news media is likely linked to their trust in a wide range of external institutions. We argue that such a transfer process can also occur between political trust and media trust.

Prior literature has revealed that political trust usually goes hand in hand with trust in news media (Ariely 2015; Brosius et al. 2022; Carr et al. 2014; Chang and Tang 2023; Stroud and Lee 2013). One of the most systematic and compelling explanations to date may be the “trust nexus” between the established press and political institutions (Hanitzsch et al. 2018). In the anti-elitism discourse, traditional mainstream media is often viewed as only serving the interests of political elites while failing to inform the public, so it should not continue to gain public trust (Ross and Rivers 2018). The belief in elite collusion between the media and politicians exactly accounts for the transfer of political distrust to news media. Moreover, the ongoing trend of political mediatization has further strengthened the convergence of (dis) trust in both media and political domains (Hanitzsch et al. 2018). Fawzi (2019) also found that anti-elite populism predicted the untrustworthy evaluation of news media. In contrast, individuals are more likely to develop a positive disposition toward the news media that they perceive to represent their preferred political institutions faithfully.

Considering that newspapers have long been representative media for political affairs reporting and advocacy, we predict that people will demonstrate higher trust in newspapers when they have greater confidence in national political institutions. However, a similar transfer of trust may occur less frequently, if at all, between political institutions and online news sources (Markov and Min 2020). As a relatively open public space, the Internet does not inherently signal political elites’ manipulation. Instead, it has created ample opportunities for the dissemination of populist ideologies (Krämer 2017). Even if mainstream newspapers also publish influential content on the Internet, their communication strategies are usually more subjective and entertaining (Welbers and Opgenhaffen 2018; Zhao and Ye 2023). In this situation, one’s media trust gap should be wider when holding more political trust. As such, we formulate the trust transfer hypothesis:

H2a: In Asian societies, political trust is positively related to the media trust gap between newspapers and Internet news.

Furthermore, the association between political power and the press, which serves as the key assumption of trust transfer theory, may condition the influence of political trust on the media trust gap. We focus on two societal-level factors: press freedom and political polarization. Press freedom directly describes the extent to which various social forces influence journalistic autonomy in different ways (Oloyede 2005). A media environment with limited press freedom often facilitates state control over local journalism, leading major news outlets to be more closely aligned with existing political powers. For example, Ariely’s (2015) analysis of European countries revealed a stronger positive relationship between press trust and political trust in countries with lower levels of media autonomy and journalistic professionalism. Similarly, Soon and Tan (2016) observed that in countries with limited press freedom, the media may experience a smaller credibility deficit when the political system acknowledges its supportive role. Consequently, the transfer of political trust to trust in newspapers should be more prominent in a more restricted media environment.

Political polarization characterizes the depth of societal divisions along ideological lines. Such polarization often coincides with the prevalence of anti-elitist and anti-establishment narratives, reinforcing mass perceptions favoring collaboration between mainstream media and political authorities (Bulut and Yörük 2017; Roberts 2022). As noted by Hanitzsch et al. (2018), in more polarized societies, the relationship between trust in the press and political trust was more pronounced. In such contexts, people who distrust the government may be inclined to view the news media with skepticism and perceive a stronger connection between political institutions and traditional media. The Internet, as a virtual public space that provides diverse viewpoints and information (Papacharissi 2002), is less likely to establish stable relations with specific political institutions, regardless of societal fragmentation levels. We expect that the transfer of political trust to trust in newspapers will encounter fewer obstacles in societies with more polarization and less press freedom.

H2b-c: The transfer effect of political trust on the media trust gap is more pronounced in societies (b) with lower press freedom and (c) with higher political polarization.

The Channel Effect of Political Information Seeking

Another mechanism we consider is alternative information orientation, where individuals actively seek information from sources that offer different perspectives on societal issues compared to those presented in mainstream media (Andersen et al. 2023). Inspired by the notion of media orientation from the uses and gratifications framework (Rubin 2009), alternative information orientation reflects individuals’ content preference when seeking political information, which may manifest as channel preference in certain settings. The Internet and social media facilitate the rise of alternative news media and user-generated non-mainstream opinions, making alternative political information easily accessible online (Lievrouw 2023; Van Aelst et al. 2017). This landscape is also evident in many non-democratic and emerging Asian democracies, where specific media channels and political content often align (Chen et al. 2016; Sinha 2017) ³. Given the relatively stronger connection between digital media and alternative information, we believe that individuals’ channel preferences can somewhat signal their general alternative information orientation.

