What people don’t know can definitely hurt them—or at least suppress their confidence in government.

	Patricia Moy

In her new book, With Malice Toward All? The Media and Public Confidence in Democratic Institutions, Patricia Moy says there’s a relationship between media use, knowledge, and confidence in government.Moy, assistant professor of communications, and co-author Michael Pfau, a University of Wisconsin professor, found that print media like newspapers and news magazines do a good job of informing the public and therefore increase confidence in government. But television tends to cast a negative light on government, eroding viewers’ confidence.

“Television provides a fun-house mirror image of reality,” Moy said. “It’s a bit distorted and therefore relying on television news tends to erode confidence levels, whereas reading newspapers has the opposite effect.”

In fact, her study shows that newspaper and news magazine reading increased knowledge and therefore confidence more than 95 percent of the time. But watching television news increased knowledge and confidence only 20 percent of the time.

Further confounding the confidence issue, Moy says, is the increasing prevalence of nontraditional media. Talk radio, late-night television talk shows, and programs like the “X-Files” and “The West Wing” are influencing people’s attitudes, says Moy.

“Viewers are getting mixed messages from the ‘X-Files,’ where the protagonists are two FBI agents, and the villains oftentimes are other government officials,” Moy said. “Similarly, by critiquing our political process, ‘The West Wing’ helps to define viewers’ expectations of the office of the presidency. Unfortunately, if people rely only on entertainment programming for news, then their perceptions of the White House can become extremely distorted.”

According to her research, says Moy, the ideal would be for citizens to seek information about government from a number of different media sources, with at least one of those being a daily newspaper or a news magazine. Interpersonal discussion with friends, family, and colleagues also helps, particularly when new or dissenting views are brought into the conversation.

“Our findings suggest that people should expose themselves to information that helps them to understand—though not necessarily agree with—other perspectives,” Moy said.

While Moy would like to see the public’s trust reinvigorated somewhat, she also knows that some distrust is a healthy part of democracy. “People tend to think of a lack of trust as detrimental to the system,” Moy said. “A scenario where 90 percent of the people don’t trust the government is problematic. But the reverse scenario, where 90 percent of the people blindly trust the government, warrants concern as well. Too much complacency is dangerous.”

[Winter/Spring 2001 - Table of Contents]