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Home Issues Backissues Volume 31, No.1 The Relationships between Taiwan Voters' Media Use Perceptions of Media Negativism and Political Trust

The Relationships between Taiwan Voters' Media Use Perceptions of Media Negativism and Political Trust

Bonnie Peng
2002 / 11
Volume 9, No.2

pp.1-36
10.6612/tjes.2002.09.02.01-36
Paper

Abstract

On December 1, 2002, more than 62 percent of eligible voters in Taiwan went to the polls to vote for the 225 members of Legislative Yuan and 23 county magistrates and city mayors. It was the first major election after the DPP's victory in the 2000 presidential election, and given the fact that there had been a stalemate between the DPP government and the KMT-controlled Legislative Yuan since then, the new Legislative Yuan election was of particular significance for Taiwan's political development. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between voters' media use, perceptions of media negativism and their political trust. The results showed that as compared with voters' trust toward Legislative Yuan and Justice system, Taiwan voters thought President Chen is most trustworthy. And political external efficacy became an important predictive variable in explaining why voters trust President, Legislative Yuan and Justice system. Media variables, including media use and the perceptions of media negativism did not show any significance in predicting voters' political trust. And those voters who claimed they are the supporters of Pan-Blue camp showed high degree of trust toward KMT and PFP while voters identified themselves as Pan-Green camp showed higher degree of political trust toward DPP and TSU.

Keywords

Media attention

Perception of media negativism

Political trust