Previous research has shown a connection between trust in news media and selective channel exposure: individuals lacking trust in news media prefer exposure to social media and the Internet (Fletcher and Park 2017; Tsfati and Cappella 2003). This trend occurs because individuals who distrust certain media channels often seek out opposition sources that align better with their preferred viewpoints (Fletcher and Park 2017; Melki et al. 2023). This selection effect implies that a reciprocal relationship might also be true, where increased exposure to alternative viewpoints further diminishes trust in traditional media (Ladd 2012). Empirically, exposure to online news has been found to be negatively associated with trust in traditional media (Tsfati and Ariely 2014), and reliance on social media for alternative news is linked to lower trust in general news (Kalogeropoulos et al. 2019) or mainstream media (Andersen et al. 2023).

Alongside the selection effect, Hopmann et al. (2015) noted a media effect based on personal media experience, finding that mere exposure to certain channels may enhance trust in these media types as many media outlets strive to convince their audiences of their news content’s trustworthiness. This “using is believing” phenomenon has been revealed in a wide range of media channels, such as online newspapers, online TV, and social network sites (Johnson and Kaye 2000, 2014; Kim and Johnson 2009). Moreover, the media effect can function in an agonistic way. Alternative news media often employ a competitive strategy by disseminating negative discourse about mainstream media, emphasizing their deficiencies and lack of trustworthiness (Chadha and Bhat 2022; Cushion et al. 2021; Ladd 2012). Continuous exposure to such narratives can naturally erode trust in mainstream media.

Putting all these arguments together, we argue that online channel reliance may be associated with increased relative trust in Internet news, particularly in many Asian societies where the content of newspapers and the Internet does not highly overlap. We propose an alternative information orientation hypothesis:

H3a: In Asian societies, people using the Internet and social media as the main channels of political information seeking exhibit a narrower media trust gap between newspapers and Internet news than others.

At the societal level, the influence of channel reliance on political information diets may also depend on press freedom and political polarization. A cross-national study indicates that press freedom is negatively related to public trust in news media because a diverse media environment may foster media skepticism (Soon and Tan 2016). Consequently, as the extent of press freedom increases, individuals distrustful of traditional media are more inclined to develop alternative information orientation. Moreover, societies with higher press freedom often experience less government intervention in online political content, as evidenced in Taiwan, Mongolia, and Japan⁴, which may make the Internet a source of more diverse and quality political information (Ahmed and Cho 2019). This diversity may enhance social media’s attractiveness as alternative channels of political information and amplify the difference in channel preferences in the media trust gap.

Concerning political polarization, its impact on channel effects could manifest through increasing selective exposure. Research has consistently shown a strong positive correlation between partisan selective exposure and political polarization (Stroud 2010), which also extends to the context of online news consumption (Garimella et al. 2021). At the country level, Tóth et al. (2023) found that the extent of selective exposure increases with higher political polarization. Polarization activates group identity within different ideological camps and spurs alternative information orientation. Consequently, those distrusting mainstream media are more likely to consume political information through social media, and increased alternative information orientation may heighten trust in Internet news (Hopmann et al. 2015), finally leading to a minor, even reversed trust gap. In contrast, in a less politically polarized society, the role of online channels in spreading alternative perspectives is less pronounced. Therefore, we infer that both political polarization and press freedom can intensify the influence of alternative information orientation.

H3b-c: The channel effect of political information seeking on the media trust gap is more pronounced in societies (b) with higher press freedom and (c) with higher political polarization.

Methods

Data

Our individual-level data came from the Asian Barometer Survey (ABS) Wave 5 (2018–2021)⁵. ABS is a longitudinal cross-national project in East, South, and Southeast Asia, primarily involving people’s political attitudes, beliefs, and participation. In its fifth wave, ABS employed national probability sampling and collected survey data through face-to-face interviews in 15 countries and regions. For the purpose of this study, we selected the cases from all surveyed countries and regions except Australia, where respondents were not asked about their attitudes toward Internet news. They include typical democratic regimes like Japan (2019, the surveyed year), South Korea (2019), Taiwan (2018–2019), Mongolia (2018), other democratic regimes like Indonesia (2019), Philippines (2018), India (2019); Hybrid regimes like Hong Kong (2019–2021), Thailand (2018–2019), Malaysia (2019); and Authoritarian regimes such as Mainland China (2019), Vietnam (2018), Singapore (2020), and Myanmar (2019). After removing cases with missing and unqualified data, 14,485 respondents from 14 societies were included as our final sample.

