| The aim of this study is investigate the role of mass media in democratization processes in Kosovo, a transitional society in South-Eastern Europe, by examining media effects on political culture. The rationale for the overarching theoretical and empirical approach of this study derives from the lively debate on the role of mass media in promoting and sustaining political culture and civic orientation in Western democracies. I test two contradicting theoretical traditions that explain these interactions: the "Media Malaise" thesis and the "Mobilization" approach. First, this study sets to investigate the relationship between citizens' media use and their trust in political institutions in a theoretical model that engages attribute agenda-setting and priming theories as intervening variables. Then it connects media use and political trust with citizens' political participation, investigating media effects on elite-directed (institutional) and elite-challenging (un-institutional) participation.;The results of this study give support to the "Mobilization" approach, suggesting that the more people use mass media for political information, the more they tend to participate in different forms of political actions. Giving credit to the second-level agenda-setting theory to explain cognitive effects of mass media in a transitional society, this study provides evidence that citizens learn from the media about the efficacy and integrity of political institutions in their country, thus gaining an in-depth understanding of their general performance. Consequently, the information acquired through news media becomes an important dimension of attitude formation towards those political institutions.;This study, though, does not discredit some of the "Malaises" assumptions either, suggesting that under certain conditions media use has a negative relationship with some aspects of political trust. However, it provides theoretical argumentation and empirical evidence suggesting that by affecting different levels of political trust, mass media create an environment in which citizens are not blindly submissive and trusting but neither totally distrustful of the political institutions in their country. This, in turn, leads to a more participatory citizenry who feel that their influence on political authorities is necessary but also possible.;Yet, media effects in transitional societies are not overreaching. Similar to the evidence from Western countries, they are rather contingent on the media platform where news is consumed (print vs. broadcasting vs. online), the source of information (independent vs. partisan-oriented media), and on the audience characteristics (need for orientation and political ideology). The evidence from this study suggests that rather than inducing opinion change, media effect in a transitional society are more likely to crystallize previous predispositions. Particularly, the existence of a pluralistic partisan press in some transitional societies might provide to have a rather important role in building partisan loyalties and stabilizing the volatile electorate, characteristic for transitional societies. |
