Political Trust and Russian Media in Latvia
Volume 4, Issue 2 (2018), pp. 2–9
Pub. online: 30 December 2018
Type: Research Article
Open Access
Open Access
Received
12 November 2018
12 November 2018
Accepted
13 November 2018
13 November 2018
Published
30 December 2018
30 December 2018
Abstract
Russia’s attempts to influence public opinion outside its borders attracted increased interest in the context
of its involvement in the war in Ukraine, Brexit referendum, the elections in the US and other political processes in the
West. This article focuses on the assumption that Russian activities in the information environment of NATO and the
EU member states among other things are aimed at undermining public trust in democratic governance institutions.
Russian state-owned media is one of the tools about how Kremlin disseminates and promotes its worldview within and
outside Russia’s borders; therefore, the research questions being addressed in this paper are related to the relationship
between political trust and consumption of Russian media. To study this issue, Latvia was chosen as an outstanding
case due to the relatively large presence of Russian media content in its information environment. The paper examines
the trends of Russian media consumption and political trust in Latvia to assess if this is a fruitful further research area
since linking political trust and Russia’s information activities is a new perspective on the issue. The theoretical part of
the paper outlines the concept of political trust and the factors affecting it as they are identified in previous research,
with a specific focus on the impact of media on political trust. The empirical part of the paper examines the trends in
the growth of the audience of the TV channels retranslating Russian media content and political trust in Latvia in the
period from 2007 to 2017. Considering that political trust in Latvia is increasing alongside with an increase in Russian
media consumption, this paper suggests several further research directions with a focus on political and economic
performance indicators and the impact of domestic media.
