From information exposure to legal consciousness: The chain mediating role of political trust and social equality in Chinese college students

The cultivation of college students' legal consciousness in the digital media environment is crucial for advancing social responsibility, moral awareness, and rule-of-law societies. However, prior research often assumes a linear positive relationship between information exposure and legal consciousness, overlooking potential negative effects in which algorithmic biases and emotional framing in digital media may weaken legal consciousness. Existing studies rarely explore the chain mediation of political trust and social equality perceptions, particularly lacking empirical tests on Chinese college students. To address these gaps, we propose a chain mediation model examining relationships between information exposure, legal consciousness, political trust, and social equality, and their mediating mechanisms. Using structural equation modeling (SEM), with 213 Chinese college students, we find that information exposure does not enhance legal consciousness and exerts a direct negative effect on it. However, this effect is counterbalanced by two pathways: (1) the independent mediating role of political trust, and (2) the chain mediation through political trust followed by social equality. Consequently, the total indirect and total effects of information exposure on legal consciousness are non-significant. These results challenge the traditionally view that information exposure uniformly promotes positive cognitive empowerment. Specifically, algorithmic biases prioritizing emotional content and ideological shaping that rationalizes trust are key drivers reshaping Chinese college students' legal consciousness through nonlinear pathways.