Knowledge gap
The hypothesis of the growing knowledge gap was first in 1970 by Phillip J. Tichenor , George A. Donohue and Clarice N. Olien in the article "Mass Media Flow and Differential Growth from Knowledge" in the journal "Public Opinion Quarterly" as Knowledge Gap Hypothesis described.
The hypothesis of the “growing knowledge gap” describes the structural unequal distribution of knowledge that is transported through the mass media. According to the knowledge gap hypothesis, the knowledge gap between people of higher and lower socio-economic status grows faster when the flow of information in the mass media in society (or in another social system) increases.
The input of the mass media into a social system means that the knowledge of educationally affine segments of the population increases faster than that of those of the less educated class segments. Accordingly, people who are formally educated anyway have a better chance of increasing their knowledge than less educated people.
Effect of the growing knowledge gap
Since the mass media have long been seen as the greatest opportunity for global democratization , the hypothesis of the constantly growing knowledge gap called the basic democratic principle of free information into question.
Actually, through the independent dissemination of information in the population, the members of a society should become responsible citizens. This rather normative claim of the responsible citizen cannot be achieved because of the growing knowledge gap between higher and lower status population groups.
Further development and differentiation
The hypothesis of the "gap in knowledge", which was based on the growing knowledge gap between lower-status and higher-status class segments, was based on shortened causal chains. As a result, it could be assumed that there was no direct connection between social status and the successful acquisition of information from the mass media. Therefore the hypothesis was modified by the Minnesota group after only three years. They found that the widening of a knowledge gap depends not only on socio-economic status, but also on the nature of the subject. If it is merely a matter of factual knowledge that is thematized in the mass media, there is a gradual (i.e. gradual) convergence of less educated parts of the population with more educated ones.
Since this modification was also not sufficient to reliably predict a growing knowledge gap, the knowledge-gap hypothesis was modified again by James S. Ettema and Gerald F. Kliene (1977). They published the competitive hypothesis in an article in the journal Communication Research. In this hypothesis, the authors included the motivation to acquire media content for the first time. They found that the formation of gaps in knowledge does not only depend on the type of topic, but also on the degree of motivation to acquire the content. So one should not start from deficits in media appropriation, but rather from differences.
With the increasing digitization of the mass media at the end of the twentieth century, the discussion about the digital divide differentiated itself from the more general discussion about the different appropriation of media content . The digital divide is not to be understood as a further modification of the knowledge gap hypothesis, but as a supplement and expansion. The digital separation means multi-dimensional exclusion mechanisms that arise, among other things, from deficits or, more precisely, from differences in access to and access to new media. The digital divide is seen as one of the greatest structural problems of the post-industrial knowledge society.
Reasons and reactions
As a rule, supporters of the knowledge gap hypothesis take a negative stance with regard to the potential of a knowledge society . It is doubted that technological development can counteract the growing knowledge gap. People of higher socioeconomic status have Tichenor et al. (1970, p. 162) tends to:
- higher communication skills: better formal education results in better reading and comprehension skills.
- Prior knowledge: From higher education as well as more frequent and thus more practiced media use, a sensitivity for the relevance of different media content follows.
- Social contacts: Higher education and better income result in a broader range of activities and thus a connection to more social reference groups. This promotes interpersonal communication - including discussion of media content.
- selective handling: the level of personal education correlates with media use. The recording and retention of media content tends to be better for formally more educated people than for less educated population segments.
- Advantages with regard to the structure of the media system: Print media contain higher quality and more detailed information that is better retained through reading than, for example, news on TV. In terms of language, style and appearance, these media are based on those who are socio-economically better off.
Supporters of the knowledge gap hypothesis in science come primarily from the educational and social science camps and have a critical understanding of the consequences of new media on society.
Critics of the knowledge gap hypothesis dispute the political honesty of the knowledge gap argumentation. They come mainly from the techno-liberal camp ( André Rebentisch and others) and accuse the hypothesis of being an adaptation of the Marxist theory of impoverishment . In contrast, knowledge is only accumulated instead of capital . With the knowledge divide hypothesis, advocates would only represent their own interests (for example, increased spending on education benefits educators). Instead of talking about structural questions and creating technological frameworks, expensive programs that address the individual follow as possible solutions. From the point of view of the critics, this is a waste of resources. Furthermore, the critics see the knowledge gap hypothesis in the continuity of an aristocratic understanding with which “the mob ” could be denied democratic rights up to the 19th century . Proponents of the knowledge gap hypothesis strive to overcome it, but an immanent value judgment remains that makes the hypothesis unscientific, especially since the empirical underpinning was mainly built up by cross-sectional studies , while methodologically longitudinal studies would be more necessary to determine a growing knowledge gap .
Nevertheless, the thesis received some attention and intensive research in science. On the political side, the knowledge gap was taken up by the technology initiative D21 of the social democratic federal government.
See also
literature
- Heinz Bonfadelli: The knowledge gap perspective. Mass media and social information (= research field communication. Vol. 5). UVK-Medien Ölschläger, Konstanz 1994, ISBN 3-88295-195-8 (At the same time: Zurich, University, habilitation paper, 1992/1993).
- Phillip J. Tichenor, George A. Donohue, Clarice N. Olien: Mass Media Flow and Differential Growth in Knowledge. In: The Public Opinion Quarterly. Vol. 34, No. 2, Summer 1970, ISSN 0033-362X , pp. 159-170.
- Werner Wirth: From information to knowledge. The role of reception in the creation of knowledge differences. A contribution to the knowledge gap research (= studies on communication science. Vol. 23). Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1997, ISBN 3-531-12944-9 .