Knowledge+Gap+Theory

=Knowled﻿ge Gap Theory = ==//By: Mallary Molatore, Angel Nguyen, Lauren Oatis, Julie Parra, Carissa Perault and Marisol Rios //==

Overview:
Proposed in the 1970's by Tichenor, Donohue and Olien at the University of Minnesota, the knowledge gap theory believes that information within our society is not evenly allocated to every member. It states that people with a higher socioeconomic status (SES) have a better ability to acquire information, leaving two groups: one with individuals with a higher education that know more, and one with individuals who have a lower education who know less. Particularly, the theory believes that people of a lower socioeconomic status have little or no knowledge about public affairs issues, are disconnected from the news events and important new discoveries, and usually aren't concerned about their lack of knowledge.



The above conceptual model illustrates how the proposers of the theory demonstrated the knowledge gap between individuals. Their study asked respondents of either college, high school, or grade school education to answer the question of whether astronauts would ever reach the moon. As shown, it is clear to see the gaps between the different education levels widened as time passed.

The knowledge gap theory seeks to explain the discrepancies of human knowledge across our culture. It also desires to explain the apparent failure of mass publicity to inform the public at large since the people reached by campaigns tend to be the better educated, the younger and the men, while less educated and older people ignore the campaign. The five reasons Tichenor, Donohue and Olien justify the theory are:

1) People of higher socioeconomic status have better communication skills, education, reading, comprehending and remembering information 2) People of higher socioeconomic status can store information more easily or remember the topic to form background knowledge 3) People of higher socioeconomic status might have a more relevant social context 4) People of higher socioeconomic  status are better in selective exposure, acceptance and retention 5) The nature of the mass media is geared toward persons of higher socioeconomic status

Important Con﻿cepts:
Important concepts and how they relate to each other. How has the theory changed over time? (ideally developed by the group, but may be tasked to one or more members). Knowledge IS power, so obtaining more knowledge provides an individual with a wide array of opportunities within society. When individuals of already greater education and SES are in a greater position to intake even more knowledge, the gap widens between lower education and SES individuals, and higher education and SES individuals. As seen in the following hierarchy, where the knowledge gap exists is between "Information" and "Knowledge". It is between those two levels that our society is split, making up the basis for the knowledge gap.

Source: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://rdl.train.army.mil/  The knowledge gap then becomes a degree of the relationship that exists between education and knowledge obtainment.Therefore:  1) OVER TIME, acquistion of knowledge of a heaily publiczied topics will proceed at a faster rate among better educated person than among those with less education  2) AT A GIVEN POINT 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

 **ASSUMPTIONS** of the Knowledge Gap Theory:  1) Education indicates SES  2) Information flow may be characterized by irreversible linear or curvelinear trends <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> 3) No upper limit of information has been reached

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> **CRITICISM** of the Knowledge Gap Theory:
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The psychological level of analysis should also be analyzed: motivation, relevance, cognitive schemata, threat and interest
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Gender and race were not taken into consideration
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">PA and news science are less valuable and appealing to the general public
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Income, occupation may also be relevant differentiators

<span style="color: #6543c5; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 200%;">Case Study Summaries:
<span style="color: #6543c5; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">

** Experimenta **** l Evid **** ence of the Knowledge Gap: //Message Arousal, Motiva// **//** tion, and Time Delay **//
// By Angel Nguyen //

In previous studies, message arousal, or the level of intensity of the message, has been identified as a component in understanding why there is a gap in information gain between high and low education groups. Researchers Maria Elizabeth Grabe, Narine Yegiyan, and Rasha Kamhawi in this study wanted to see how medium and low level message arousal affects the acquisition of information across education levels, and seeking to recreate the findings of the knowledge gap theory. The researchers also included motivation of the viewer and time delay as variables within the study.

Knowledge gap theory claims that members of different education levels will acquire information within media at different rates. Those with higher education levels will, in theory, be able to remember and retain information at a higher rate than those with lower education levels.

