Authors : Daesung Jun, Nakbum Choi and Dongwook Kim
Abstract: The prevalent use of the internet has increased the tendency of people making decisions based on the information found on the internet, however there have been limited research on how the internet use influences trust in government. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which the use of the internet influence trust in government. In addition, this study examines moderating effects of using social media and internet forum on relationship between the use of the internet and trust in government. The regression analysis has been conducted using the data from the citizen perception survey of 2012 to study the effects of the internet usage on the trust in government. Interaction terms were added to the baseline model in order to test moderating effects. The results of this analysis suggests that the misguided information from the internet may negatively influence people’s trust in government. Multiple regression analyses showed that the more the government-related information is acquired from the internet, the more negative impact is on the trust in government in the case of the Korean people. Furthermore, the negative relationship between the use of the internet and trust in government appears to be reinforced when the government-related information is retrieved through the internet fora and social media. Civil efforts such as developing internet literacy should be continued to encourage the individuals to distinguish quality and credible information from false information. Governments also need to put in an effort to provide citizens with a proper guidance for acquiring information and to inform them of risks of free contents from free media and other different sources.
Daesung Jun, Nakbum Choi and Dongwook Kim, 2017. Internet Use and Trust in Government. Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 12: 3779-3787.