Can TV Politics Improve the Trust Pattern of “Intimate Central Government and Alienate Local Government”?

The hierarchical and descending trust pattern among Chinese citizens toward governments at all levels, characterized by a stronger trust in the central government and a weaker trust in local governments, often leads to the “Tacitus trap” in local government governance. As a new platform for public participation and local government supervision, can TV political programs improve the trust pattern of “intimate central government and alienate local government,” and achieve a balance of trust between the central and local governments? Using data from the Social Consciousness Survey Data of Netizens 2018, we conducted an empirical analysis of the impact of TV political programs on residents’ trust patterns toward different levels of government. The results of this study show that: first, the opening of TV political programs can significantly narrow the trust gap between the central and local governments. This primarily achieved by significantly increasing the level of trust that residents have in the provincial government. Second, influence mechanism reveals that the introduction of of TV political programs can reduce the residents’ trust gap between central and local governments mainly by bolstering government transparency, fortifying government responsiveness, and boosting residents’ political efficacy. Third, the heterogeneity analysis indicates that TV political programs can significantly improve the trust gap between central and local governments among various groups, including women, youth, democratic party members and the public, high digitalization ability, residents in the east and provincial capital cities. Fourth, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the opening of TV political programs significantly increase residents’ trust in the central government but do not significantly raise residents’ trust in local governments. This may, to some extent, reinforce the trend of “intimate central government and alienate local government” among the public .