Mediated Trust

Investigating the relationship between social trust, digital media and the news

Significant crises of trust have been identified with social, political and economic institutions throughout the world. This research program identifies communication media, including digital and social media as well as news and journalism, as having a central role in both the causes of distrust, and countering crises of trust.

 

‘Trust Deficit Disorder’

The UN Secretary-General António Guterres has observed that ‘our world is suffering from a bad case of “Trust Deficit Disorder” … people are losing faith in political establishments, polarisation is on the rise and populism is on the march’. Global surveys have found widespread and pervasive mistrust of political, media and business institutions worldwide, and the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the relationship between communications, misinformation, conspiracy theories, and resistance to expert opinion.

Declining trust in social and political institutions has been associated with the rise of populist parties, leaders and movements, COVID-19 misinformation, citizen disengagement with political institutions, and fraying social cohesion. The Grattan Institute has identified communications as an underlying factor in declining political trust in Australia and policy ‘gridlock’ in Australia. Other costs of rising distrust can include higher costs of policy implementation, slowing economic innovation, and weakened legitimacy for political institutions and policy processes.

The media are central to providing citizens with trusted information, but there is growing distrust of traditional media, and greater reliance upon self-directed search and community building through social media platforms. This provides opportunities for new voices that challenge the dominant mainstream and powerful vested interest, but also opens up the threat of misinformation, exposure to conspiracy theories, and ‘fake news’.

 

Mediated Trust

The Mediated Trust research program identifies communication as being central to trust, at interpersonal, institutional and societal levels, and at local, national and global scales. Trust constitutes an ‘invisible institution’ that central to economic development, social inclusion and civic engagement, the effective operation of public institutions, and international cooperation and collaboration.

Led by Professor Terry Flew, the Mediated Trust research program explores both the causes of distrust, and the role that media in all forms can play in rebuilding societal trust. It looks at both established media institutions such as news media and public service media, and emergent online forms.

 

Work Programs

Current areas of work include:

1. Platform governance: This project investigates the regulatory and policy implications of understanding global digital platforms as media companies. Responding to ongoing public concern about these platform regulation, this project has evaluated regulatory approaches to issues of concern including information monopolies, online abuse and hate speech, privacy and security issues, and datafication. Research outputs include:

   Terry Flew (2021) Regulating Platforms. Polity.
   Terry Flew and Fiona R. Martin eds. (2022), Digital Platform Regulation: Global Perspectives on Internet Governance, Springer.

2. Trust and mistrust in news media: This project aims to investigate how the changes in news audiences’ consumption behaviours are informed by assessing trust and mistrust in news, as they increasingly access news through digital platforms. Observing the global “crisis of trust”, the project is undertaking longitudinal and multi-country studies of trust and mistrust in media, including experimental analysis into the link between trust in news and audience behaviour. The research will directly benefit policy makers on how to better secure trustworthy news content in an age of increasing dominance of digital platforms that algorithmically sort the range of news available to the public.
3. Valuing news: The ongoing crisis of news media business models is raising new questions about the future of journalism, and the changing role of governments worldwide in financing news production. This project aims to identify the links between the preparedness of individuals to pay for news, the value of news brands, the organisational cultures of news publishers, and the social value of news in promoting a democratic public sphere. Through media economics and qualitative research methods, the project aims to advance debates about how to support public interest journalism, and the value of news as both a commodity and a public good, generating new insights for industry, policymakers and the community in addressing the future of journalism.
4. The Digital Media Economy: Debates about the digital media economy are at the heart of media and communication studies. An increasingly digitalised and datafied media environment has implications for every aspect of the field, from ownership and production, to distribution and consumption.

   Terry Flew, Jennifer Holt & Julian Thomas eds. (2022), SAGE Handbook of the Digital Media Economy, Sage.