A crisis of trust? Contesting the trustworthiness of government and science during the Covid-19-pandemic

The paper analyses how trust in representative government, science and the market is contested through the media. Can media coverage during the pandemic regarding the performance of governance (representative and economic) and of scientific facts lead to informed opinion-making and criticism? Or is media coverage during the pandemic conducive to the polarisation of political opinions, the mobilisation of extreme positions and the spread of fake news that targets the trustworthiness of scientists, government and political representatives? We ask: Who is (dis)trusted by whom with regard to what issues of concern and based on what principles during the pandemic? We approach these questions through a qualitative content analysis of major news outlet in combination with an analysis of selected user comments on news on Facebook in our seven partner countries. We systematically explore by whom trust was contested during the pandemic and who was mainly targeted as an object to be trusted or distrusted. We further investigate what are the main issues of concern that give rise to trust contestation and on the basis of what principles particular actors and institutions are trusted or distrusted.