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The erosion of media trust raises concerns about the ways in which the conduit of political information could undermine citizens' trust in democracy. While a large body of research in western democracies shows that media trust is contingent on specific media-system, political and cultural factors pertaining to national contexts, little is known about the sources of media trust in the new democracies from Central and Eastern Europe. Based on statistical analyses of public opinion surveys, this research tests if levels of trust in various traditional (television, radio, written press) and alternative mediums (Internet and online social networks) are differentiated along political party lines and depending on media consumption patterns in post-communist Romania. The results reveal a stronger association between trust in political parties and trust in traditional mediums, while trust in online media is more strongly linked to consumption patterns. These findings have practical, theoretical and normative implications for the functioning of democracy in post-communist societies.

This article examines the relationship between media & the partisan ministerial staff of the Government Office. The main objective of the article is to make a contribution to the knowledge about & comprehension of how medialization has affected the work of the partisan ministerial staff. The article is empirically based on four focus groups, with respectively ministers, secretaries of state, political advisors & press secretaries working under the third Persson government (2002-2006). The article demonstrates that media management is an area that The Government Office was not originally adapted for. Therefore media & communication do not enter into the existing routines & formal decision-making processes of the organization. As a result, media challenge both the process behind the government's collective decision-making & the up-holding of the impression that the government decides collectively. Thus, there is a need for complementary routines for the contacts between the partisan staff & the civil servants. Adapted from the source document.

By affecting conceptualizations of crime, media depictions of crime play a crucial part in the way criminal policy is shaped. An analysis of Swedish newspaper articles suggest that crime today is depicted in a more exclusionary way than a few decades ago. This is particularly true for the culprit, whose actions are accounted for in an individualized way. Crime victims are described in a manner that invites identification. During the 1980s, media depictions change from structural accounts of the crime to individualized accounts of the culprit and the criminal deed, often in terms of the psychology of the culprit However, it is not until around 1990 that the media depiction of the crime victim change, with fairly neutral descriptions being replaced by more detailed and personal images. In contemporary media stories, crime and criminality are seen as external threats to society. The culprit is depicted as an intruder, and often also as disordered or irrational. The victim, on the other hand, is depicted as a human being just as you and I, with a particular personality. The consumer of these media stories is primarily encouraged to identify with the victim and those close to him or her. Adapted from the source document.

How political scientists appear in different media & how these appearances may result in distorted information is analyzed. Scientists may present their research, comment on ongoing political issues, or lift up particular issues to public debate. Adapted from the source document.

The professional communicators inside the Swedish Government Office are today 140 (compared to a single one 40 years ago & just twenty 15 years ago), giving support to the idea that the media now has a major impact on everyday business inside the Government. This article shows that this partly true, as the media mainly have an effect on the politicians, the partisan ministerial staff & the communicators. But the relationship between the Government Offices & the media could also be turned around. The Government have resources for external communication no lesser than an international news agency's, & does oil a daily basis deliver an impressive amount of press releases & conferences -- and information leaks -- that the media has to handle. This article examines & analyses how the Swedish Government Offices, through new posts, units & strategies, has institutionalized & centralized its' media contacts during the last 40 years, as well as the reasons & the internal consequences of this development. Adapted from the source document.

The purpose is to discuss the relationship between populism & journalism at three different levels: populism as an invective, populism as news criteria & populism as news ideology. Sometimes populism is used pejoratively by scholars in fine with its general use in the media as synonym of opportunism, demagogy & overzealous search for popularity. Sometimes populism in the media is mainly linked to the newsworthiness of charismatic political leaders & their rhetoric. Sometimes scholars see an ideological kinship between populism & the journalistic ideology manifesting itself in the so-called media logic. Mazzoleni calls this media populism. The main limitation of the media populism approach is its normative starting point. This also ignores the fact that both populism & media logic are part of different media-political systems with different characteristics depending on the political, economical, cultural & historical background. A historical-political approach to the relation between populism & journalism in different media systems, as defined by Hallin & Mancini seems to be more fruitful. Adapted from the source document.