This specific study has listed several hypotheses and research questions:
 * **Hypothesis #1**: There will be a main effect for education such that the higher education group will acquire more information than the lower education group.
 * **Hypothesis #2**: There will be a main effect for message arousal such that medium levels of message arousal will be associated with higher recognition memory and free recall scores than messages with lower levels of arousal.
 * **Hypothesis #3**: Memory for moderately arousing messages will decrease less over time than memory for lower arousing messages


 * **Research Question #1**: Will the information gain gap between higher and lower education groups be smaller for messages with moderate levels of arousal compared to messages with lower levels of arousal?
 * **Research Question #2**: If there are effects, do motivational factors account for them?
 * **Research Question #3**: Over time, will recognition memory and free recall scores vary across the two education groups at each level of arousing content?
 * **Research Question #4**: Do covariates account for potential three-way interactions between education, message arousal, and time delay?

To conduct the study, 41 participants were chosen based on education level. High-level education participants had either completed or were enrolled in graduate level programs. All low-level education participants had completed no more than high school. 12 news stories were then selected from all forms media – television, print, and web. The stories were chosen on the level of arousal, specifically medium and low. Participants were asked to watch or read all of the news stories in an experimental “living room”, staged to recreate the feeling of being “at home”. Shortly after their exposure to the stories, the participants were asked to answer two multiple-choice questions per story. 48 hours later, the participants were contacted and asked to recall as many stories as possible.

Based the data was collected, the researchers could conclude that arousing content, education, and time were all factors driving the effect on recognition memory. As predicted in the first hypothesis, the study found that those with more education scored higher in both tests than those with less education, demonstrating a knowledge gap. The data also clearly showed that higher intensity messages were easier recalled than those of low intensity. The only hypothesis that was not supported was that memory for medium arousal messages decrease less than for low arousal messages. The correlation between memory, time, and arousal was not significant enough to support the hypothesis.

Results also showed that with lower arousal messages, the knowledge gap was significantly larger between the education levels than for higher arousal messages. However, the data also showed that the higher the intensity of the message, the smaller the information gap. Information collected on participant motivational factors, such as personal preference and relevance did not explain as to why a knowledge gap existed. Over time, the gap for information retention expanded as well between the two groups.

Everyone is familiar with the phrase “knowledge is power”. The findings show that a knowledge gap does between socio-economic levels within our society. Those who have higher socio-economic standing are more likely to have higher education. As this study finds, those with higher education can acquire more information and retain it over a period of time, especially with information of “low arousal”, which is often perceived as “boring”. Most low-arousal messages within the news media could include a legislative bill getting passed or the president’s new health-care initiative, information that is considered important. On the other hand, the study shows that the low-education group has a strong preference for high arousing stimuli—news about how a mother drowned her child, assaults and robberies, or a stalker on the loose. Although this information is interesting, and sometimes good to know, it may not be as relevant to the viewer as a bill that will directly affect all of society. Because knowledge seems to be the basis for social stratification, those with less education are at a disadvantage within the socio-economic perspective. The only way to eliminate, or at least decrease, the knowledge gap that exists is to provide better education to all levels of society. // ﻿ // //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Reference: // <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> Grabe, M., Yegiyan, N., & Kamhawi, R. (2008). Experimental Evidence of the Knowledge Gap: Message Arousal, Motivation, and Time Delay. Human Communication Research, 34(4), 550-571. doi: 10.1111/j. 1468-2958.2008.0032.x.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> PDF: http://content.ebscohost.com.libproxy.sdsu.edu/pdf9/pdf/2008/HUC/01Oct08/34741036.pdf?T=P&P=AN&K=34741036&S=R&D=ufh EbscoContent=dGJyMNXb4kSeqLE4xNvgOLCmr0meqLBSsqy4SK%2BWxWXS&ContentCustomer=dGJyMPHa8Y2549%2BB7LHjgO3p8gAA



** Newspaper Coverage of Cancer Prevention: //Multilevel Evidence for Knowledge-Gap Effects// **
// By: Carissa Perault //

