Media literacy tracked trust in 1,300 Indian adults. WhatsApp use tracked the opposite.

Researchers at the University of Kansas ran two surveys of more than 1,300 adults in India, asking about internet use, media literacy, online behaviour and views of institutions ^[3]. The headline result is that self-reported media literacy was the strongest predictor of trust in institutions such as government, nonprofits and media outlets ^[8], while heavier social media use ran the other way ^[12].

The point of the exercise was geographic. Media literacy and civic engagement have been shown to matter in Western countries, and the authors wanted to know whether the same relationships hold elsewhere; India, one of the world's most populous countries and largest media markets, has not traditionally been the focus of this work ^[5][7]. Christopher Etheridge, assistant professor of journalism and mass communications at KU and a co-author on both studies, said the surveys measured whether people trust institutions to help them and to carry out democratic values ^[6].

In the first study, respondents who felt confident navigating websites, finding information and teaching those skills to others reported the highest levels of social trust ^[9]. Those who said they regularly assess online information critically also scored higher on institutional trust ^[11]. Reliance on traditional and online news for community information tracked with higher trust as well, particularly among respondents with strong media literacy skills, which is consistent with earlier work ^[17].

The negative side is more interesting for anyone running an institutional account. Heavy social media users reported lower trust, and among the two platforms examined, Facebook and WhatsApp, more WhatsApp use was associated with less trust ^[13][14]. Etheridge's reading is a supply problem rather than a contamination problem: few government or public institutions are on WhatsApp, and it is hard to push a message out that way, so institutions might build trust by working there ^[15]. That is a hypothesis the study does not test.

Two caveats on the measure. Media literacy here is what respondents said about their own competence, not a tested skill ^[23]. And the second study undercuts any tidy story: respondents who consumed more traditional media reported higher civic engagement than those on entertainment-focused platforms ^[20], but media literacy did not positively predict engagement at all ^[21]. So the same construct is the top predictor of one democratic outcome and a null on the other ^[24]. Whatever media literacy is capturing, it looks more like a disposition toward institutions than a driver of showing up.

The second study also asked whether respondents mainly create online content or mainly comment on and share what others make. Both groups were civically engaged at roughly the same levels, and all types of online users rated civic activity as important ^[22]. Community organising has moved online, from bulletins and book clubs to social platforms ^[19], and on this evidence the creator/consumer distinction does not sort people by participation.

The first study, written with Nazra Izhar and Moses Okocha, appeared in Journalism and Media ^[16]. The announcement does not give effect sizes, the split of the 1,300 respondents across the two studies, or a venue for the second paper ^[25].