Meanwhile, we relied on other secondary data sources from international projects to compile our country-level data, including Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem)⁶, Reporters Without Borders⁷, and The International Telecommunication Union⁸. Because they are annually updated, we extracted the country-level data in the exact year when the individual-level data were collected and matched them into a complete dataset.

Measures

Dependent Variables: Media Trust Gap

We first measured individual trust in newspapers and Internet news separately. The questionnaire asked the respondents, “How much trust do you have in each of the following types of media?”. The list included “Newspaper” (Q54) and “News on the Internet” (Q55). Both were measured on a reversed six-point scale (1 = distrust fully, 2 = distrust a lot, 3 = distrust somewhat, 4 = trust somewhat, 5 = trust a lot, 6 = trust fully). In line with Moehler and Singh (2011), Suiter and Fletcher (2020), and Schrøder (2023), we constructed a trust gap at the individual level by subtracting each respondent’s level of trust in news on the Internet from the level of trust in newspapers. This gap quantifies the trust differences in two types of news media and helps us investigate why people have varying degrees of trust preference and what exact groups are driving the trust gap (Schrøder 2023). The distribution of the media trust gap reveals that the majority of respondents show either no or only a slight trust difference in both media types (see Appendix A in the Supplementary Information file). Specifically, 42.62% of respondents showed a positive gap, indicating higher relative trust in newspapers. Only 10.61% exhibited a negative gap, reflecting higher relative trust in Internet news.

Explanatory Variables

Regarding political trust, respondents were asked how much trust they have in a list of political institutions, including “The national government” (Q9), “Political parties” (Q10), and “Parliament” (Q11). Responses were also measured on the same six-point scale. We adopted Wu and Wilkes’s (2018) measurement of national political trust and combined these three items into an averaged index with satisfactory reliability (Cronbach’s α = 0.876). Alternative information orientation was operationalized as the primary channel of political information seeking and measured by the question, “Which one is the most important channel for you to find information about politics and government?” (Q52). We recoded the option “Internet and social media” as 1, while all other answers (television, newspaper, and radio) as 0. This binary variable aims to identify which channel individuals mainly rely on for political information seeking.

For country-level measures, political polarization was measured by a single question: “Is society polarized into antagonistic, political camps?” (v2cacamps) in V-Dem version 14. The answers ranged from 0 = “Not at all. Supporters of opposing political camps generally interact in a friendly manner” to 4 = “Yes, to a large extent. Supporters of opposing political camps generally interact in a hostile manner”. This measure of overall polarization relies on systematic evaluations from multiple country experts, whose four-point responses were converted into a standardized interval scale, with higher scores indicating a more polarized society⁹. Press freedom was measured by the scores from Reporters Without Borders. The score (0–100) assessed the comprehensive performance of major aspects of press freedom within each country, including pluralism, media independence, environment and self-censorship, legislative framework, transparency, infrastructure, and abuses. We rescaled it as a 0–1 score.

Controls

First, we added two politically psychological variables that might confound media trust: political interest (Fawzi 2019; Tsfati et al. 2022) and political liberalism (Livio and Cohen 2018). Besides, we considered the influence of Internet use (Tsfati and Ariely 2014) and controlled for Internet penetration at the country level. Several demographic variables: gender, education, and family status, were also included in our models. For clarifications and measurements, see Appendix B in the Supplemental Information file.

The descriptive statistics of all measured variables are presented in Table 1.

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics.

Variable	Mean	SD	Median	Min	Max
Media trust gap	0.54	1.22	0	−5	5
Trust in newspaper	4.20	1.06	4	1	6
Trust in internet news	3.66	1.10	4	1	6
Political trust	4.00	1.26	4	1	6
Alternative information orientation	Internet and social media = 34%		0	0	1
Political interest	2.45	0.83	3	1	4
Political liberalism	2.36	0.64	2.33	1	4
Internet use	3.20	2.68	2	1	9
Gender	Male = 52%		1	0	1
Education	6.52	2.24	7	1	10
Family status	5.68	1.70	6	1	10
Political polarization	0.44	1.28	0.15	−1.40	3.45
Press freedom	0.52	0.19	0.55	0.21	0.77
Internet penetration	0.64	0.23	0.64	0.30	0.96