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Past research on the knowledge-gap theory has primarily been involved with looking into individual-level differences, such as the 1999 N.Kwak study which focused on individual's attention and knowledge on certain topics. This particular article, “Newspaper Coverage of Cancer Prevention: Multilevel Evidence for Knowledge-Gap Effects”, exposes research conducted by Michael Slater, Andrew Hayes, Jason Reineke, Marilee Long and Erwin Bettinghaus. It seeks out **regional differences** of education and how it relates to knowledge of cancer and prevention methods. To conduct this study, they utilized past research findings as a basis to test whether a knowledge-gap exists on the regional level, as well as its effects within the health domain—“that is, whether the strength of the relationship between socioeconomic status and health knowledge increases as the availability of relevant information in the social environment increases” (Slater et al).

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The researches wanted to focus in on the regional differences of overall knowledge of cancer and prevention by looking that the newspapers distributed within various regions across the United States. Then they wished to look at individuals within those regions and examine their knowledge on the topics.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The following are the specific hypothesis addressed in the study:


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Hypothesis #1:** //People who live in regions with greater concentrations of cancer prevention information in cancer news stories will possess greater knowledge about cancer prevention than people who live in regions with lesser concentrations of cancer prevention information in cancer news stories.//
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Hypothesis #2:** //The Relationship between the proportion of cancer prevention news content in a given region and cancer prevention knowledge will increase contingent on respondent education.//

And the single research question addressed in the study is the following:


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Research Question #1****:** //Is the relationship between attention to health news and knowledge of chancer prevention moderated by the relative amount of cancer prevention news contnent, and if so, in what way?//

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">To conduct the research, they issued a random-digit-dial, probability sample telephone survey. The 2003 survey was issued by 6,369 individuals in all the major metropolitan areas across the country. Although 3.6% of the respondents either did not respond or were not asked at least one of the questions from the survey, the results showed an overwhelming correlation of education to knowledge of cancer and preventative measures. It was also noted that attention played a large role in the knowledge of these health related issues (cancer-prevention coverage specifically), as well as the finding that individuals who have a lower education view health concerns to be a less immediate priority than their daily maintenance needs. In addition to the issued survey, the researchers also combined data from content analysis of local U.S. newspaper coverage which they believe is the most nationally representative of cancer-related media use, information behavior, and cancer knowledge.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Their findings supported both of their hypotheses and provided information to answer their research question.The study concluded that their is a relationship between the amount of cancer prevention information distributed in a region and the amount of knowledge those residents had on the subject. They found that cancer related information was more prone to be available in regional newspapers in areas where education was higher. Not only do individuals in a higher education areas have more access to cancer related information, but it was also found that they pay more attention to the information as well as have a better understanding of the content, which gave information for the researchers' research question. Therefore, a knowledge-gap about cancer related issues was found to exist on a regional level, in addition to the findings that have shown it to exist on an individual level. Within each region, it was shown that areas with a higher education were more likely to have information related to cancer available to them in their local newspapers. In addition, individuals with a higher education are also more likely to pay attention to the material as well as fully have an understanding of the content.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">To conclude the examination of the knowledge-gap of cancer and preventative measures, the authors suggest that because of the information they unearthed, society should provide information through various mediums to populations with low education. They say that this would address their unequal access to medical information as well as their lower academic training from understanding such information, and also to compensate for what they may not be paying attention to given their other life needs.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Although, this particular study's data provides an overwhelming correlation of education to overall knowledge about cancer and preventative behaviors, there are some potential weaknesses to the study. As noted above, 3.6% of the respondents were not given the full survey, or failed to provide answers to part of it. Secondly, the researches focused only on the medium of newspapers to measure how much information was being distributed to the various regions. In today's world we not only have access to regional newspapers, but also have national publications, television and internet to name a few. Although this drawback doesn't effect the information that was gathered directly from the respondents since their knowledge is an accumulation of all mediums, but it does weaken their argument about discrepancies of information given to regions that differ in financial standing.

