Prior research highlights broad democratic benefits of sustained public trust in the government, and the confidence that the government performs responsively addressing citizens’ problems (i.e., unemployment, cost of living). As social media enhances citizens’ opportunities to interact with journalists and elected officials, little is known about these communication effects on people’s government trust, and citizens’ evaluations about how well the government is addressing important society problems. Relying on a two-wave US representative panel survey data, this study builds on prior literature to introduce Twitter Communication with Democracy Actors: journalists and politicians, as a single, yet two-dimensional construct. Then, advancing different ordinary least squares (OLS) predictive panel models, results indicate that people who interact with democratic actors on Twitter trust the government and assess its overall functioning more positively. Additional moderating tests indicate social media interactions with democracy actors help citizens who might need it the most, specifically those who have lower levels of external political efficacy. The study provides theoretical implications of findings and suggestions for future research.

中文翻译：

---

民主参与者之间的 Twitter 沟通：与记者和民选官员的互动如何影响人民政府的绩效评估和信任

先前的研究强调了公众对政府持续信任的广泛民主效益，以及对政府积极解决公民问题（即失业、生活成本）的信心。随着社交媒体增加了公民与记者和民选官员互动的机会，人们对这些沟通对人民政府信任的影响以及公民对政府解决重要社会问题的评价的影响知之甚少。本研究以两波美国代表性小组调查数据为基础，以先前文献为基础，将 Twitter 与民主参与者（记者和政客）的沟通作为一个单一的二维结构进行介绍。然后，推进不同的普通最小二乘 (OLS) 预测小组模型，结果表明，在 Twitter 上与民主参与者互动的人们信任政府，并更积极地评估其整体运作。其他调节测试表明，社交媒体与民主参与者的互动可以帮助最需要它的公民，特别是那些外部政治效能水平较低的公民。该研究提供了研究结果的理论意义和对未来研究的建议。