مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

 علوم سیاسی

Research has confirmed the critical role of political ideology in structuring consumer choice and behavior in various decision-making situations (Crockett & Wallendorf, 2004). The political trust literature also suggests that the effects of political trust on government-related decisions and behavior also vary across individuals based on their ideological interests (Rudolph, 2009; Rudolph & Evans, 2005). Despite its widespread impact in consumer behavior and political trust research, political ideology has received scant attention in media source credibility research and trust-relationship research in public relations. Given the critical role of different media channels in helping publics obtain organization-related information and in fostering trust between publics and business organizations, it is important to look into the function of political ideology as a driving force in media source selection and as a factor influencing how mediated content is processed in trust evaluations toward business organizations.

Therefore, in this study, we test the effectiveness of media source preference in predicting public trust in business. We also explore the consistency of demographic characteristics and political ideology in predicting trust. Our research focuses on how political ideology at the individual level can be used as a foundation to explain the unique media sources that publics select to get business information, and the corresponding trust in business that develops from that source selection. In doing so, we relied on data from the 2013 Edelman Trust Barometer annual survey. Specifically, we tailored our analysis to the top five global economies (i.e., the United States, China, Japan, Germany, and France) based on GDP ranking as released by the World Bank in 2013. GDP measures the total output of goods and services for a given country and has been used asa comprehensive and consistent indicator of economic growth, economic sustainability, and overall market activity (The World Bank, 2013).

Through our analysis, we found several consistent results, including (1) certain demographic indictors significantly affected publics’trustin business organizations;(2) political ideology atthe individual level affected publics’trustin business organizations in certain countries; (3) public attention to public affairs had an influence on their trust in business organizations; and (4) political ideology and media preference had an interactive effect on public trust in business organizations. The interactive relationship between media source and political ideology is particularly striking as the results contribute largely to existing knowledge of trust research in public relations. The practical implications for public relations, audience segmentation, and messaging strategies are discussed along with theoretical implications for public relations theory development and future trust research.