Analysis

We used R Studio to perform all relevant statistical analyses. First, we relied on pairwise t-tests to verify the existence of the media trust gap in each society. We used the lme4 package to test other hypotheses to perform multilevel models (MLM) because our survey data is nested in the country-level unit¹⁰. There remains ambiguity regarding the appropriate group size of level two (14 political units in our case) in multilevel analysis (Snijders and Bosker 2011). Here, we adopted restricted maximum likelihood, which outperforms maximum likelihood in evaluating random effects with smaller errors and is suitable for limited group units (Raudenbush and Bryk 2002). The alternative modeling strategy was also employed as a robustness check. Additionally, all the variance inflation factor (VIF) values were less than 4, indicating the absence of severe multicollinearity between explanatory variables.

Results

As Figure 1 depicts, trust in newspapers is higher than trust in Internet news in all Asian societies. Myanmar exhibits the widest trust gap, much higher than those in Mainland China and India. Pairwise t-tests revealed that people’s media trust gaps in the total sample and among the lowest three societies (South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong) are all significant. Thus, H1 is supported. For more details, see Appendix C in the Supplemental Information file.

Figure 1.

Trust in newspaper and Internet news in 14 Asian societies.

Table 2 presents three multilevel regression models to test other hypotheses (for full results, see Appendix D in the Supplemental Information file). Models (1) and (2) estimate the main effects of political trust and alternative information orientation without and with controls, respectively, while model (3), which demonstrates the best fit, further includes two sets of interaction terms. Regarding the political trust transfer hypotheses, political trust is positively associated with the media trust gap (b = 0.064, SE = 0.011, p < .001), supporting H2a. For a modal respondent, a change from the lowest to the highest levels of political trust increases the probability of trusting newspapers more by 9.37% and decreases the probability of trusting Internet news more by 1.69%¹¹. Further, this relationship is negatively moderated by press freedom (b = −0.444, SE = 0.065, p < .001) and political polarization (b = −0.040, SE = 0.008, p < .001) in the model (3). For clearer interpretations, we plot the marginal effect of political trust in varying levels of press freedom and polarization in Figure 2. As shown in panel (a), the positive coefficient of political trust decreases as press freedom increases. This suggests that in societies with higher press freedom, the link between trust in national political institutions and the media trust gap becomes weaker, making it more challenging to transfer trust from political institutions to newspapers. Contrary to the expectation of H2c, panel (b) displays a different trend: political polarization weakens the positive effect of political trust on the media trust gap. Thus, we accept H2b and reject H2c.

Table 2.

Multilevel Models Predicting the Media Trust Gap (Newspapers Minus Internet News).

	Model (1)	Model (2)	Model (3)
Fixed effects
Political trust	0.063*** (0.010)	0.064*** (0.011)	0.337*** (0.037)
Alternative information orientation	−0.459*** (0.022)	−0.410*** (0.023)	−0.074 (0.061)
Political trust × Press freedom			−0.444*** (0.065)
Alternative information orientation × Press freedom			−0.603*** (0.112)
Political trust × Political polarization			−0.040*** (0.008)
Alternative information orientation × Political polarization			−0.083*** (0.019)
Variance of random effects
Var: Country (intercept)	0.119	0.136	0.049
Var: Residual	1.368	1.356	1.342
Political polarization			0.035
Press freedom			0.091
Controls	No	Yes	Yes
N (level-1)	14,485	14,485	14,485
N (level-2)	14	14	14
AIC	45,729.351	45,660.398	45,548.181
BIC	45,767.255	45,766.530	45,722.541
Marginal R²/Conditional R²	0.035/0.112	0.050/0.136	0.059/0.222

Note. Unstandardized coefficients with standard errors in parentheses. Controls include political interest, political liberalism, Internet use, gender, education, family status, press freedom, political polarization, and Internet penetration. Intercepts are omitted.

AIC = Akaike Information Criterion. BIC = Bayesian Information Criterion.

***

p < .001.

Figure 2.

The marginal effect of political trust on the media trust gap moderated by (a) press freedom and (b) political polarization.

