An annual study of business stakeholders conducted by Edelman in Mainland China shows an average drop of 31 percent in trust ratings for the four institutions measured: media, NGOs, business and government.

Compared to the same study last year, trust in media dropped by 45 percent, followed by a 33 percent drop in trust in NGOs, a 32 percent drop for business and a 27 percent drop for government.

"The drop in institutional trust needs to be framed against the backdrop of increased access to information and increasing peer-to-peer dialogues enabled by web-based communication," according to Asia-Pacific Edelman president Alan VanderMolen. "As transparency and the democratization of information grow, it is natural to see an increase in skepticism. All institutions must now strongly consider how they engage with the stakeholders critical to their success on the issues of importance to those stakeholders."

The China Edelman study is part of global public relations firm Edelman's annual Asia Pacific Stakeholder Study and examines the opinions of 140 opinion leading business stakeholders in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The study specifically measures trust as it relates to the feelings of each stakeholder to rate their belief in the likelihood that each institution will do 'what is right'.

While trust in media as an institution overall has declined markedly, there has been a dramatic increase, of more than 150 percent, in the trust of web-based media, overtaking television as the most trusted and believable media source of news and information in Mainland China. Forty-eight percent of Mainland Chinese opinion leaders surveyed said that had posted on a blog in the past 12 months. That compares to a regional average of 30 percent.

"The bottom-line," says VanderMolen, "is that institutions must get a lot better at answering the question: What's in it for you?"