User:GS2325/Knowledge gap hypothesis

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= Lead = '''The knowledge gap hypothesis is a mass communication theory based on how a member in society processes information from mass media differently based on education level and socioeconomic status, SES. The gap in knowledge exists because a member of society with higher socioeconomic status has access to higher education and technology whereas a member of society who has a lower socioeconomic status has less access or none at all. Since there is already pre existing gap of knowledge between groups in a population, mass media amplifies this gap to another level. For example, television news programming targets a more affluent group who are interested in political and science news. The higher status viewer pays more attention to the serious stories and seeks out more in depth information beyond the news program. This article provides an overview of the Knowledge Gap Hypothesis and includes theoretical concepts, historical background, operationalization, narrative review and meta analytic support, new technology and examples of attempting to close the gap.'''

(changed heading from Specification moved to follow Lead)
As originally proposed in 1970 by three University of Minnesota researchers, Phillip J. Tichenor, Associate Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication, George A. Donohue, Professor of Sociology, and Clarice N. Olien, Instructor in Sociology, the hypothesis predicts that "as the infusion of mass media information into a social system increases, segments of the population with higher socioeconomic status tend to acquire this information at a faster rate than the lower status segments, so that the gap in knowledge between these segments tends to increase rather than decrease". (Tichenor, Donohue, and Olien 1970, pp. 159-160).

Tichenor, Donohue, and Olien suggest 5 factors why the knowledge gap should exist:


 * 1) Communication skills: "Persons with more formal education would be expected to have higher reading and comprehension abilities necessary to acquire public affairs or science knowledge."  (Tichenor, Donohue, and Olien 1970, pp. 162). For example, higher socioeconomic status, SES, people generally have more education, which improves their reading, writing, and comprehension skills.
 * 2) Amount of stored information: "Persons who are already better informed are more likely to be aware of a topic when it appears in mass media and are better prepared to understand it." (Tichenor, Donohue, and Olien 1970, pp. 162) For example, more informed people are more likely to already know of news stories through previous media exposure or through formal education and can relate new information to past exposure.
 * 3) Relevant social contact: "Education generally indicates a broader sphere of everyday activity, a greater number of reference groups and more interpersonal contacts, which increase the likelihood of discussing public affairs topics with others." (Tichenor, Donohue, and Olien 1970, pp. 162).  For example, higher socioeconomic status, SES, people generally have a network of friends or colleagues that are more likely to have access to more information on news stories and more skilled to research the topics.
 * 4) Selective exposure, acceptance, and retention of information: "A persistent theme in mass media research is the apparent tendency to interpret and recall information in ways congruent with existing beliefs and values." For example, a viewer of a news program will pay attention more to story that interests them.
 * 5) Nature of the mass media system that delivers information.  Different media has specific target markets.  For example, social media platforms like Tik Tok targets a younger audience whereas daytime television targets an older audience. In the 1970, print media was written for an audience with a higher education level.

Historical background (changed heading from Foundations)
Although first formally articulated in 1970, Tichenor, Donohue, and Olien note that The knowledge gap hypothesis has been implicit throughout the mass communication literature. Indeed, Research published as early as the 1920s had already begun to examine the influence of individual characteristics on people's media content preferences.

For example, Gray and Munroe identified education – still used today as an operationalization of socioeconomic status in knowledge gap research (see, e.g., Hwang and Jeong, 2009) – as a significant and positive correlate of a person's tendency to prefer "serious" (rather than non-serious) print content.

1929 William S. Gray and Ruth Munroe authors of The Reading Interests and Habits of Adults '''examined the education advantages of adults which influenced their reading habits. The well educated reader grasped the subject matter in newspaper articles more quickly and moved on to other types of reading materials that fit their interests. The less educated reader spent more time with the newspaper article because it took that person longer to comprehend the topic.'''

Popular belief, however, held that such differences in preferences might be diminished by the advent of radio, which required neither the special skill nor the exertion of reading (Lazarsfeld, 1940). Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of the wireless telegraph, even believed that the radio would "make war impossible, because it will make war ridiculous" (Narodny, 1912, p. 145). Interested in whether radio had attenuated these individual differences in content preferences,

1940 Paul Lazarsfeld, head of the Office of Radio Research at Columbia University, set out to examine whether (1) the total amount of time that people listened to the radio and (2) the type of content they listened to correlated with their socioeconomic status. Not only did Lazarsfeld's data indicate people of lower socioeconomic status tended to listen to more radio programming, but also they were simultaneously less likely to listen to "serious" radio content. Contrary to popular belief at the time, then, the widespread adoption of the radio seems to have had little, if any, effect on a person's tendency to prefer specific types of content.

