Andrius Vaišnys, Magnus Tomas Kėvišas
Vilnius University
The aim is to present the circumstances of social trust in traditional and electronic media and their dependence on the funding model. Over the last 20 years, trust in traditional news media has declined, dramatically so in Lithuania. Many reasons behind the dynamic have been outlined in research conducted in various EU countries. The specific and exceptional Lithuanian realities, especially the causal infrastructure that might have precipitated the collapse in the trust, have never been investigated. We report (1) from results of especially commissioned newly conducted public opinion polls and (2) from a series of structured in-depth interviews with the publishers and editors of the Lithuanian regional/local weekly newspapers. We argue that the field itself laments the deliberately created and now objectively observable strategic news industry organization model – especially so the poorly constructed state funding allocation mechanism. It seems to be one of the causes contributing to the substantial fragmentation in the industry. This fragmentation, in turn, tends to produce information bubbles or pockets, and precludes any tendencies towards convergence. The contradictions, inconsistencies, even mutual exclusivity made not only visible but being constantly highlighted in a field that lacks any kind of more dominant sources of authority might be one of the (unforeseen, but deliberately created) causes behind the collapse in the trust in news. We conclude by arguing in favor of a revision of the Lithuanian model of state funding for the media.
Andrius Vaišnys, prof.dr., Vilnius university
Magnus Tomas Kevišas, PhD student, Vilnius university