Mediated dis/trust in government and science during covid-19 in Greece, Serbia and Poland

The recent revival of the concept of polarization reflects the growing concern for the impact it has on democracy. As documented by previous studies, political polarization and dis/trust in institutions is inextricably linked. In a separate line of inquiry, trust in media and news is often correlated to the dis/trust in government and science. However, the role of media in contesting or affirming trust in different social actors has rarely been studied, especially comparatively. Drawing on data from the Horizon project Entrust, this paper will focus on the contestations of trust in science and government in newspapers from Greece, Poland and Serbia, countries showing low citizens' trust, low levels of press freedom and strong governmental majorities dominating the media. Aiming to broaden our understanding of trust nexus, we provide the analysis of the forms of trust building through the media, focusing on how polarized media environments function as driving forces of dis/trust in three countries. The conjecture of the covid-19 pandemic offers the opportunity to test patterns of trust building, and to examine whether it led to polarized or homogenous attribution of trust in government, and how it affected the portrayal of dis/trust in science.