The Effects of Culture and Performance on Trust in News Media in Post-Communist Eastern Europe: The Case of Serbia

Abstract

This study tested the influences of cultural and performance factors on trust in news media in Serbia by conducting a survey on a stratified random sample of the population (N = 544). The results show that both factors played a significant role, but that the performance explanation was slightly more powerful. The levels of trust in news media and generalized trust in Serbia remained low, while the perceptions of news media corruption reached extremely high levels. Before testing theories, the meanings of three main variables were explored by conducting 20 in-depth interviews with a separate sample of the Serbian population.