A Virtuous Circle for All? Media Exposure and Political Trust in 21 Countries.

This article examines the influence of exposure to political media content on political disaffection. Studies have shown that negative media content leads to political disaffection. This has been called the media malaise hypothesis. Other studies have shown that exposure to political media content regardless of its tone leads to informed and mobilized citizens. This has been called the mobilization hypothesis. To examine, which of them holds true, the relationship between exposure to political media content and trust in national parliaments in 21 European countries taking part in the European Social Survey was analyzed.