Active Information Seeking, Online Information Availability and Political Trust

2020年春天，随着冠状病毒的死亡人数攀升至数千人，全国全面封锁，人们做出巨大个人牺牲的故事开始浮出水面：一名护理员连续数周与家人分开，住在养老院外的大篷车里；老年夫妇只能通过外面的窗户看到对方；医生和护士长时间工作，靠近有传染性的患者。但与此同时，一些高级部长和官员被发现违反了他们强加给其他人的规定，例如，他们在全国各地旅行时出现了已知的冠状病毒症状。虽然一些人辞职了，但一些关键人物保住了工作，并得到了政府的支持。18个月后，13.4万人死亡，保守党在民调中仍然领先。这给政治信任问题带来了什么影响？在一个“价格政治”(Pattie&Johnston，2012)的时代，人们对能力的认知是否盖过了个人诚信的重要性？随着媒体日益分散，网络信息来源日益丰富，选民如何对政治行为者和机构做出判断？增加信任的传统方式一直是提高透明度，但迄今为止的研究对这一解决方案产生了怀疑。对《信息自由法》(Hazell，Bourke&Worthy，2012)的审查发现，“没有证据表明它提高了公众对议会的理解或公众的参与；或者它增加了公众的信任”。信息的均衡呈现甚至可能降低公众对当局的信心(Grimmelikhuijsen，2011)。虽然在线新闻曝光的影响已经得到了很好的研究(例如Stromback&Shehata，2010)，但对这种情况下积极的在线信息寻求却知之甚少。拟议的项目旨在通过探索积极的在线信息寻求与政治信任之间的关系来填补这一空白。该项目将特别关注这种关系在多大程度上受到确认偏差、框架效应和算法规定的影响。在语音搜索快速增长的背景下，将考虑虚拟助手过滤信息的方式，以及在线信息搜索的个人层面的决定因素。该项目支持ESRC的研究重点：动荡时代的信任和全球治理。这项研究将与独立议会标准局(IPSA)合作进行，并将包括在该机构的一个职位。这一伙伴关系办法不仅将使该项目能够利用丰富的公共网站数据来源进行分析，而且还将使在线信息搜寻和信任试验能够在现实世界中进行。研究结果将被用来提供新的沟通策略，以增加信任，并增加对这一问题的学术理解。实验和数据分析将得到在线调查和定性方法的补充，如访谈和焦点小组。这种混合方法的优势在于，它不依赖于自我报告的在线活动衡量标准，这可能被证明是不准确的，并允许大型在线数据样本得到个人层面的洞察的补充。这项研究具有直接的政策适用性，因为研究结果可以为政府增加公众对政治机构和程序的信任的战略提供参考。

In spring 2020, with deaths from coronavirus climbing into the thousands and the country in full lockdown, stories started to emerge of people making enormous personal sacrifices: a care worker staying away from her family for weeks on end, living in a caravan outside a nursing home; elderly couples only able to see each other through an outside window; doctors and nurses working long hours in close proximity to contagious patients.Yet at the same time, a number of senior ministers and officials were found to have breached the rules that they had imposed on others, for example by travelling across the country with known coronavirus symptoms. While some resigned, several key figures kept their jobs and were backed by the government.Eighteen months and 134,000 deaths later, the conservative party is still ahead in the polls. Where does this leave the issue of political trust?In an era of "valence politics" (Pattie & Johnston, 2012), has perceived competence overshadowed the importance of personal integrity? With an increasingly fragmented media and abundance of online information sources, how do voters make judgements on political actors and institutions?The traditional formula for increasing trust has been to increase transparency, yet research to date casts doubt on this solution. A review of the Freedom of Information Act (Hazell, Bourke & Worthy, 2012) found "no evidence that it has improved public understanding of Parliament, or public participation; or that it has increased public trust". Balanced presentation of information may even reduce public confidence in the authorities (Grimmelikhuijsen, 2011).While the effects of online news exposure have already been well studied (e.g. Stromback & Shehata,2010), less is known about active online information seeking in this context.The proposed project looks to fill this gap by exploring the relationship between active online information seeking and political trust. The project will particularly focus on the extent to which this relationship is moderated by confirmation bias, framing effects and algorithmic prescribing.In the context of the rapid growth of voice search, the way that information is filtered by virtual assistants will be considered, as well as the individual-level determinants of online information seeking.The project supports the ESRC research priority "Trust and global governance in a turbulent age". It also contributes to the proposed future priority area, "New ways of being in a digital age" in relation to the political effects of digitalisation.The research will be carried out in collaboration with the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) and will include a placement at the authority. This partnership approach will not only provide the project with access to a rich source of public website data for analysis but will also allow experiments on online information seeking and trust to be carried out in a real-world setting. The research findings will be used to inform new communications strategies for increasing trust, as well as adding to academic understanding of the issue. The experiments and data analyses will be complemented by online surveys and qualitative methods such as interviews and focus groups. This mixed-methods approach has the advantages that it does not rely on self-reported measures of online activity, which may prove inaccurate, and allows large online data samples to be complemented by individual-level insights. The research has direct policy applicability, as the findings can inform government strategy for increasing public trust in political institutions and processes.