For the alternative information orientation hypotheses, we observe that it is negatively associated with the media trust gap (b = −0.410, SE = 0.023, p < .001), which confirms H3a. For a modal respondent, a change from relying on traditional media to the Internet and social media for political information seeking decreases the probability of trusting newspapers more by 17.61% and increases the probability of trusting Internet news more by 4.07%¹². Besides, its interaction terms with press freedom (b = −0.603, SE = 0.112, p < .001) and political polarization (b = −0.083, SE = 0.019, p < .001) are negatively related to the media trust gap. Similarly, we visualize the marginal effect of alternative information orientation in Figure 3. When press freedom increases in panel (a), the estimated coefficient of alternative information orientation decreases. This suggests that in less restricted media environments, the channel difference in people’s reliance on political information becomes more pronounced. Panel (b) also indicates that the negative channel effect of political information seeking becomes pronounced when the corresponding societies become more politically polarized. Conversely, in less polarized societies, alternative information orientation has a much slighter impact on people’s trust gap in the two types of news media. Therefore, we conclude that press freedom and political polarization lead to a more differentiated media trust preference regarding the channel reliance on political information seeking. H3b and H3c are confirmed.

Figure 3.

The marginal effect of alternative information orientation on the media trust gap moderated by (a) press freedom and (b) political polarization.

Robustness Checks

We checked the robustness of our findings in three ways. First, given the discrete nature of our dependent variable, we performed ordinal logistic regression models with country dummies to predict the media trust gap. Second, we dropped the Myanmar sample due to its exceptionally wide trust gap compared to other societies. Third, we adopted alternative measurements for political trust, political polarization, and press freedom. All the results indicate that most effects of interest remain stable (see Appendix E in the Supplemental Information file).

Discussion

This study provides political explanations for the differentiated trust preferences between newspapers and Internet news in Asia and enhances our understanding of how individual and sociopolitical factors collectively shape the attitudes between multiple media types. Overall, our results confirm a positive media trust gap, showcasing a pervasive preference for newspapers across the 14 societies (H1). The relatively limited trust in online news aligns with prior evidence from Europe (Elvestad et al. 2018; Fletcher and Nielsen 2019; Fotopoulos 2023) and the Global South (Mont’Alverne et al. 2022). Despite the global trust disadvantage of online news, the extent of this media trust gap varied considerably. This cross-national variation underscores the significance of contextual factors, suggesting that while traditional media generally enjoy higher trust, regional differences in political, societal, and media environments critically influence the media trust dynamics.

Specifically, we propose two trust-building mechanisms, political trust transfer and alternative information orientation, and define their contextual conditions. First, we demonstrate a positive association between political trust and the trust gap between newspapers and Internet news (H2a). This suggests a natural inclination among individuals to extend their political trust to traditional media outlets (Chang and Tang 2023). Because in the public perception, there is a stronger heuristic association between newspapers and political power, whereas Internet news is perceived as more detached from political influence. The varying intensities of trust transfer contribute to the observed media trust gap (Stewart 2003). Furthermore, our study emphasizes the nuanced impacts of sociopolitical factors in the processes of political trust transfer. In societies with preserved media autonomy and deeply divided political opinions, the direct transfer of political trust to newspapers would be weakened (H2b-c). In societies like South Korea, which has less restricted media environments, citizens may lack sufficient reasons to link their political attitudes with the overall attitudes toward commercial newspapers due to the considerable external diversity of political viewpoints among different outlets (Ogasahara 2018). In contrast, in countries where traditional media are usually government-owned or controlled, people’s trust in national political institutions can naturally translate into trust in official newspapers, thus widening the trust gap between newspapers and Internet news.

In terms of political polarization, contrary to the amplification of the political-press trust linkage (Hanitzsch et al. 2018), we find that the positive influence of political trust on the media trust gap is weaker in more polarized societies. One possible explanation is the unique nature of recent polarization in many Asian societies, which differs from the pure populist and anti-elitism discourse rising in Western countries. In these developing societies, polarization often manifests as conflicting public positions on key social issues, leading to media elites being perceived as more aligned with the public interest. For instance, in the Philippines, despite facing violence and death threats, journalists shift roles to media freedom advocates and truth activists to respond to the perceived democratic erosion (Macaraig and Hameleers 2022). The polarized social environment exacerbates the differences in viewpoints among different media outlets, thereby weakening the overall connection between the newspaper industry and the national government. An opposite example is Japan. As a country with less severe polarization, major domestic newspapers in Japan generally maintain political neutrality and have less bias in reporting on specific political parties (Ogasahara 2018). This stable press-politics relationship facilitates the transfer of political trust to mainstream media trust. In summary, these sociopolitical factors highlight the theoretical premise of the strong connection between the third party and the trustee in the trust transfer theory.

