Live Poster Session: https://wesleyan.zoom.us/j/94503390929
Nat Welsh
Nat Welsh is a Government and Data analysis Major at Wesleyan University. She is especially interested in legal and economic areas of government and policy.
Abstract: While it is true that political parties affect trust in the media, there is markedly little research focusing on political parties other than Conservative and democrat such as Independent. Since media trust is polarized, it is also of interest to examine the opinions of Independents, the least polarized political party. This paper will answer the question: “Is independent party belonging significantly related to media trust?” This question is tested on a sample from the first wave of the General Social Survey (GSS). The three variables used are “Trust” which represents media trust, “Independent” which represents Independent party belonging, and “College” which represents college completion. “Independent” shows that 59.62% of all respondents identify as not independent and the Trust variable shows that 88.1% of the respondents have no trust in the media. Both a Chi-Square test of significance and logistic regression test revealed that Media Trust and Independent Party belonging were significantly related. An additional multivariate test showed that Media Trust and Independent Party belonging were significantly related after controlling for college status. Researchers and other media outlets who want to serve Independents would benefit from this research.
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