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= = ====**Josh** Noble  **-** **Erika** Sauter  **-** **Trevor** O`Brien **-** **William** Prickett  **-** **Taylor** Restaino **-** **Vittoria** Picone **- ** **Jelena** Agabalian ====

=__Overview __=

====The knowledge-gap hypothesis theory was first introduced by Phillip J. Tichenor and his colleagues Donohue and Olien. The theory attempts to explain that there is a gap between people's knowledge. Such a gap is easily evident between different generations such as grandparents and grandchildren and also between parents and their children. What most people do not know is that media plays a vital role. The theory states there is a gap between information rich and information poor. Every medium within media influences the gap. People with lower socioeconomic status have less access to those mediums than those of higher socioeconomic status. The theory being that those fortunate people of higher socioeconomic status tend to receive information at a faster rate than those of lower status thus creating a gap in information knowledge. There is also evidence that age, sex, educational background, ethnicity and also access to the media through television, internet, newspapers, books, and magazines all impact this gap. The context in which the theory was developed was due to the definition of "digital" within the term "digital divide" being fuzzy. The definition of digital divide states that there is a division between those who have access to the internet and other information technologies. It also puts people at a disadvantage economically. Contextually, the group each chose an article that reflected a different way the gap has been realized and assessed. How a TV show has narrowed the gap through political knowledge, the importance of internet and how it influences us, how knowledge or lack there of can beliefs and myths, how men and women a gap in their differing opinions and if awareness and participation campaigns are effective among Canadians between age and socioeconomic status. Each article shows the different aspects of the hypothesis theory and helps develop a clear understanding of the theory. ====

=__Important Concepts __=
 * ====New media increases the “gap”/ discrepancy of information between individuals. ====
 * ====<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Knowledge gap exist globally, nationally, and locally between various socioeconomic groups, education levels, and genders. ====
 * ====<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The “rich get richer” and the “poor get poorer” in relationship to the knowledge they possess and the media they have access to. ====
 * ====<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The theory suggest that the flow of new information is directed towards high society, growing urban areas, and prosperous regions. ====
 * ====<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The gap of knowledge between people could be the result of an individual’s use, likes and dislikes, and enjoyment of media. ====
 * ====<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">“Theoretically speaking, knowledge gaps should not exist in a nation that promotes equal opportunity for all its citizens.”- Nash ====

=__<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Studies and Their Contributions __=

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The knowledge gap theory is a basic theory that can venture down multiple avenues of a specific emphasis. In most articles and studies, seen by the members of this group, it is obvious that there are various settings, in which, the theory can be applied to. There is the most widely used distinction of separation, or Socio-Economic Status as seen in the articles, “Awareness of the participaction campaign among Canadian adults - Examining the knowledge gap hypothesis and a hierarchy-of-effects model.”; “revisiting the knowledge gap hypothesis: a meta-analysis of thirty five years of research” by: Yoori Hwang and Se-Hoon Jeong; and others. These studies break down the differences in knowledge of people based solely upon their status in society.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Another setting that was used for a differing look into the knowledge gap was that of gender specification. “Explaining the Gap: The Interaction of Gender and News Enjoyment in Predicting Political Knowledge” by Jillian Nash and Lindsay Hoffman determines the separation of knowledge within the sexes.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> It is obvious that with a contrast in location, economic status, gender, etc, there is going to be some sort of gap or barrier that will produce a lack or filtered knowledge for some people comparatively to others. By doing these studies however, it is making it easier for researchers, and knowledge seekers alike to establish ways of distributing the information more evenly, especially as these gaps continue to widen.


 * How has the theory changed?**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The knowledge gap theory was first established in 1970 in regards to the lack of media access to the information poor and the increase in access for the information rich. There appeared to be an uneven amount of information distributed among different members of society. Tichenor found that people who were of higher socioeconomic status (SES) were able to acquire new forms of media more easily and thus increased their general knowledge, yet Tichenor found the opposite results for lower socioeconomic members. And as the lack of contact to various forms of media increases so did the gap between the educated and the non-educated. Overtime the knowledge gap theory has expanded beyond the scope of SES and has now been identified through cultures, genders, regions, and within corporations. The gap between individuals has been and is continually studied through experiments, surveys, and in-depth interviews in order to help broaden the explanation of why knowledge gaps exist. Research has proven that the imbalance of knowledge is no longer limited to education levels but could also be explained by the complexity of the issue, the degree of interest a person may have towards a topic, and/or the ability of an individual to recall information. The knowledge gap theory continues to progress in its hypothesis and is still noticeable in various contexts, but the understanding of this theory is aiding in narrowing the gap between individuals and groups across the globe.