//<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Reference: // <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Slater, M. D., Hayes, A. F., Reineke, J. B., Long, M., & Bettinghaus, E. P. (2009). Newspaper Coverage of Cancer Prevention: Multilevel Evidence for Knowledge-Gap Effects. Journal of Communication, 59(3), 514-533. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2009.01433.x

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Newspaper Coverage of Cancer Prevention: Multilevel Evidence for Knowledge-Gap Effects

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">

**<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Knowledge ****<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;"> Gaps In the Internet Age **
//By: Mallary Molatore//

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The Internet has lead us to reexamine the relationship between media use and attainment of public affairs knowledge. The Internet is media’s new environment involving three types of knowledge-international affairs, about the local community, and about the Internet.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">In recent years, international affairs has grown more importance in mass media by promising that the Internet overrides traditional channels, which provides opportunity for public discussion and the exchange of information and ideas. As stated by Blumler and Gurevitch this helps enhance public communication and enriches democracy with appropriate policies and institution building. The knowledge gap comes into play at the community or social system level. This includes the higher an education the stronger information processing skills, further exposure to public affairs information through superior print media use, and a overall greater interest in public affairs topics are associated with higher education. Knowledge gaps have been found between people with access to the interest and without, showing those with lower education primarily using the Internet for entertainment.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">With media use increasing, it has proven an increase to people’s public affair knowledge. In the 1990’s public affairs knowledge was coming from mainly television, newspaper, and radio. Television debates, print media for students and CNN were all involved in contributing to political learning. As of 1996 with Bill Clinton and Bob Dole’s campaign, the Internet had little influence on knowledge of the issue stances but a great deal when it came to candidate’s images. This would come to take a significant change in the next years to come. It was prominent that some people feared an intense dependence on the Internet would lead to widespread negative consequences.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Here are four research questions provided for the study: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">“Not only do mass media but interpersonal communication also links people to their environment. The strength of communication links should predict greater awareness of that environment, and it’s possible that a stronger network of interpersonal links would reduce knowledge gaps.” So…
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Research Question #1:** How do the mass media and Internet individually and in <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">combination reduce knowledge gaps?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">**Research Question #2:** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> Does the knowledge gap persist across different types of knowledge?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Research Question #3**: Does media use and Internet use reduce knowledge gaps based on education and household income differently?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Research Question #4**: Will the strength of one’s interpersonal communication network links reduce the knowledge gap?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">A survey was conducted in 2000, using random-digit dialing and a computer-aided telephone interviewing system. They interviewed 351 adults, all eighteen and over, and had a response rate of a little less then fifty percent. Respondents were asked questions such as, how much television did you watch yesterday, the number of hours listened to the radio, as well as question involving the newspaper, magazines, books, movies, and the theater. They were asked if they had Internet access at home, if they had ever been on the Internet, and their frequency of Internet use at work versus home. Plus other variations of questions dealing with time spent on the Internet and time spent on other media activities.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">From this information three knowledge scales were made, local community, public affairs, and internet/technology. Variable were broken down into different demographics including household incomes and education levels. Internet knowledge was tapped using six items all dealing with Internet terms such as HTML, and what “www” and “.com” referred to. International Knowledge Index included four items asking questions about specific continents, and the Local Knowledge Index included five items dealing with local knowledge and specific locations of common places. These three knowledge scales were summed up to include an overall knowledge scale.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The results found confirmed a knowledge gap for international public affairs information, community knowledge and Internet knowledge, and overall knowledge. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Newspaper readership showed a high linking status to knowledge, and education and income were positively correlated to this. It also stated that people who spent less time on the Internet had less knowledge on public affairs. The Internet was proved to enhance audience acquisition of public affairs. The knowledge gap that was uncovered confirmed past observations that the Internet was primarily helping to bring about an informed electorate. This showed that people who want to be more involved in public affairs were finding this information online, rather then depending on their television. The Internet is a place for people to collect knowledge and have the freedom to express themselves on many different levels. Over time, we hope that the Internet does not fall into the same category as print media in creating knowledge gaps. As numbers of people who read the newspaper continue to fall, it will be exciting to see if the Internet can fill the gap of keeping up awareness on community affairs.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Jeffres, Leo W., Kimberly Neuendorf, and David. "Knowledge Gaps in the Internet Age." Rpt. in Conference Papers -- International Communication Association; 2003 Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA, P1-26, 27p, 4 Charts. Communication & Mass Media Complete. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Link: http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/1/1/6/4/pages111646/p111646-1.php//

