User:Odilith/sandbox

Differential Gains Model
The differential gains model addresses the role interpersonal discussion plays in enabling individuals to gain meaningful knowledge from traditional news sources. More specifically, the model predicts that frequent political discussion helps individuals translate mass-mediated messages into knowledge that enables greater civic participation. In a 2002 study introducing the model, Scheufele found evidence for the effect among frequent newspaper users. Among the users, those who frequently discussed politics were significantly more likely to engage in political participation than frequent newspaper users who did not often discuss politics with other people. It is thought that discussing news content with other people helps users overcome shortcomings in newspaper coverage—namely that the level of complexity requires more background knowledge than most individuals have.

Whether the enhanced knowledge precipitates from discussion as the differential gains models predicts may depend, in part on whether the discussion involves disagreement. In a 2008 study, Lauren Feldman and Vincent Price explored the relationship between interpersonal communication and media use in the development of knowledge while introducing disagreement as a factor. Their results suggest discussion may be less beneficial in social networks with heterogeneous political views than in social networks with homogeneous political views. They found, for example, that individuals who only mingle with like-minded people, learned a lot about political issues when they watched debates if they also discussed politics frequently. Individuals in politically diverse social networks, on the other hand, learned from debate viewing regardless of how often they discussed politics. But they also had higher levels of knowledge to begin with and therefore gained comparatively little from watching debates. And, in contrast to differential gains model predictions, in diverse social networks individuals learned more from debate viewing if they discussed politics infrequently rather than frequently.