Why and when do media trust and political trust go hand in hand? A review of four explanations for the media–politics trust nexus

There is robust evidence that media trust and political trust are weakly to moderately correlated with each other—but why is this so and under which conditions? By integrating current research on media trust and political trust, this paper reviews four explanations for the media–politics trust nexus. The first explanation sees media trust as a foundation for building political trust. The second explanation focuses on negative media coverage of politics that decreases political trust, which spills over to media trust. The third explanation relates to the similar origins of institutional trust, and the fourth explanation argues that media trust and political trust are mutually dependent. The paper then discusses the strength of the trust nexus and the different implications that result from low to high trust in both institutions.