Analysis On The Intergenerational Differences Of Public Political Trust And Media Intermediary Effect

Political trust,means the beliefs and attitudes of the people and their groups to the political makers and executors such as the government,the ruling party and the national political institution and system.Political trust connects the common people with the political system closely and is a kind of attitude and even the confidence that people hold to the result of the political system.People’s political trust can keep the effective operation of a country’s political system.At the same time,it has become the desirable criterion and requirement for the continuous development of political system.Countries around the world are paying more attention to the importance of political trust.Since the reform and opening to the outside world in the late 70 s last century in China,the social transformation has been deepened and the economic development has been advanced by leaps and bounds.Deep contradictions and endless problems caused by transformation with economic development have brought unprecedented challenges to China’s current social and political integration.Therefore,political trust cannot be ignored in China.This paper,studied in the setting of intergenerational theory and ‘agenda-setting’ theory,quantitative research as the main research method,analyzes the political trust of the new generation and the mediating role played by the media by using CGSS2010 data.Through data analysis,we can find:Firstly,on the whole,overall political trust of Chinese people is at the level of ‘comparative trust’,political trust still should be improved and obvious differential structure of the political trust with “central strong and local weak” still exists.From the perspective of public political ability trust and political will trust,in the current society,people have a high degree of trust in the political ability,but a low degree of political will trust.Secondly,there are obvious differences in the structure and degree of political trust between different generations.The trust in the political system and political competence of the new generation is lower than the generation ‘before the 80’s’.However,the trust in the political will of the new generation is higher.Thirdly,the new media plays an important mediating role in the relationship between the new generation and political trust.This study shows that the trust level in the political system and the political ability of the new generation is lower,largely due to the fact that new media is used more to get information.