=<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> =

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The Knowledge-gap hypothesis suggests that each new medium introduced increases the gap between those people that are information rich and have access to the information and those who are information poor. In a study done by Raluca Cozma about "Online Heath Communication: Source or Eliminator of Health Myths?", Cozma tests the knowledge gap hypothesis by discussing people's beliefs in health myths.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Since the internet has become popular, many people have turned to different websites to determine health facts since health facts become outdated very quickly. Half of the health facts students learn in Medical School will have been shown to be wrong in ten years according to studies. The study I chose explorers health beliefs and myths and if those beliefs and myths varies among different demographic groups. Virtually everyone and very culture group has some sort of access to the internet and a way to obtain health information from a wide variety of medical websites. The researchers intend to use this study to show whether or not gender and ethnicity have a role in determining certain beliefs.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The study states that there are three spheres of influence on people's perceptions, beliefs and attitudes. Of those three, the sphere the study focuses on is the personal sphere. The personal sphere is the sphere in which media is included such as Weblogs are and how they effect beliefs among people. The knowledge-gap theory is important because it is believed that people of lower economic status fall behind in information and therefore fall behind those who are well informed thus creating a gap. One of the factors the knowledge gap theory presents is that access to the media and print media in particular is correlated to a higher socioeconomic status. The study shows that since whites are more likely to have access to such things such as the internet and newspapers, they are less likely to believe in myths. Higher socioeconomic status, higher level of education, higher income means you are more knowledgeable than those of lower status. Lower socioeconomic status meant there was a bigger gap in information and it is shown in the study that those people unfortunately tend to believe in myths pertaining to certain health situations. The study found that Men and African Americans are more likely to believe health myths compared to Women and those of other ethnicities.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The article also states that "men score higher than women in political knowledge. The new finding could suggest that men and women have different areas of interest, health being the women’s prerogative." It has been shown that journalists are very persuasive and can easily change peoples mind. The internet hosts numerous websites with a lot of misconceptions about health and people tend to believe what they read. Media plays a vital role in this because people believe it to be a credible source when in reality some stuff out on the internet produced by the media can be false. Credibility is a huge factor in how people perceive health myths and what they believe or do not believe. This study proves that yes there is a knowledge-gap between people of different ethnicities, age, sex, and educational background.

//<span style="color: #808080; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 80%;">Cozma, R. (2009). Online Health Communication: Source or Eliminator of Health Myths?. Southwestern Mass Communication Journal, 25(1), 69-80. Retrieved from Communication & Mass Media Complete database. // <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 80%;">[|PDF File for Article]

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Summary by: **Trevor** O'Brien
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The purpose of this study is to show how watching soft news programs such as The Daily Show With Jon Stewart can help to narrow the knowledge gap, in political knowledge, between traditional news viewers and those who don’t normally watch news programs. The programming people watch on TV creates a knowledge gap, while some choose to watch entertaining shows others watch traditional news programs. The hypothesis of the study is that people who do not watch any, or moderate amounts of traditional news programs, but do watch The Daily Show know more about politics and world events than those who do not watch either.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> The study was conducted through a survey over the telephone with over 1,000 participants who were asked several political comprehension questions, their frequency of watching traditional news programs, and frequency of watching The Daily Show. The survey was conducted in 2002, and in 2004. In the study the group who did not watch the Daily Show, traditional news viewers scored higher in political knowledge than those who did not watch any news programs. Those who watched The Daily Show, and never watch traditional news scored higher in political knowledge than people who watched traditional news regularly.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> The implications of the study show The Daily Show is not only help to close the knowledge gap, but may actually be forming another one. People who watch entertainment programming instead of traditional news scored lower in political knowledge than those who watch the news. But the people who watch entertainment programs that include soft news such as The Daily Show outperformed those who watch traditional news frequently. //<span style="color: #808080; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 80%;">Cao, X. (2008). Learning From Jon Stewart: How Soft News Programs Inform Infrequent Consumers of Traditional News. Conference Papers -- International Communication Association, 1-24. Retrieved from Communication & Mass Media Complete database. // <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 80%;">[|PDF File for Article]

