Media studies, Vol. 15 No. 29, 2024.
Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.20901/ms.15.29.2
Danger, imagined threat, or conspiracy? Media, politics, and attitude towards the COVID-19 pandemic and the response to it in Croatia
Andrija Henjak
orcid.org/0000-0003-4783-5796
; Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb
Bartul Vuksan-Ćusa
orcid.org/0000-0002-5158-9164
; Faculty of Political sciences Zagreb
Abstract
The study explores which factors shape the attitude of citizens towards the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), their evaluation of the measures taken against the disease, and their trust in the national anti-pandemic system. To examine to what extent the social and economic position of the respondents, the attitude towards traditional divisions, the attitude towards politics and the party in power, and the attitude towards the media shape the attitude towards the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), survey data collected at the beginning of the second wave of the pandemic are used. Regression models show that age, attitudes towards the political system and elites, political awareness, and trust in the media are the factors that most shaped the public’s attitude towards COVID-19, anti-pandemic measures, and the national anti-pandemic system. Traditional cleavages and the individual’s economic position have a significantly smaller effect. At the same time, the attitude towards the party in power shaped the evaluation of measures and the attitude towards the anti-pandemic system, but not how the nature of COVID-19 was understood. Trust in the media is the variable that systematically has the most robust effect on all dependent variables in the analysis.
Keywords
COVID-19; trust in the media; antielitism; covid-19 measures; polarization
Hrčak ID:
320725
URI
Publication date:
16.9.2024.
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