Further evidence supporting the knowledge gap hypothesis came from Star and Hughes (1950) analysis of efforts to inform Cincinnati adults about the United Nations. Like Gray and Munroe (1929) and Lazarsfeld (1940) before them, Star and Hughes found that

1950 The authors: Shirley A. Star, a professor in the University of Chicago's sociology department and Helen MacGill Hughes, a sociologist of the University of Chicago worte, "Report on an Educational Campaign: The Cincinnati Plan for the United Nations" discovered that while the campaign was successful in reaching better-educated people, those with less education virtually ignored the campaign. Additionally, after realizing that the highly educated people reached by the campaign also tended to be more interested in the topic, Star and Hughes suggested that knowledge, education, and interest may be interdependent.

Formal summary[edit]
Given the preceding information, the knowledge gap hypothesis can be expressed using the following set of related propositions:


 * 1) People in a society exhibit great psychological diversity due to their psychological makeup, learned experiences, social relationships, and social category memberships.
 * 2) Despite these differences, people with more education tend to have better developed cognitive and communication skills, broader social spheres with more and more diverse social contacts, and a greater amount of stored information than their counterparts with less education.
 * 3) People with greater education also tend to express interest in, and expose themselves to, a broader range of topics, including serious topics like public affairs, science, and health news.
 * 4) Therefore, as the infusion of mass media information into a social system increases, segments of the population with higher socioeconomic status tend to acquire this information at a faster rate than the lower status segments so that the gap in knowledge between these segments tends to increase rather than decrease.

Hypothesis operationalization and initial suppor t (linked terms to wiki pages)
'''According to the authors, Jack Rosenberry and Lauren A.Vicker, " A hypothesis is basically a research question: the researcher needs to ask questions and answer them in order to formulate theory. The term "hypothesis" also can be used to describe a theory that is still in the development stage or that has not been fully researched and verified.  Because of the somewhat contradictory nature of the research findings, the knowledge gap has not yet achieved theory status and is still known as a hypothesis." '''

'''Since the 1970s, many policy makers and social scientists have been concerned with how community members acquire information via mass media. Throughout the years, extensive research has been conducted and taken different approaches to researching the Knowledge Gap Hypothesis. The hypothesis operationalization consists of the following:'''


 * For cross-sectional research, the knowledge gap hypothesis expects that "at any given time, there should be a higher correlation between acquisition of knowledge and education for topics highly publicized in the media than for topics less highly publicized. Tichenor, Donohue, and Olien (1970) tested this hypothesis using an experiment in which participants were asked to read and discuss two news stories of varying publicity. The results of the experiment support the hypothesis because correlations between education and understanding were significant for high publicity stories but not significant for low publicity stories.
 * For time-series research, the knowledge gap hypothesis expects that "over time, acquisition of knowledge of a heavily publicized topic will proceed at a faster rate among better educated persons than among those with less education." Tichenor, Donohue, and Olien (1970) tested this hypothesis using public opinion surveys gathered between 1949 and 1965 measuring whether participants believed humans would reach the Moon in the foreseeable future. During the 15-year span, belief among grade-school educated people increased only about 25 percentage points while belief among college educated people increased more than 60 percentage points, a trend consistent with the hypothesis.

Narrative review and meta-analytic support[edit]
At least two narrative reviews and one meta-analysis of knowledge gap hypothesis research exist.

'''Since the 1970s, many policy makers and social scientists have been concerned with how community members acquire information via mass media. Throughout the years, extensive research has been conducted and taken different approaches to researching the Knowledge Gap Hypothesis.'''

'''Cecilie Gaziano, a researcher of Communication and Media, Quantitative Social Research and Social Stratification wrote Forecast 2000: Widening Knowledge Gaps, to update her 1983 analysis of knowledge gap studies. Gaziano discusses the connection between education and income disparities between the "haves" and "have-nots."'''Gaziano conducted two narrative reviews, one of 58 articles with relevant data in 1983 and the other of 39 additional studies in 1997. Gaziano writes, "the most consistent result is the presence of knowledge differentials, regardless of topic, methodological, or theoretical variations, study excellence, or other variables and conditions" (1997, p. 240). Evidence from several decades, Gaziano concludes, underscores the enduring character of knowledge gaps and indicates that they transcend topics and research settings.

Because narrative reviews examine significance tests rather than effect sizes, Hwang and Jeong (2009) conducted a meta-analysis of 46 knowledge gap studies. Consistent with Gaziano's results, however, Hwang and Jeong found constant knowledge gaps across time.

