Article Preview
TopIntroduction
With the rapid development of the Internet and the constant renewal of media, Internet users in China are increasing yearly. According to the 46th Statistical Report on China's Internet Development released by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) in Beijing. As of June 2020, Chinese Internet users reached 940 million. The number of mobile Internet users reached 932 million. The proportion of Internet users using mobile phones to access the Internet reached 99.2%. The rapid popularization of the Internet has made social media develop quickly and has gradually penetrated the daily life of young people (Kapoor et al., 2018). Social media is becoming the primary tool for young people, especially college students, to obtain information, disseminate information, express views, and share experiences. More and more youth groups communicate with social media to make their own 'voices' and forward, comment, and praise their views and news information of interest. Youth groups are the hope of the country and the main force of the country's future development. Their government trust is closely related to building a socialist modernization power in China. As an essential communication tool and social platform, social media such as Weibo, We Chat, QQ, and Tiktok subtly influence (Kapoor et al., 2018) the government trust of youth groups. This seems to be a common problem in the research of government trust. It is crucial to study the impact of social media use on government trust. In addition, according to the gender composition of China's total population, there are 72 million men and 68 million women. It means that China's female population accounts for nearly half of China's population. In China, however, women's participation in politics is low. The proportion of women is not equal to that of political participation. Although women's political participation in China has made remarkable achievements over 50 years of development, women's right to political involvement in real life has not been fully realized and remains the weakest link in women's development. Chinese women's political participation is not commensurate with China's international status. After entering the new century, the proportion of Chinese women's political participation in the international community also showed a downward trend. Equal participation of men and women in political decision-making is not only a fair or democratic indicator but also a necessary condition to ensure the interests of women. Social media can increase citizens' political knowledge and promote citizens' participation, which is very important for citizens' continuous using citizen-centered e-government services (Alryalat et al., 2017; Guo, 2022; Guo & Sun, 2020) and cultivating citizens' government trust. Therefore, it is crucial to cultivate young women's political knowledge through social media, optimize their political participation awareness, enhance their political participation behavior, and improve the present situation of young women's political participation and government trust.
Evidence shows that the factors affecting female government trust may differ from those affecting male government trust (Lu et al., 2020). Therefore, this paper attempts to find out the main factors affecting the government trust of young female groups by comparing it with the data of young male groups. Moreover, put forward suggestions to improve young women's political participation and government trust. This paper uses the empirical research method to take 386 young people in Beijing between 18 and 35 years old as research samples. Through the structural equation model for multi-group analysis, this paper tries to understand the influence of social media use of young male and female groups in Beijing on government trust and the intermediary chain role of political knowledge, political participation, and political efficacy. There are three research questions in this paper. First, does the use of social media influence young male and female government trust? Second, what are the difference and common points in these influence mechanisms? Third, are political knowledge, participation, and efficacy chain mediating factors between social media and government trust?