The dynamics of the flow of information : A study on the effects of the digital flow of information on citizen's trust towards the representative bodies within a democracy

Previous research has found a diverging trend between utilising social media (web 2.0) and traditional news media (web 1.0) on citizens trust towards democracy and democratic processes. This essay aims to investigate if this trend holds true in a Swedish context during a non-election year, and in doing so hope to advance the understanding of said trend. Thus, the following essay will investigate the change in trust towards the representative bodies within Sweden, with regards to the effects of either using social media or traditional media online as a means to take part of the digital flow of information. This is done by utilizing the SOM-survey, which collects information regarding citizen’s attitudes and general opinions towards political, social and medial habits every year. The data from this survey is then transformed into various indexes, with regards to citizens use of either web 1.0 or web 2.0, and their trust towards political institutions, and tested in an MRA-analysis. The findings of this study confirm the diverging trend between using web 1.0 and web 2.0 on citizen’s political trust. However, the positive correlation between web 1.0 and trust loose its statistical significance when a higher level of education is a factor. That is to say, academics tend to be less affected by web 1.0 with regards to their trust in representative bodies within the democracy. However, on the other hand the opposite holds true for web 2.0, where an inclusion of a higher level of education strengthens a negative correlation