Edelman, an American public relations agency, released the results of its annual Trust Barometer survey in Russia yesterday. This survey covers 18 developed countries, and sums up the opinions of elites about the authorities, business, the media, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This is the second year that Russia has been part of the survey. Compared to other countries, Russia's results show an extremely low level of trust in the media and NGOs.
Russian respondents are inclined to trust business and government bodies: these institutions got the votes of 42% and 38% of respondents respectively. Only 29% trust NGOs, and 28% trust the media (with the exception of business publications). The level of trust in NGOs was lower in Russia than in any other country. As compared to the 2006 survey, Russia's elites have gained respect for the authorities: that rating rose from 32% to 38% (39% of last year's respondents trusted business). Trust in NGOs dropped by 3%.
Overall trust in the media dropped from 35% to 28%; however, 65% of respondents trust the information they get from business and analytical publications. On the other hand, Russian and Chinese respondents showed the highest scores for keeping blogs and visiting social websites: 51% of respondents said that they participate in online discussions.
The level of respect for the authorities among Russian respondents is comparable to responses from most European countries. In Spain, for example, 37% of respondents trust the government; the figure for France is 35%. But attitudes to the media and NGOs are significantly better in other countries. These trust figures vary from 37% to 45% of respondents in EU countries. Only in France is trust in the media substantially lower (26%).
It's also worth noting that Russian business received the lowest trust rating from respondents in other countries. The sector representatives we approached for comments generally agreed with the Trust Barometer's results.
Daria Miloslavskaya, director of the Russian office of the International Center for Non-Commercial Law: "NGOs in the West have a rich history. Charities and rights protection organizations have been authoritative there for many years. In our country, however, only the Red Cross and the Voluntary Society of Assistance to the Army, the Air Force and the Navy (DOSAAF) were well-known before the end of the Soviet era. And attitudes to NGOs in Russia tend to be negative these days. The good work that they do doesn't get the publicity it should."
Igor Yakovenko, head of the Russian Union of Journalists: "The low level of trust in the Russian media is due to the fact that these respondents are well-educated people with high incomes. There's a pattern: the general public's trust in the media declines as democracy grows, but the elite's trust in the media declines as authoritarianism grows."
Boris Titov, chairman of the Business Russia association: "Attitudes to business were far more negative in the 1990s - it was associated with crime. Only in recent years have attitudes to the business community started changing for the beter. But foreigners have a different view of Russian business. For them, it means corporations in the oil, gas, and metals sectors. These corporations are behaving quite aggressively abroad, and that's
what provokes this attitude to them."
