Connecting News Media Use with Gaps in Knowledge and Participation

TLDR

The article examines how gaps in knowledge and participation between higher and lower educated individuals vary with the quantity and type of news media use, building on the communication effects gap hypothesis, cognitive psychology of learning, and prior political behavior research. The study predicted that heavy television news use would narrow, while heavy newspaper use would widen, the education gap in knowledge, and that both heavy television and newspaper use would increase gaps in general political participation but not voting. The authors analyzed 1996 American National Election Study data from the U.S. presidential campaign to assess education gaps in knowledge and participation across levels of television and newspaper news use. They found that light television news users had larger knowledge gaps than heavy users, a similar but weaker pattern for newspaper use, and that neither medium affected voting gaps while newspaper use was linked to larger gaps in general political participation.

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the relative size of gaps in knowledge and participation between the more and less educated as they vary by the quantity and type of news media use. We predicted that the gap between high and low education groups would be smaller among heavy television news users than among light users, whereas the gap between high and low education groups would be larger among heavy newspaper users than among light users. We also predicted that the gap in general political participation but not votingwould be greater among both heavy television news users and heavy newspaper users than among light news users. These predictions were based on logic derived from the communication effects gap hypothesis, the cognitive psychology of learning, and research on political behavior. Analyzing data collected as part of the American National Election Study during the 1996 U.S. presidential campaign, we found that gaps in knowledge between higher and lower education groups were greater among light than heavy users of television news. A similar pattern was found for knowledge gaps across levels of newspaper use, but this pattern was weaker and may possibly be attributed to ceilings imposed by the nature of the test or a natural ceiling in the information domain. By contrast, neither television news use nor newspaper use was related to gaps in voting; however, newspaper use, but not television news use, was related to gaps in general political participation. Keywords: Newspapers Political Learning Political Participation Television News Voting