The survey was conducted by Gallup International in 2006, on a sample of 55,000 people from some 60 countries, including Croatia.
Respondents were asked three questions - Do you believe media carry opinions close to yours?, Do media serve the universal good? and To what extent do you believe in "truths" served to you by journalists?
The results of the poll were presented at an International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) conference in Moscow and published in a brochure of the IFJ Public Expertise Institute.
Finland topped the list, with 57 per cent of respondents there saying they believed the media carried opinions close to those of their audiences. Croatia ranked 42nd, with 27 per cent of respondents expressing their trust in the media.
Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro shared 25th place, while Macedonia and Serbia ranked 35th and 39th respectively.
India topped the list of countries where people believe that the media serve the good of the world, with as many as 89 per cent of Indians saying they believed in the good intentions of the media and journalists.
Croatia occupied 36th place on that scale, with 54 per cent of respondents saying they believed the media served the universal good. Bosnia and Herzegovina ranked 33rd, Macedonia 40th, and Serbia 53rd.
Greeks showed the greatest mistrust of journalists and the media. As many as 67 per cent of respondents in Greece said they did not trust the media.
On that scale, Croatia ranked 26th, with 51 per cent of respondents saying they did not trust journalists and the media. Macedonia came 11th, Bosnia and Herzegovina 16th, and Serbia 19th.
The bottom of the scale was occupied by Finland. The survey showed that in Finland there were most people who trusted the media and those who did not.