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Summary by: **Taylor** Restaino
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">In this study, they sought to come to three conclusions about a campaign for a healthy, active lifestyle in Canada called, ParticipACTION. The three main purposes of this study were, first, determine how effective enough ParticipACTION was at making the Canadians aware; secondly, establish if, whether or not, the awareness of this campaign was affected by societal factors, ie: household income, education level, etc.; and finally, to see whether the level of activity is effected by the viewers already predisposed notions of physical activity. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> This study was created in order to further study the effects of the knowledge gap between those, in Canada, who are aware of the ParticpACTION campaign based on age and socioeconomic status. Their hypothosese assumed that the adult, high social economic status (SES) population would benefit more than the lower SES due to the free flow of communication at their disposal, thus creating a knowledge gap between the high and low SES groups.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The surveys were conducted on a monthly basis, which spanned over a time period of six months. 333 Canadians, 15 years or older, were chosen as the participant group for the study. They sampled from all provinces and territories in Canada, with the exception of Nunavut, which produced a pretty sizeable national representative sample. Eventually, for a more in-depth analysis, they added 470 more participants, which resulted in approximately 800 candidates. This was added to previous studies done about the ParticipACTION campaign resulting in 4,650 Canadians. Taken into account that the campaign, which ceased in 1999 would only be known by a certain age group (20 years or older) the participation sample number when down to 4244 respondents with a response rate of 49%. Interviews were also taken in order to get a fair and representative sample size.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> For the study, they measured physical activity levels, physical activity beliefs, awarness of the ParticipACTION campaign and sources of physical activity information. The participants were to answer survey questions including all of these categories by choosing the best answer on multiple scales depending on the question. For example, the question "how confident are you that you can regularly do a total of 30 minutes or more of moderate physical activity per day at least three or four times a week?" a five-point scale was presented ranging from 'not at all confident' to 'very confident'. A seven-point scale, which ranged from “no intention at all” to “fully intent” options was also presented to the participants after a question like, "thinking ahead over the next six months, to what extent do you intend to be physically active?", was asked.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> When it came down to analyzing the material and data there was a margin of error that was less that .05, making the study legitimate. With prompted (mentioning of the particpACTION campaign) and unprompted (no mention of the particpACTION) questions, which would establish more data from the respondents, the study was then able to decipher what it all meant. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> Results showed that even though, for the unprompted awarness was higher in men (12%) than woman (7%), prompted awarness showed no differences in gender. 56% of the participants were deemed sufficiently active; 8% were aware of ParticipACTION unprompted, meaning that they cited it as the organization they identified when thinking of physical activity, while 82% were aware when prompted. Finally, similar patterns of awareness were observed for both the SES’s, which was separated into household income and level of education. This showed that the respondents at the lowest levels being less aware of ParticipACTION than those at higher levels. These patterns continued for both types of awareness and eventually supported the knowledge gap theory that was meant to be found for this study.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> The knowledge gap theory, once again, was proven as a barrier for different groups of people. Despite the groups, which, in this case, were groups separated by socio-economic standing, there shouldn’t be a gap or blockade which prevents one from learning, knowning, or understand what another group learns, knows, understands. The knowledge gap hypothesis is just another hinderance on finding equality in this world. Until the gap is bridged, there will always be someone out of the know.

