Peter Jakobsson

This article provides a comprehensive review of research on distrust towards news media and journalism, a topic that has gained significant attention in recent years due to declining institutional trust and the rise of political disinformation. We analyse existing literature focusing on how media distrust has been studied and conceptualised, its explanations, and its consequences. We highlight the conceptual diversity and methodological plurality in the field, noting the varied definitions and operationalisations of distrust, as well as the dominance of quantitative approaches alongside significant qualitative contributions. The complex relationship between distrust in the media and democracy is also explored, revealing conflicting evidence on whether distrust leads to news avoidance and reduced political engagement or fosters critical media consumption and political engagement. The review underscores the need for clearer definitions and typologies of distrust, supplementing dichotomous operationalisations of trust/distrust with ones that capture distrust as a multidimensional phenomenon, with each dimension having different antecedents and consequences.

With the popularization of the internet in the 1990s, there was a need to reflect upon the state of media theory and invent new concepts for the theorization of digital media. One of the first and most far-reaching attempts to do so was the book The Language of New Media from 2001 by the Russian-American scholar and digital artist Lev Manovich. In this book, Manovich presents a theory of digital media which builds on the work of scholars such as Marshall McLuhan (Chapter 8 in this volume), Roland Barthes (Chapter 18) and Frederic Jameson (Chapter 21). This chapter introduces Manovich’s theory about the forms of digital media: the database and navigable space.

This article provides a discussion of some of the recent research on media trust focusing on arguments for why media trust matters. What are the arguments for why trust is important? Are there reasons to accept these arguments? We identify three distinct arguments in the literature. First, that it is important for media organizations and for the media as an industry. Secondly, that media trust is essential for democratic citizenship and for bringing forth informed individuals with the capacity for political engagement. Lastly, that media trust is similar to other forms of (social) trust and connected to a wider existential discussion on ontological security. None of these arguments are totally convincing when inspected more closely and in light of empirical research. The article thus concludes that there is a lack of strong arguments for why falling levels of trust in the news media are legitimately described as a crisis or a problem. A supposed “trust crisis” mainly exists when viewed from what must be described as a rather narrow ideological and normative perspective.

The concept of the Media Welfare State describes Nordic specificity in how media are organised and how they serve a lively and inclusive democracy. This article engages in a dialogue in regards to the contention that this media system has persisted in the midst of rapid social change. We synthesise previous research and documented changes in media policy in Sweden, covering the last three decades, to show the ways in which the Swedish media system has undergone significant transformations. Media use is becoming more polarised and connected to social class. The state is retreating from its involvement in media policy; consequently, the press and public service media are facing unprecedented challenges. Finally, the “consensual” relation between media companies and the state, which is said to be typical for the media welfare state, no longer characterises the media market. While some of the features of the media welfare state system remain in Sweden, the current media system is best characterised as a neoliberal media welfare state. The article discusses tensions and conflicts in the existing model and possible future developments.