Media skepticism and reactions to political scandals: An analysis of the Trump–Ukraine case
| Published date | 01 November 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/01925121211073005 |
| Author | Hugo Marcos-Marne,Pablo González-González,Homero Gil de Zúñiga |
| Date | 01 November 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Original Research Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/01925121211073005
International Political Science Review
2023, Vol. 44(5) 645 –660
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/01925121211073005
journals.sagepub.com/home/ips
Media skepticism and reactions to
political scandals: An analysis of the
Trump–Ukraine case
Hugo Marcos-Marne
University of Salamanca, Spain
Pablo González-González
University of Salamanca, Spain
Homero Gil de Zúñiga
University of Salamanca, Spain
Pennsylvania State University, USA
Abstract
While the discussion on the individual level variables that affect responses to political scandals has focused
mainly on variables such as partisan identity or political cynicism, we suggest that media skepticism could also
moderate whether and how individuals respond to political scandals. To test this relationship, we rely on panel
data from the United States gathered before and after the Trump–Ukraine scandal occurred (Wave 1 in June
2019, Wave 2 in October 2019). Our results show that individuals who rank higher on media skepticism hold
comparatively more positive views of Trump after the scandal, even when previous evaluations and alternative
explanations are controlled for. Conversely, we find no effect of media skepticism in trust toward the US
political system and government. We believe our findings have significant consequences to understanding the
relationship between the governed and those governing in times of widespread media skepticism.
Keywords
Media skepticism, scandals, political evaluations, selective exposure, United States
Introduction
The effects of political scandals have long interested social scientists working from very different
perspectives, which is hardly surprising, given their consequences can affect the functioning of
*Homero Gil de Zúñiga is also affiliated to Universidad Diego Portales, Chile
Corresponding author:
Hugo Marcos-Marne, University of Salamanca, Facultad de Derecho, Paseo Francisco Tomás y Valiente S/N, Salamanca,
37007, Spain.
Email: marcosmarne@usal.es
1073005IPS0010.1177/01925121211073005International Political Science ReviewMarcos-Marne et al.
research-article2022
Original Research Article
646 International Political Science Review 44(5)
democracies (von Sikorski, 2018). On the one hand, individuals may react negatively to political
scandals, diminishing their support levels toward political institutions and actors. But, on the other
hand, scandals may end up having positive consequences in terms of support, mainly when known
to the public, and as long the politicians involved are punished for their misbehavior (Maier, 2010;
Praino and Stockemer, 2021). While it seems uncontested to say that there is a high variation in how
individuals react to political scandals, there is still room to understand the micro-foundations of this
variation. This paper seeks to advance this literature by introducing media skepticism as an anteced-
ent of reactions to political scandals. Building upon literature that examines how much information
individuals receive about public affairs and how this information is processed (Garrett et al., 2012;
Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2018), we expect high levels of media skepticism to diminish people’s negative
reactions to political scandals. That is, higher levels of media skepticism will lead to less negative
reactions in terms of political trust (buffering effect), after a scandal takes place.
To test this relationship, we use an online survey panel study conducted in the United States
(US). The first wave of data collection began in June 2019, and the second one in October 2019, a
couple of weeks after the Trump–Ukraine scandal made it to the front pages of influential media
outlets. The scandal started with a whistleblower complaint filed on August 12th, 2019, in which
an anonymous intelligence officer showed his concern because Trump may have used ‘the power
of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 US elections’ (Mettler and
Lieberman, 2020). This hint led to a phone call between Trump and the Ukrainian president,
Volodymyr Zelensky, in which Trump used a rhetoric of ‘quid pro quo,’ alluding implicitly to with-
held funding and inviting Zelensky to the White House. In exchange for that, Zelensky would
announce investigations on the potentially corrupt behavior of the son of Joe Biden, Trump’s com-
petitor for the 2020 elections, and allegations stating that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 US elec-
tions by hacking the Democratic National Committee’s network. Utilizing a quasi-experimental
setting, our panel study allows us to observe changes in attitudes after a scandal while controlling
for previous evaluations of actual political actors (i.e., Donald Trump) and institutions (i.e., US
government and political system), something difficult to obtain when experiments with fictional
candidates are applied (von Sikorski et al., 2020).
Our results show that media skepticism influences reactions to political scandals. Individuals
who ranked higher on media skepticism displayed comparatively more favorable views of Trump
after the Ukraine scandal, even when previous evaluations and relevant competing explanations
were controlled for. The effect of media skepticism was not moderated by a key variable in this
subfield, partisan identity, which speaks of the potential strength of our explanatory variable. We
found no effects of media skepticism in trust towards the US political system or the government.
We attributed this to the lack of short-term spillover effects in the case under examination. The
implications of these results are detailed in the discussion and conclusion section, together with
limitations of our study. An important one is that we cannot guarantee our results are solely
explained by the Trump–Ukraine scandal, because we lack explicit questions about it in our panel
survey. Therefore, while our results provide initial evidence for the buffering effect of media skep-
ticism after scandals occur, more experimental studies will be necessary to confirm it.
Political scandals and media skepticism
While political scandals may occur whenever politicians transgress norms, the use of the term in
social science research often includes the communication and information processes through which
‘alleged transgressions or failures of public figures, groups, organizations, or institutions are
denounced with the aim of eliciting public outrage,’ also known as scandalization (Geiß, 2017: 1).
This perspective emphasizes the joint existence of, first, an illegal/inappropriate behavior by a
To continue reading
Request your trial