<span style="color: #808080; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 80%;">//Spence, J. C. ParticipACTION: Awareness of the participACTION campaign among Canadian adults - Examining the knowledge gap hypothesis and a hierarchy-of-effects model. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. 6 from doi:10.1186/1479-5868-6-85// <span style="color: #323463; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 80%; line-height: 14pt; margin-bottom: 11pt;">[|PDF File for Article]

Progression of Knowledge Gap Theory over the Years
Summary by: **Vittoria** Picone

Knowledge gap hypothesis proposes that the media can increase gaps in knowledge, which affects a gap in knowledge between groups with different socioeconomic statuses (SES) because of their access to the media.Different studies have shown a wide variety of correlations between SES and knowledge relationship, so a study was done to try and measure the strength of the relationship between SES and level of knowledge and to determine how this has changed over time.Tichenor and some colleagues used two methods to test this. Through their studies they determined that despite their hypothesis that the gap would increase, empirical evidence didn’t support this prediction. Most studies depicted a decreasing or constant gap.According to Hwang and Jeong, two Knowledge Gap researchers, “Categorical tests were conducted to test the second hypothesis, which predicted an increase in the knowledge gap over time. A comparison of knowledge gap between two time points shows that there were no significant differences in the magnitude of the knowledge gap between the two time points. The mean correlation of Time 1 was .23 and that of Time 2 was .26, and this difference was not statistically significant (Q„(l) = 1.49, //p// = .22).”Despite the fact that most studies over the years have not shown a very significant increase or decrease in the gap, they discuss what this could potentially mean. “The constant gap, however, still may have some important implications. On the one hand, a constant gap can be disappointing particularly when it exists despite planned media campaigns that attempt to provide useful health or political information. This constant gap among high and low SES individuals can be problematic as a health knowledge gap can lead to health disparities and a political knowledge gap can result in differences in participatory behaviors.” Essentially, what these studies are finding is that although this gap is constant (which is better than an increase) there hasn’t been any clear evidence of efforts to decrease the gap, which would be most beneficial for people in all SES levels.

//<span style="color: #808080; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 80%;">Yoori, H., & Se-Hoon, J. (2009). REVISING THE KNOWLEDGE GAP HYPOTHESIS: A META-ANALYSIS OF THIRTY-FIVE YEARS OF RESEARCH. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 86(3), 513-532. Retrieved from Communication & Mass Media Complete database. // <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 80%;">[|PDF File for Article]



<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Summary by: **Josh** Noble
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">In today's society we live in a age where technology flourishes. I personally don't know what I would do if the internet didn't exist, like which was the case 20 years ago. Now a days you can find anything about anything on the world wide web. This is why I was interested in the article "Knowledge Gaps in the Internet Age". Which brings us to the purpose of the study which is to examine the relationship between media use and acquisition of public affairs knowledge.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> In prior studies there was already a gap in the print media among different income and educational groups, but with the introduction of the internet that gap would be expected to widen. Not everyone has access to a computer or pay for internet subscription. Some also don't even know how to use a computer.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> The study itself was conducted in the year 2000 in a Midwest metropolitan. Traditional random-digit dialing and a computer aided telephone interviewing system were used. There were 351 total people who were interviewed, all over the age of 18. They were all asked of a series of questions to test their awareness and knowledge of the internet among other relevant things.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> The results show that there is in fact a gap among people with different educational levels and household incomes. Both newspaper and magazine readership are positively correlated with income and education levels. Also to no surprise education was correlated with reading books. Both education and income are negatively correlated with time spent watching television, which I guess makes sense, since your spending time you could be using to make money. Internet, like newspapers had a strong relation with the two variables being used in the experiment. The level of public affairs knowledge also went up as the usage of internet did. And finally the highest total internet knowledge index produced the highest total knowledge index, meaning that internet is the ideal tool for getting today's news.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> With the continue growth of the internet and the demise of the newspaper business, most people will be looking to get their information from the web. The internet poses as an easier and faster alternative to news print. The internet has massive amounts of information waiting to be read, but will the people invest time into reading it and staying up to date with current events. I believe the internet is a blessing, and hopefully it will be able to cover the gap left behind by the print media and help sustain awareness of community affairs.