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">

//** The Role of Internet Engagement in the Health-Knowledge Gap **// // By: Julie Parra //

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">For many years researchers have tried to explain the reason why the health of people at higher socioeconomic levels is generally healthier than those of lower socioeconomic levels.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">This research study explores this observation by looking into how engagement of people on the Internet can affect the health-knowledge gap; or the range of knowledge about health obtained online by people from high socioeconomic levels as opposed to people from low socioeconomic levels. In other words, this study is trying to prove that because of different levels of Internet engagement, “media information does not equally benefit population subgroups and that his inequality may restrict the effectiveness of public health campaigns”.

Since the study is about Internet engagement and the health-knowledge gap, we should familiarize ourselves with how these two concepts are characterized. Internet Engagement was broken down into three components: (1) How people actually spend their time online (as opposed to the actual time spent), (2) “How long one has had access to computers and the Internet, the number of places where individuals use the Internet, and what kind of connection they have at home”, and (3) How comfortable the individuals are when using the internet. The Health Knowledge Gap is composed of six distinct parts which include communication skills and information-processing abilities, prior knowledge, being in touch in with people who have the same knowledge of media topics, selective exposure/attention (using media for entertainment as opposed as for information), and motivation. These characteristics were to be looked at in all the participants to see if they differed between individuals and to measure if one really did have an affect on the other.

This study focused on and explored these three hypotheses:


 * **Hypothesis #1**: There will be interactive effects of Internet use for health information and education on general health knowledge, such that the association between Internet use and health knowledge is stronger for people with high levels of education than for people with low levels of education.
 * **Hypothesis #2**: Individuals’ education will be positively related to the Internet-engagement scale.
 * **Hypothesis #3**: There will be interactive effects of Internet use for health information and Internet engagement on general health knowledge, such that the association between Internet use and health knowledge is stronger for people exhibiting high levels of Internet engagement than for people exhibiting low levels of Internet engagement.

This study was conducted using a national survey gathering responses from participants that ranged in age from 40 to 70 years old. Respondents were gathered at random from previous participants to studies conducted by Knowledge Networks. Respondents without Internet access were provided with free Web TV hardware and Internet access. The areas the respondents were surveyed in were general health knowledge, amount of Internet use for health information, Internet engagement, and other variables such as demographics.

Researchers found that there was a stronger correlation between Internet use and health knowledge for people with higher levels of education than for people with lower levels of education. This is telling us that people with higher levels of education were gaining more health knowledge from the Internet than those people with less education. We also found out that education is positively related to Internet engagement. Lastly we discovered that “the link between Internet use and health knowledge was found to depend on how much one engages with the Internet” and that a higher level of engagement online leads to stronger Internet use and health knowledge.

Based on these findings can conclude:

(1) Different social groups learn information from the Internet differently. In terms of the knowledge gap in mass media, we saw in the study that people with higher education seemed to benefit at a higher rate than those with less education.

(2) From the experiment we learned that access to the Internet is not enough. Active engagement is necessary to maximize utility of the Internet. This brings up the issue of “the digital divide”. Many people still do not have access to the Internet with is making the gap get larger and larger.

(3) There was a very considerable association between participant’s socioeconomic status and their Internet engagement. This also has to do with the issue of the “digital divide”. People can be more engaged online if they have access in their own homes as opposed to having to go elsewhere to get access.

