Jenna Stanco

December 18th, 2023

Analyzing Measures Affecting Public Confidence in the Press through Multi-Variable

Regression:

Dire times call for dire measures, or at least, the dire need to analyze the roots of public

behaviors in order to properly assess how to synergistically proceed. In an era of extreme

political polarization, exacerbated by social media and the public’s ability to self-inform itself,

the function of misinformation and information distribution has become a vital topic in the

conversation of the press’s power.

Due to a variety of factors, demographic groups that account for the general public often

feel underrepresented in mainstream news media, resulting in anomie, which can be defined as

the feeling of being disconnected from society. This concept of perpetuated anomie can lead

these communities to search elsewhere for their information. Social media, which has generally

manifested itself as a cesspool of polarizing ideals, normalized hate speech, and fake news, has

become an outlet for the public to turn to in order to self-inform itself. The issue of this exists in

the format of social media itself, which is fundamentally structured to polarize. Aside from the

good it can do when used appropriately by the media literate, social media is a mass platform

that often manufactures the illusion of normalcy around abnormal behaviors, creates toxic in-

groups that dehumanize their out-groups, and seeks to inspire bigotry within uncensored

algorithms.

Essentially, by the public lacking confidence in the press, untrustworthy and unregulated

sources are utilized, and the fallout manifests in the propagation of extremism. A fate that our
country is susceptible to, and a fate that must be controlled. The question then falls to journalists

and news outlets: How can we minimize this exponentially exacerbated damage? In order to

attack this query, we can ask different ones, effectively refocusing to target the root of the issue:

How can we increase public confidence in the press, or more specifically, why does the public

mistrust news outlets to begin with? How can newsrooms maintain viewership? And thus, the

target of my study, what demographic, behavioral, and political factors tend to contribute to

public confidence in the press?

Thus, it is imperative as journalists to assess the sway of our work on public opinion, as

their level of confidence and trust for news outlets is a pivotal factor in assessing the impact of

reporting. Using the General Social Survey (GSS) and its 2022 respondents, I will test to see how

and if trust in US news media is affected by variables such as race, age, income, political

affiliation, education, and news digestion. Additionally, I will analyze how public confidence in

the press operates coincided with public confidence in other relative government institutions.

While the results of the regression do not necessarily imply strong correlation for the factors that

would be seemingly prevalent, they do in fact indicate other associated areas of piqued interest. I

digress. Let’s dive in.

 Literature Review

Over the past five decades, there has been a substantial and impossible to disregard

decline in public confidence in all political institutions (Gronke & Cook, 2001). This effectively

sets the stage for a potential crisis in American democracy. Previous studies have begun to utilize

a multitude of factors to combat this looming threat.

To broaden the conversation, and to simultaneously narrow my study, we can look at

what variables affect how the public views all public institutions prior to focusing on the press

solely. A recent study exploring self-reported measures of confidence outlines behavioral biases

that may cause demographic groups to shift blame to the government, specifically under

economic hardship (Chatterjee, 2023). Results indicate not only a correlation between

individuals dealing with financial hardship and their self-reported confidence levels, but also

strong correlation between governments with increased trust and economic growth. Additionally,

it can be concluded that there is a significant association between public trust in institutions and,

frankly, at the most basic level, how the government is performing (Newton & Norris, 2000).

Essentially, if a government is performing poorly, its citizens will fail to trust it. The 2000’s study

uses the following rhetoric to generalize this phenomenon: “Few people can escape at least

some of the consequences of national economic failure, foreign policy disasters, government

corruption, or increased taxes. In this sense, ‘the rain falls on the just and unjust alike,’ so

disillusionment or, alternatively, satisfaction with government is likely to be widespread among

people '' (Newton & Norris, 2000).

 While this claim implies that an individual’s trust in government is rather random, or at

least relative to their own situation, my research will search further to attempt to outline stand-

out demographic qualities that contribute to a more precise conversation, confidence in the press.

Furthermore, it is imperative to note that while the press is an institution of declining trust in

itself, previous research indicates that it also serves as a determining factor in how individuals

trust other institutions as well (Moy et al., 1999).

Given that the press is now a ginormous multi-media outlet, and news consumption can

often be incidental due to volume and accessibility, it is imperative to outline how a high-choice

news environment can facilitate trust (Taneja & Yaeger, 2019). In other words, where an

individual gets their news from can have drastic effects on how they perceive their sources.