//<span style="color: #808080; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 80%;">Jeffres, L., Neuendorf, K. , & Atkin, D. (2003). Knowledge gaps in the internet age. Conference Papers -- International Communication Association, 1-26. // <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 80%;">[|PDF File For Article]

Explaining the Gap: The Interaction of Gender and News Enjoyment in Predicting Political Knowledge Summary by: **Erika** Sauter

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Research on the knowledge gap theory has primarily been based on new media’s affects on the inequality of information between socioeconomic statuses (SES) of individuals. However, the article “Explaining the Gap: The Interaction of Gender and News Enjoyment in Predicting Political Knowledge” by Jillian Nash and Lindsay Hoffman, focuses on the disparity of political knowledge between men and women in reference to the amount of enjoyment towards media. The article seeks to examine why a political knowledge gap between genders exist. Nash and Hoffman explore audience’s actual relationship with media through varying moods and emotions as well as the philosophy of hedonism (the belief that humans naturally seek out sources of pleasure). Previous research indicates men and women prefer different types of news messages. For instance, a distressing news story can create a negative mood among viewers in which women viewers will dwell and ruminate over; whereas men viewers tend to move forward by focusing on the next bit of information. In addition women enjoy more positive news content, while men prefer the negative style. And “news reports typically contain more ‘bad news’ than ‘good news’” which may provide evidence as to why men have a better understanding of political knowledge over women.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> Through these findings Nash and Hoffman present five hypotheses in regards to the relationships of gender, political knowledge, enjoyment, and media use. The questioning of the knowledge gap between men and women are centered on the third and fifth hypotheses:


 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">(3) There will be a correlation between level of enjoyment of keeping up with the news and political knowledge.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">(5) Gender will act as a moderator in the relation between enjoyment of keeping up with the news and political knowledge.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> The study was conducted through a nationwide telephone poll by The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. By randomized digital dialing, participants included nearly 50-50 male, female ratio, between the ages of 18 to 95 with education levels ranging from a few years of grade school to post-graduate studies. Enjoyment levels were measured by participants’ responses (1-4) to the question “How much do you enjoy keeping up with the news”; where 1 equaled “not all” and 4 meaning “a lot”. Political Knowledge was measured by a series of 23 current event questions, granting one point for each correct answer.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> Through regression analysis Nash and Hoffman found significant correlations for all five hypotheses. Thus, it proves when people enjoy keeping up with the news their ability to absorb political information is greater. Moreover a knowledge gap is not necessarily due to SES or education level, it could simply be caused by personal likes and dislikes of media content. Perhaps messages could be altered or rewritten to appeal to various types of people with keeping in mind the philosophy of hedonism and the appeal of enjoyment.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> Nash and Hoffman suggested for future research to study the enjoyment of media use during and after monumental changes. For instance, they noted that during the 2008 presidential election Hilary Clinton was the first legitimate female candidate for US president and thus, aroused more political interest among women. However, as noted by Nash and Hoffman it would be interesting to see if women continued to stay inline with political events after she lost in the primaries. If so, then the gap between men and women’s political understanding of the 2008 presidential election should have been reduced.

//<span style="color: #808080; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 80%;">(Authors: Jillian Nash and Lindsay Hoffman) // //<span style="color: #808080; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 80%;"> Nash, J., & Hoffman, L. (2009). Explaining the Gap: The Interaction of Gender and News Enjoyment in Predicting Political Knowledge. Communication Research Reports, 26(2), 114-122. doi:10.1080/08824090902861556. // <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 80%;">PDF File for Article