This research has shown us that access to the Internet alone is by no means the reason for differences in levels of Internet-based information acquisition. What the article suggests is that we need to educate those on the lower end of the continuum how to “build a close relationship with the Internet, a closeness that will ultimately help them both locate online health information and understand it”.

// Reference: // Lee, Chul-Joo. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Jul2009, Vol. 53 Issue 3, p365-382, 18p, 2 Charts, 2 Graphs; DOI: 10.1080/08838150903102758

Link: []

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">

**<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Explaining the Gap: //The interaction of and News Enjoyment in Predicting Political Knowledge// **
//<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">By: Marisol Rios //

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">This study investigated emotion as a potential the gap in political knowledge. Past studies have examined methodological issues, socioeconomic attributes, and media use as possible contributions, but they have not included enjoyment of media use as a factor in the relation between gender and political knowledge.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Pew Research Center for the People (2000, 2007) have found that women continually score lower than men on knowledge of basic facts pertaining to current events. According to Jillian Nash and Lindsay Hoffman, “Considering the strides women have made in the last few decades, these repeated findings continue to be both surprising and alarming. Knowledge gaps should not exist in a nation that promotes equal opportunity for all of its citizens. The first step is to determine the plausible causes of this disparity.” The article mentioned that the media should not be ignored when as a moderator in gender- political knowledge since is one of the main source for the acquisition of public knowledge. Because of this, Nash and Hoffman felt that it needed further exploration.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Nash and Hoffman argued that there was a need to study the relationships among gender, political knowledge, enjoyment, and media use. Therefore several hypotheses emerged to research this.


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Hypothesis #1:** There will be a correlation between level of enjoyment of keeping up with the news and media use
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Hypothesis #2:** Level of enjoyment of keeping up with the news will be a significant predictor of amount of media use.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Hypothesis #3:** There will be a correlation between level of enjoyment of keeping up with the news and political knowledge.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Hypothesis #4:** Level of enjoyment of keeping up with the news will be a significant predictor of level of political knowledge.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Hypothesis #5:** Gender will act as moderator in the relations between enjoyment of keeping up with the news and political knowledge.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">This study was a secondary analysis of recent political knowledge survey data from The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press (2007). This nationwide telephone poll was conducted through random digit dialing. There were 1,502 participants from the ages of 18 to 95 years old, and 50.9% where females. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The results of the study concluded that there was a significant correlation between enjoyment of keeping up with the news and one’s media use (Hypothesis #1). This served as the initial test for other variables like enjoyment of keeping up with the news and both media use and political knowledge. Also it was concluded that enjoyment of keeping up with the news was a positive and significant predictor of amount of media use, even after controlling for gender, education, and income (Hypothesis #2). Enjoyment of keeping up with the news was also a positive and significant predictor of political knowledge (Hypothesis #4). A significant interaction was observed between enjoyment of keeping up with the news and gender in predicting political knowledge. Men appear to gain more knowledge from their enjoyment of news than women (Hypothesis #5).

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">This study, confirm that a knowledge gap exists between man and women when it comes to political knowledge due to enjoyment of keeping up with the news. According to Nash and Hoffman, increased in enjoyment results in higher political knowledge, but this relationship is stronger for men than women- that is, men potentially get more out of watching the news when they enjoy it than women do.

//<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Reference: // <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Nash, J, & Hoffman, L. (2009). Explaining the gap: the interaction of gender and news enjoyment in predicting political knowledge. Communication Research Report, 26. Retrieved from

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">[]

<span style="color: #6543c5; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 29px; line-height: 42px;">**Analysis of Case Studies:**

<span style="color: #6543c5; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 29px; line-height: 42px;">**Knowledge Gap NOW:**
 * Shift from an abstract notion of social systems to a concrete geographically grounded idea of community
 * Knowledge gap decreases for local issues under conditions of high significance, high community conflict and homogeneity of population
 * Shift from societal naturalism to individual voluntarism--the individual is seen as an entity constructing meanings unique to their circumstances