Besides, we identify a channel effect of political information seeking, suggesting that reliance on online channels correlates with a narrower trust gap (H3a). This finding strengthens the evidence that selective and mere exposure to certain channels may be associated with increased trust in corresponding media types (Hopmann et al. 2015). Moreover, this channel effect is particularly evident in societies with higher press freedom and political polarization (H3b-c). A pluralistic media environment with less censorship can not only make the Internet a diverse source of information but also foster media skepticism to some extent, as the audience’s perception of news is fragmented (Soon and Tan 2016). While press freedom allows for a diverse media landscape, political polarization may reinforce the competitive performances of different information channels, as well as people’s motivations to seek politically aligned information. It drives politically interested individuals, who have a stronger alternative information orientation, to selective exposure (Tóth et al. 2023), consequently cultivating certain (dis) trust. This is especially evident in three Chinese-speaking societies, whose media trust gaps are almost at opposite extremes. Both Hong Kong and Taiwan possess a differentiated media ecology between online and offline domains, with traditional press leaning towards conservatism and online media more closely integrated with civil society for coordinating alternative information (Chen et al. 2016). A post hoc analysis also revealed that people who rely on social media for political information hold less trust in newspapers and more trust in Internet news. This pattern, however, was not observed in less polarized Mainland China (see Appendix F in the Supplemental Information file for a case illustration). These findings highlight the importance of a competitive political and media environment in shaping news trust preferences (Druckman and Lupia 2016).

Theoretical and Practical Implications

Our study contributes to the media trust literature by adopting a comparative perspective, both in terms of media types and cross-national design. Through constructing the media trust gap between newspaper and Internet news, our comparative analysis reveals the unequal landscape of trust in media types, highlighting the variations shaped by the interplay of political trust, political information channel reliance, press freedom, and polarization. Although antecedents of media trust at various levels have been well documented, many lack coherent theoretical explanations. What predicts personal trust difference between media types is also less understood. This study theorizes the effects of political trust and channel reliance on political information seeking as two complete mechanisms that have the potential to inform media trust research focusing on multiple media types. Moreover, our findings expand the understanding of trust transfer theory and alternative information orientation by integrating sociopolitical factors. We introduce both theories in media trust scenarios and in non-Western contexts, defining conditions under which they operate normally. Thus, this study emphasizes the necessity of placing micro-level processes within the political and media structures to elucidate individual-level preferences and understand media trust (Fawzi et al. 2021) and other political communication outcomes (Rojas and Valenzuela 2019).

Our findings also advance the institutional and cultural approaches to explaining institutional trust. First, the alignment between political trust and the media trust gap suggests that both are underpinned by shared evaluations of institutional performances. The credibility of news sources is assessed as part of the broader performance and legitimacy of media and political institutions, implying a cohesive institutional trust framework rather than separate domains (Chang and Tang 2023). Second, from a cultural approach, personal preferences for political information channels reflect long-standing practices of information engagement and ideological orientation. This suggests that media trust is embedded in broader cultural practices of political engagement, making trust in different media a product of both ideological compatibility and habitual media usage patterns. Finally, institutional contexts can also co-constitute the dynamics of trust formation. They shape the interaction between political and media institutions, creating environments where certain trust-building patterns become pronounced or defunct.

Besides, this study offers insights for cultivating meaningful public trust in journalism in the digital age. While concerns persist that the Internet and social media may foster criticism of journalism and erode media trust (Toff et al. 2021; Literat et al. 2023), which has been found in many Asian countries (Newman et al. 2020), our findings reveal a more nuanced picture. Viewing this media trust crisis through the lens of “relative trust” and its political explanations, it appears that people’s preference for newspapers is not solely based on media performance. Instead, it is influenced by those who highly trust the government, favor mainstream perspectives, and are shaped by the broader sociopolitical environment. Therefore, rather than worrying about the general distrust, online media outlets may consider how to adapt to the political and media environments of societies, providing high-quality news tailored to their target interest groups. In addition, the notion of the media trust gap can shed light on the future direction of journalism. The primary aim of the media trust gap is to provide a framework to measure the audience’s relative trust between multiple media types, which mirrors the degree of fragmentation of both news audiences and trust consensus. To strengthen democracy, both traditional and digital media should work to narrow the trust gap, enabling the public to develop a more unified understanding of social issues and enhancing informed decision-making.