Because of incidental exposure, Taneja & Yaeger conclude that engagement has little correlation

with trustworthiness, while intentional usage is positively associated- a conclusion that does not

falter when controlling for partisanship. If an individual deems a source credible and

continuously seeks information from them, they tend to have more trust in the press (Moy &

Pfau, 2000).

On this topic, in order to assess trust in news media, we must look at how American’s

discern media credibility. In a study done in 2007, researchers heavily relied on this construct of

credibility in order to analyze trust in the press, concluding that credibility is, for lack of a better

term, in the eye of the beholder (Kohring & Matthes, 2007). With this being said, we can look at

further research with knowledge that readers, despite the media they choose to digest (or if they

choose to digest news media at all), will invariably search to fit their confirmation bias (Denham,

2021). Simply put, people seek out information that will contribute to what they already believe.
Knowing this, we can assess these patterns of thinking in the lines they are presented to us: by

politically affiliated sources.

In a study conducted in 2004, centered around a regression using Media Trust as the key

variable of interest, researchers concluded that an individual's partisanship has a strong effect on

their confidence in the press (Jones, 2004). 16.5% of Democrats were considered media skeptics,

compared to 40% of Republicans, indicating an ideological component in news trust. Self-

reported conservatives possessed significantly higher levels of distrust, possibly attributed to

constant accusations from right-wing elites that new outlets harbor liberal bias. The data of the

study also indicates that these unsatisfied conservatives are much more likely to turn towards talk

radio for their news. Denham goes further within his research, using the GSS of previous years,

to use confidence in the press as an independent variable when assessing confidence in science

(Denham, 2021). His results, which demonstrate that those who are male, white, highly educated,

and have high confidence in press are more likely to report greater trust in science, complete a

picture perfectly painted when juxtaposed with Trump’s presidency; the 2018 GSS uses political

party affiliation as a determinant of confidence in the press, starkly contrasting the GSS of years

during Obama’s presidency.

Prior research undoubtedly indicates that party affiliation is a vital indicator of media

trust, begging the next natural question of why. The influence of elite rhetoric and calls from

political leaders to ignore what journalists cast upon them can be considered (Toff et al., 2020).

Moreover, Trump and other right-wing elites public besmirchment of journalists is certainly an

answer, but the roots of this phenomenon travel deeper (Gronke & Cook, 2007). Illuminating the

rest of the world, the United States has experienced the “largest and most dramatic decline in
trust in the press” (Hanitzsch et al., 2018), followed by Australia and New Zealand, pointing a

potential finger at the two-party system that has historically dominated these nations.

Aside from political party affiliation, which has been studied as a vital component of

confidence of the press, what other variables can influence public trust in media? It is natural to

consider income (Chatterjee, 2023), as well education level (Denham, 2021). Moreover, race,

age, sexual orientation are significant factors, accounting for the issue of misrepresentation that

effectively alienates viewers (Gronke & Cook, 2007). It is also essential to investigate the press

itself, assessing potential corruption (Carroll, 2023).

In using large data sets, journalistic methodology has advanced alongside data retrieval

methods to quantify everyday concepts (Lewis, 2015). With this in mind, my regression analysis

will be a quantitatively rooted endeavor to describe the demographic, social, and behavioral

qualities that manifest in confidence in the press, paying mind to conceptual distinctness of

control variables by qualitatively specifying theoretical context (Gordon, 1968).

With all previous research considered, an array of potential variables and their

significance can be considered. To properly assess how the general public perceives the press,

and to discern why they don’t, confounding variables such as incidental exposure or platform

preference must be eliminated. Considering this factor is out of reach, we can extend to

determinants within our realm, while controlling for other variables.

While controlling for other factors, I hypothesize a strong correlation between political

party affiliation and confidence in the press, specifically that republicans will tend to express less

confidence in the press, exemplifying a negative relationship. Moreover, I expect to find a

positive correlation between age and confidence in the press, indicating that older generations

will trust the news more, potentially due to more time spent watching TV news media. I

hypothesize that race and sexual orientation will suggest high correlation as well, and that

respondents who are Black or gay will have less confidence in the press. Finally, I expect to find

that individuals who demonstrate high confidence in other government institutions will report

higher levels of trusting the press. This hypothesis will be tested separately, as to minimize the

effects of reverse causality.

Data & Methodology

For this study, I will be utilizing the 2022 General Social Survey (GSS), which is a cross-

sectional data collection set recorded from May to December of 2022. The GSS data files are

readily available for public use via the internet or, if you struck gold like me, provided via the

SMPA 2152: Data Analysis class files. The GSS has been conducted since 1972, and implores

3,544 respondents to report answers to a variety of demographic, behavioral, and attitudinal

queries. No data cleaning or variable creation was necessary for this study.