Gaziano explains the conceptual framework of the knowledge barriers, the critical conceptual issues are the following measurements:


 * SES Socioeconomic status: education, income, and occupation
 * Knowledge: (1) awareness of a topic versus depth, or more complex, knowledge; (2) open-ended versus closed-ended researcher-determined content; and(3) limited content (capable of reaching finite, or ceiling, effects) versus unlimited content. 
 * Knowledge Gap:
 * Media publicity

'''The interconnection between income, education and occupation are factors of the knowledge gap throughout history. Here is a closer look at the economic gaps caused by major economic events:'''


 * 1929 The Stock Market Crash - causing the major economic turning point.
 * 1950 Consumerism: Post WWII, automobile and television sales increased rapidly. Working and middle class families were buying televisions.    All socio economic segments experienced growth.
 * 1970 Stagflation: rise of inflation and recession due to oil prices, cost of Vietnam War and international competition of consumer goods caused unequal wealth distribution in the United States.
 * 1997 Economic gap for the have and have nots was greater than 1929

Close the knowledge gap hypothesis with Web 2.0[edit]
'''The internet has changed how people engage media. The internet-based media has to be accessed with digital devices and accessed to the internet. In the United States, there is a concern about the digital divide because not all Americans have access to the internet and devices. With the hope that Internet would close the knowledge gap, it has exposed the following inequities: access, motivation and cognitive ability. The following research displays the link between access to internet and socioeconomic status, SES.'''

In 2010 Elizabeth Corley and Dietram Scheufele conducted a study to investigate the widening knowledge gap with the example of nanotechnology. On the whole, public opinion research has shown that respondents with higher socioeconomic status (SES) acquire new information at a higher rate than low SES respondents. Their previous analyses of two large national surveys conducted in 2004 and 2007 found that respondents with at least a college degree displayed an increase in knowledge levels between 2004 and 2007 while respondents with education levels of less than a high school diploma had a significant decrease in nanotechnology knowledge levels. These results stress that the group that is most in need of help, low SES bracket, have not been helped through communication efforts and their nanotechnology knowledge levels have decreased over time.

Corley and Scheufele investigated a wide range of factors that may help to close knowledge gaps, including mass media. The researchers found that the number of days a week that respondents spent online was significantly correlated to knowledge levels about nanotechnology. Therefore, internet use helped those with less formal education to catch up to their counterparts.

The emergence of the Internet, and more specifically Web 2.0, may be playing a role in closing the knowledge gap. In fact, Corley and Scheufele explain that "the internet may finally live up to the hype … as a tool for creating a more informed citizenry by serving as a "leveler" of knowledge gaps." (2010, p. 2) This is widely due to the fact that information on Web 2.0 is written in layman's terms. The content is created by those individuals who have an understanding of the information, but who are also able to tailor the articles towards a more general audience.

Still, the knowledge gap may still exist even with the emergence of Web 2.0. The disenfranchised group, in this situation, the group with lower SES, must still be motivated to get the information to close the gap. Also, information about a given subject must be given. Without the content being provided, Web 2.0 will not be much of a help. However, if the content is provided, Web 2.0 has allowed the readers to be more interactive and talk with others online, through discussion boards, forums and blogs. The results of the research conducted by Corley and Scheufele are a clear call to action for researchers to investigate non-traditional ways of connecting with lay audiences about emerging technologies.

Overall, studies show the introduction of Web 2.0 may help in closing the knowledge gap because the content that traditionally those with lower SES could not reach, can now be understood because it is written in layman's terms. Web 2.0 has helped because:

'''According to a Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults conducted Jan. 25-Feb. 8, 2021, Emily Vogels, a research associate focusing on internet and technology, wrote, "More than 30 years after the debut of the World Wide Web, internet use, broadband adoption and smartphone ownership have grown rapidly for all Americans – including those who are less well-off financially. However, the digital lives of Americans with lower and higher incomes remain markedly different." '''
 * 1) The content on Web 2.0 is created by everyday people, for everyday people
 * 2) As a user, you can be interactive to find more information about a given subject (click through other links to find more information, search for theories and ideas you don't know on search engines, or read supplemented articles to get more information)

"Americans with higher household incomes are also more likely to have multiple devices that enable them to go online. Roughly six-in-ten adults living in households earning $100,000 or more a year (63%) report having home broadband services, a smartphone, a desktop or laptop computer and a tablet, compared with 23% of those living in lower-income households."

Emily Vogels, continues, "The digital divide has been a central topic in tech circles for decades, with researchers, advocates and policymakers examining this issue. However, this topic has gained special attention during the coronavirus outbreak as much of daily life (such as work and school) moved online, leaving families with lower incomes more likely to face obstacles in navigating this increasing digital environment. For example, in April 2020, 59% of parents with lower incomes who had children in schools that were remote due to the pandemic said their children would likely face at least one of three digital obstacles to their schooling, such as a lack of reliable internet at home, no computer at home, or needing to use a smartphone to complete schoolwork."

Examples of Attempting to Close the Gap
Over the years, researchers have documented uses of mass media attempts to closing the Knowledge gap.

'''Joan Ganz Cooney, a television writer and producer, embarked on a project that changed educational television programming. According to the book, Sesame Street and the Reform of Children's Television, author Robert Morrow wrote, "On March 20, 1968, the Office of Education, Carnegie Corp, and the Ford Foundation held a press conference to announce the creation on the Children's Television Workshop. The joint press release summarized many of the major theme in the development of the project to that point.  The text characterized the program as an experiment, partnership of television professionals and educators, psychologists, and other child development specialists "'''

The Children's Television Workshop first launched Sesame Street on November 10, 1969