Knowledge Gap Hypothesis

Knowledge Gap Hypothesis

The Knowledge Gap Hypothesis explains that knowledge, like other forms of wealth, is often differentially distributed throughout a social system. Specifically, the hypothesis predicts that “as the infusion of mass media information into a social system increases, higher socioeconomic status segments tend to acquire this information faster than lower socioeconomic-status population segments so that the gap in knowledge between the two tends to increase rather than decrease” Phillip J. Tichenor, then Associate Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication, George A. Donohue, Professor of Sociology, and Clarice, N. Olien, Instructor in Sociology – three University of Minnesota researchers – first proposed the knowledge gap hypothesis in 1970.

Read more about Knowledge Gap Hypothesis:  Foundations, Specification of The Knowledge Gap Hypothesis, A Formal Summary of The Knowledge Gap Hypothesis, Hypothesis Operationalization and Initial Support, Refining The Hypothesis, Narrative Review and Meta-Analytic Support, Criticism and Directions For Future Research, Competing Hypotheses

Famous quotes containing the words knowledge, gap and/or hypothesis:

    “There is not a single rule, however plausible, and however firmly grounded in epistemology, that is not violated at some time or other. It becomes evident that such violations are not accidental events, they are not results of insufficient knowledge or of inattention which might have been avoided. On the contrary, we see that they are necessary for progress.”
    —Paul Feyerabend (1924–1994)

    “The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.”
    —George Orwell (1903–1950)

    “The hypothesis I wish to advance is that ... the language of morality is in ... grave disorder.... What we possess, if this is true, are the fragments of a conceptual scheme, parts of which now lack those contexts from which their significance derived. We possess indeed simulacra of morality, we continue to use many of the key expressions. But we have—very largely if not entirely—lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical, of morality.”
    —Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre (b. 1929)