Impacts of Internet Use on Political Trust: New Evidence from China

This study evaluates the impacts of Internet use on political trust in China. Negative effects are consistently found across variant measures of political trust. IV and PSM estimations confirm that the negative impact is causal. Further, placebo tests show that the traditional media as the primary information source hasn’t generated such effects and trust in friends hasn’t been impacted by Internet use. This effect is most likely attributable to the fact that internet use in China exacerbates public perception toward government and government officials, increases public demand for political participation, and raises the expectation of government performance.