My dependent variable for this research is confidence in press (conpress), which I will

study alongside two sets of explanatory variables. The first will include political party affiliation

(partyid), highest year of school completed (educ), time spent reading the newspaper (news),

respondents income (rincome16), age of respondent (age), race of respondent (race), and sexual

orientation (sexornt). The second regression will include confidence in education (coneduc),

confidence in television (contv), confidence in the scientific community (consci), confidence in

medicine (conmedic), confidence in SCOTUS (conjudge), confidence in congress (conlegis),

confidence in the executive branch of the federal government (confed), and confidence in the

military (conarmy).

A sum command of all variables can be found below:

 Results

As seen in the regression above, a multitude of conclusions can be drawn, or cannot be

drawn, from our data. As a whole, the regression produced an r-squared value of .1648,

indicating that the model accounts for %16.48 of variance in confidence in the press. The root

mean squared error sits at .59092, signifying that the average deviation of the model's residuals
are approximately .59092 units from the actual values. While this does not exemplify an optimal

r-squared value for a satisfactory regression model, it comes as the sacrifice of incorporating a

multitude of variables.

Our dependant variable, conpress, is measured in three response categories: “a great deal

of confidence,” “only some confidence,” and “hardly any confidence at all.” In considering our

explanatory variables, we can assess statistical significance by analyzing them one by one.

Partyid has a coefficient of 0.0997933, indicating that for every one unit increase in

conpress, partyid increases by 0.0997933. Partyid is also measured in response categories,

including strong Democrat, not a very strong Democrat, Independent close to Democrat,

Independent, Independent close to Republican, not a very strong Republican, strong Republican,

and other parties. Considering that self-reporting as a strong republican is numerically valued

lower within this scale, we can conclude that Democrats are more likely to express confidence in

the press. The result is also statistically significant, with a t-value of 5.33 and a p-value of 0.00,

meaning that political affiliation is a strong predictor of confidence in the press.

Educ is valued by years of school completed, ranging from 0-20. With a coefficient of

-.0016971, we can discern that for every unit increase in confidence in the press, we can expect

education to decrease by -.0016971. Essentially, this indicates that less years of schooling will

lead to more confidence in the press. However, with a t-value of -.11 and a p-value of 0.910, the

results are not statistically significant and education level can not be considered a valid predictor

of confidence in the press.

News is another variable that is measured by choice responses, with the respondent being

asked how often they read the news and their answer choices categorically grouped into every
day, a few times a week, once a week, less than once a week, and never. With a coefficient of

0.0715243, we can conclude that for every one unit increase in news digestion, confidence in the

press rises by 0.0715243. At a t-value of 2.72 and a p-value of .007, these results are statistically

significant and indicate that people who read the newspaper regularly are more likely to have

confidence in the press.

Rincom16 has a coefficient of -0.0007843, indicating that for every one unit increase in

the respondent’s income, confidence in the press decreases by -0.0007843. This would

demonstrate that the richer an individual is, the less they trust the press. With a low t-value and

high p-value, however, the result is not statistically significant.

Age has a coefficient of -0.0010882, demonstrating that for every one unit increase in the

respondent’s age, confidence in the press decreases by -0.0010882. This would demonstrate that

the older an individual is, the less they trust the press. With a low t-value and high p-value,

however, the result is not statistically significant.

Sexual orientation is measured categorically, grouped into homosexual, bisexual, and

heterosexual, respectively. With a coefficient of 0.0958248, we can conclude that for a one unit

increase in sexornt, confidence in the press increases by 0.0958248. Generally, this would mean

that if an individual is gay, they’re more likely to trust the news. However, with a low t-value and

high p-value, the result is not statistically significant.

Race is also grouped categorically: white, black, and other. Black respondents display a

coefficient of -0.0157098, indicating that being Black will decrease confidence in the press by

-0.0157098 units. Other races produce a similar negative relationship. However, with a low t-

value and high p-value, the result is not statistically significant.

 To summarize these results, the main predictors that can be attributed to confidence in the

press are political party affiliation and time spent reading the newspapers. While all other

explanatory variables provide a relationship with confidence in the press, none exhibit statistical

significance.

In the regression above, we can see that when comparing confidence levels in all public

institutions, the data displays much more substantial, correlated results. Overall, the model

displays a decent amount of explanatory power with an r-squared of .3634. This essentially

means that 36.34% of the variance in confidence of the press is attributed to the explanatory

variables above. The average error of the model is .51586, as described by the root mean squared

error.
 As confidence in the press is, all of the explanatory variables in relation to confidence in

public institutions are measured categorically: “a great deal of confidence,” “only some

confidence,” and “hardly any confidence at all.” Let’s analyze them one by one.

