Knowledge Gap

Basic Hypothesis and Explanations

This unsatisfying situation concerning the widely assumed positive information functions of media, on the one hand, and generally only modest levels of knowledge acquisition, on the other hand, resulted in the formulation of the “knowledge gap hypothesis” in 1970. Phillip Tichenor, George Donohue, and Clarice Olien proposed in their initial journal article, “Mass Media Flow and Differential Growth in Knowledge,” that dysfunctional media effects, insofar as the bettereducated and higher-status segments of society tend to acquire public affairs information and science matters through the mass media at a faster rate than the lessereducated and lower-status segments, are a consequence of the initial gap in knowledge between different social segments. The gap tends to increase rather than decrease if media coverage of a topic is intensifying.

The authors explain this phenomenon by referring to five underlying processes but not by formulating a systematic theory:

• 1
  Communication skills: Formal education fosters reading and understanding abilities in a general way as a basis for efficient learning processes.
• 2
  Prior knowledge encourages attention for and facilitates acquisition of new information.
• 3
  Persons with higher education have more relevant social contacts as sources for interpersonal communication.
• 4
  Education correlates with active information exposure, acceptance, and remembering of new information.
• 5
  Media system: Information about public affairs or scientific progress are transmitted mostly by print media that are directed to the interests of and used more by the better-educated segments of the population.

Each of these factors, namely disparities in media access, unequal information exposure, or differences in perceived information utility, on the one hand, and amount and complexity or relevance of information or involved conflict, on the other, can contribute to increasing and narrowing knowledge gaps.

In the past 35 years, the knowledge gap perspective became one of the most cited and used approaches of the new cognitive media effects tradition since the 1970, beside other prominent theories like uses and gratifications, agenda setting, cultivation or framing research. This is certainly because knowledge gap perspective treats long-term media effects, links them to the macro level of society, and points to normative political implications like equal opportunities. Several hundred empirical studies have been realized so far, a number of theoretical refinements and differentiations on the micro as well on the macro level have been

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