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">For years researchers have been testing whether the educational level of audience is associated with variability in knowledge acquisition from different forms of media. The purpose of this study is to investigate the cognitive access by testing the interaction of three various media channels such as; television, newspaper and web and the time delay (immediately after exposure, and two days later) of the educational level of audience members. Researchers analyzed three memory measures by using the limited capacity model of mediated message processing (LCMMMP), which provided a small perspective on how people encode, store and retrieve information. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> To analyze the following study five different hypotheses were created by using two research questions. The researchers used 41 subjects from a Midwest city in the study, balanced by gender and education, high and low. The low education group consisted of subjects with no more than high school education, while the high education group all had completed at least an MA degree. The subjects were randomly assigned two one of three counterbalanced presentation orders. The variables were channel (TV, NP or Web), message (four messages for each of the channels, 12 news total) and time (immediately and delayed memory measures). Twelve news stories from a wide range of topics were selected from a larger sample of news coverage in the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper, the ABC TV news affiliate in Philadelphia, and their websites during the weekdays of April10-14th, 2001, in order to preserve the ecological validity of the stimuli. Each subject saw 12 news stories but in different channel versions edited to make the amount of information between each channel comparable.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> RQ1: Are there interactions effects between channel and education for encoding, storage and retrieval? Which investigates the interaction of effects of the channel (TV, NP or Web) and the education on the three memory measures (encoding, storage and retrieval). <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The results show a significant interaction effect for encoding (recognition memory) based on channel by education. For TV channel, the low education group did not differ from the high education group, however for the newspaper and the web, the gap for the two education groups widened significantly, the low education group showed a remarkable drop, while the high education group showed an increase in encoding compared to TV. In storage measure, no difference between high and low education groups appeared for TV, however the low education group showed significantly less capacity to store information form newspaper and web. The retrieval measures produced a similar pattern, which showed that there were no differences between the high and low education group for the TV versions of stories. However, the low education group showed a significant decline in the retrieval of information while the high education group showed an increase in retrieval abilities.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">These results showed that hypothesis number 1 was supported by all variables. The subjects with high education had higher scores than subjects with low education for recognition memory (encoding), cued recall (storage), and free recall (retrieval). The second hypothesis was not supported. There were no significant differences on the variables based on the type of channel. Contrary to the predication, TV versions of stories were associated with the best cued recall, followed by the web and newspapers. In contrast results supported hypothesis number four and hypothesis number three was not supported. Results showed that education level had a main significant effect on encoding, storage and retrieval of information, even when the variance (understandability, interest and informativeness) was controlled for. In fact, when the variance was controlled, the effect of education was increased and the mean difference became larger for encoding and retrieval, however not for storage. The results supported the final hypothesis, where the three above mentioned co variates explained a considerable amount of variance in the effects of channel on storage and retrieval measures.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">In conclusion this study shows that the knowledge gap might be the product of variance in information processing capacity among education groups. The low educated groups were outperformed by the high educated group in all three memory measures. Television proved to be the most beneficial medium for the low educated group for news retrieval, while the high educated group benefited most from retrieval of print-based media.

//<span style="color: #808080; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 80%;">Grabe, M., Kamhawi, R., & Yegiyan, N. (2009). Informing Citizens: How People with Different Levels of Education Process Television, Newspaper, and Web News. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 53(1), 90-111. doi:10.1080/08838150802643860. // //<span style="color: #808080; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 80%;">[|PDF File for Article] //



__<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">The current state of the knowledge gap theory and new directions for developing the theory __
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The knowledge gap theory was developed by Tichenor, Donohue and Olien at the University of Minnesota in 1970. Tichenor, Donohue and Olien believed that information was not evenly obtained by members in society. They believed that this gap was related to the socioeconomic status of the members in society. This resulted in dividing the members of society in two groups, the higher educated group and the lower educated group. And studies show that higher educated groups are better at obtaining information than the lower educated group. However, today the knowledge gap theory acquired in mass media and communication does not only concentrate on these two groups.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> The current state of the theory goes beyond these groups, for instance gender is considered when trying to measure the gap in how members of society obtain information generally, however the theory still roots to the socioeconomic statuses in society. When information on different topics is released to society, studies are made by researchers in order to see how information is obtained, and these studies differ from each other because of what researches would like to gain from the study and how they approach it. Therefore, knowledge gap still exists in many aspects in mass media. Studies are made in order to get an idea on what creates knowledge gap and how narrow gap found in different areas, because mass media itself might have the effect of increasing the difference gap between members of social classes. It is not easy to narrow this gap, because no matter what there will be status differences between the members of society, therefore mass media should not be part of creating the problem, mass media should be part of the solution.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> So in order to try to narrow this gap in obtain information provided by the mass media, it is important to acknowledge the problem and try to find a way of solving it in the different areas, mainly using the studies that are made. In order for mass media not to fail to inform the public at large, problem recognition is the first step and second step is communication, namely on how mass publicity should try to reach out to the whole public at once. Therefore, it is important to consider which channels to use when content it put out to the public and consider that within a target group, socioeconomic statuses for instance are to be weighed as important as well in order to prevent further widening the information gap between the members of society.

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-Group**11**