Confidence in the education system has a coefficient of .0542352, indicating a one unit

increase for every .0542352 increase in confidence in the press. Essentially, having higher

confidence in the education system is positively associated with confidence in the press. With a t-

value of 2.72, this result is statistically significant.

Confidence in television has a coefficient of .2852893, demonstrating that for a one unit

change in TV confidence, press confidence will increase by .2852893. People who trust

television media are more likely to have higher levels of confidence in the press. With a t-value

of 14.57, this result is extremely statistically significant and can be attributed with the most

correlation.

Confidence in science has a coefficient of .1003113. For a one unit change in confidence

in science, press confidence will increase by .1003113, indicating that those who trust science are

more likely to trust the news. This result is statistically significant, with a t-value of 5.33.

Confidence in medicine has a coefficient of .0818051, indicating a one unit increase for

every .0818051 increase in confidence in the press. Essentially, having higher confidence in

medicine is positively associated with confidence in the press. With a t-value of 4.20, this result

is statistically significant.

Confidence in the judicial branch of government provides a negative correlation with

confidence in the press, indicating that people who trust the judicial branch are -0.0596683 more

likely to trust news media. With a t-value of -3.48, this result is statistically significant.
 Confidence in the legislative branch of government has a coefficient of .1126324. For a

one unit change in confidence in the legislative branch, press confidence will increase by

.1126324, indicating that those who trust congress are more likely to trust the news. This result is

statistically significant, with a t-value of 4.81.

Confidence in the executive branch of government has a coefficient of .2694608,

demonstrating that for a one unit change in confidence in the president, press confidence will

increase by .2694608. Conclusively, people who trust the president and their administration are

more likely to have higher levels of confidence in the press. With a t-value of 12.99, this result is

extremely statistically significant.

Finally, confidence in the military provides a negative correlation with confidence in the

press, indicating that people who trust the military are -0.0509787 more likely to trust news

media. With a t-value of -2.89, this result is statistically significant.

These results indicate high statistical significance between trust in news media and trust

in other public institutions. In most cases, it is likely to assume that trusting one facet of

government signals trusting in the media, with the exceptions of SCOTUS and the military. This

result is likely generalizable, considering the moderately high r-squared.

Conclusion

Through regression analysis, we can draw substantial inferences about public confidence

in the press and explanatory variables. The strongest and most reliable predictors of what makes

an individual trust in the media are drawn down to political party affiliation, time spent reading

the news, confidence in television, and confidence in President Biden and his administration. As
hypothesized, Republicans tend to trust the press far less than democrats, which, juxtaposed with

my literature review, is the fundamental takeaway from this research.

I stand corrected on my other hypotheses, struggling to find statistical significance on

what were seemingly imperative variables. Despite the results of my regression and the outcome

that age, race, sexual orientation, and income were not highly correlated with media confidence,

I have a strong inclination towards believing this isn’t the case. I may have been limited by my

data set, the way these particular variables were measured, or a variable somewhere within the

GSS that is accounting for a large effect on my data that wasn’t found. Especially in my first

regression, where my number of observations is a mere 280 of 3,544 respondents, I suspect a

potential measurement error hidden within the GSS. Moreover, this study would benefit from

variables not accounted for in the GSS as well, such as type of media consumption (radio,

newspaper, site, television, social media), or screen time, to account for incidental exposure.

In an era of alarming polarization, which simultaneously is caused by and leads to social

media in-group extremism, journalists must assess how their audience regards them, why

viewers have alienated themselves, and how public confidence in the press can be increased for

the sake of upholding American democracy. Ultimately, through a comprehensive literature

review and statistical analysis, a clear conclusion can be drawn that those with right-leaning

beliefs tend to exhibit lower levels of trust in the press than left-leaning counterparts. While

political ideology is only one facet of many factors influencing trust in the news, it is

simultaneously one that holds substantial weight in the context of navigating information

distribution in the digital age. Further research on this topic could explore the roots of this

partisan distinction, what conservative ideals lead to media distrust, how much of media distrust
is at the fault of Trump and the accusations of other right-leaning elite, and how and if right-wing

media outlets have contributed to the plague that is their alienated audience. Conclusively, the

discovery of this intricate relationship between political ideology and confidence in the press

extends beyond the academic realm, providing practical insight on repairing the cracks in the

public’s view of American institutions.

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Appendix