Institutional Trust in the Croatian Post-Socialist Context
Institutional Trust in the Croatian Post-Socialist Context

Summary/Abstract: The purpose of this article is to determine the position of trust in media in relation to trust in other political institutions in Croatia. The main assumption is that institutional trust is a multidimensional phenomenon, which is as such evaluated by citizens who are able to distinguish different institutions and evaluate them according to individual performance. Furthermore, the article aims to define the determinants of each underlying dimension of institutional trust. The study draws from data gathered within the project Trust in Media 2009, on a nationally representative sample for Croatia (n=1000). First, dimensions of trust were defined by the method of principal components (Varimax). The results confirmed the multidimensionality of institutional trust. Five dimensions (sub-scales) of institutional trust were extracted: trust in party and business elite, trust in state institutions, trust in cultural elite, trust in EU and trust in media. Results did not confirm the hypothesis on trust in media as a completely independent dimension of institutional trust. Second, inter-correlation and regression analysis was applied in order to determine trust in different dimensions of institutional trust. Frequency of media use proved to be the best predictor of institutional trust. Frequency of television viewing has a positive effect on trust in state institutions, while there was no evidence of the effect of reading daily newspapers on trust.

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