Limitations and Future Work

Due to the questionnaire design of secondary survey data, our measurements of media trust, particularly trust in Internet news, are necessarily broad. Although our interest lies in the online-offline gap, the multifaceted nature of Internet news—such as journalistic content, social media shares, and alternative news sites—introduces variations that our generalized measure may not fully capture. This may obscure nuances in interpreting political trust transfer and alternative information orientation. Future research would benefit from multi-item measures to differentiate between these online media categories, allowing for a clearer examination of how trust dynamics vary across specific online sources.

The measurement of alternative information channels faces similar challenges. In this study, we operationalize alternative information orientation as seeking political information primarily on the Internet and social media. Compared to some Western countries, where professional media dominate online news, online news in many Asian countries indeed offers more non-mainstream political information. However, we acknowledge that content across online and offline channels may not always display distinct ideological differences, especially in authoritarian societies where online content is subject to strict censorship. Therefore, when extending this study to other countries, future research could adopt issue-specific (e.g., Andersen et al. 2023) or more refined source-based measures (e.g., Johnson and Kaye 2014) to achieve more robust replication and extension.

An extended limitation is that since our research scope is limited to one particular type of media trust gap, whether the effects we identified are generalizable to other forms is unclear. For example, the channel effect of political information might not fully explain the difference between trust in social media news and mainstream news websites. Future studies should consider the unique features of corresponding media types when examining other forms of media trust gaps.

Moreover, due to the limited options on the trust scale, only a minority of respondents display a pronounced trust gap. While our sample provides valuable insights into modest trust differences, future studies could benefit from focusing on the subset of respondents with a more significant media trust gap. Such cases may represent more extreme attitudes and exhibit potential variations in other political aspects. Therefore, targeting this subgroup may yield a more complete picture of media trust dynamics in hybrid news environments.

Finally, focusing on only 14 Asian societies raises questions about the applicability of our findings to other contexts. Foundational Western-centric media trust theories, such as the trust competition between political information channels and the trust transfer between government and mainstream media, may remain relevant in Asia. However, the nature of institutional interactions and societal conditions in Asia may require adjustments to how these theories are applied. State control of the media in Asia varies more drastically, and political polarization stems from and manifests differently than in the West, making it potentially difficult to observe similar effects within Western democracies with relatively similar institutional contexts. In addition, we did not deeply explore cultural dimensions of Asian societies, such as collectivist values and respect for authority, which might affect how different media types are seen as part of a broader sociopolitical structure. When expanding this research to other regions, careful attention should be paid to their sociopolitical and cultural contexts and how they affect trust-building dynamics. Scholars could employ more comprehensive frameworks to establish a global understanding of the formation of the media trust gap.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-hij-10.1177_19401612251315597 – Supplemental material for The Media Trust Gap and Its Political Explanations: How Individual and Sociopolitical Factors Differentiate News Trust Preferences in Asian Societies

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-hij-10.1177_19401612251315597 for The Media Trust Gap and Its Political Explanations: How Individual and Sociopolitical Factors Differentiate News Trust Preferences in Asian Societies by Yufan Guo and Yuzhe Lei in The International Journal of Press/Politics

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We are grateful for the valuable feedback from four anonymous reviewers. We also appreciate the insights provided by Renita Coleman, Josephine Lukito, Thomas Johnson, and Jia Lu. Data analyzed in this article were collected by the Asian Barometer Project (2018–2021), which was co-directed by Professors Yun-han Chu and received major funding support from the National Science and Technology Council, Academia Sinica, and National Taiwan University. The Asian Barometer Project Office () is solely responsible for the data distribution. We appreciate the assistance in providing data by the institutes and individuals aforementioned. The views expressed herein are our own. A previous version of this article won the Top Paper Award of the Political Communication Division at the 107th Annual Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) Conference.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Yufan Guo

Yuzhe Lei

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online. Replication materials that support the findings of this study can be found in the Open Science Framework at .

Notes

Author Biographies

Yufan Guo is a PhD student at the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests include political communication, social media, and comparative public opinion.

Yuzhe Lei is a master’s student at the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on political communication and digital media.

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