Knowledge Gap Hypothesis - A Formal Summary of The Knowledge Gap Hypothesis

A Formal Summary of The Knowledge Gap Hypothesis

Given the preceding information, the knowledge gap hypothesis can be expressed using the following set of related propositions:

  1. People in a society exhibit great psychological diversity due to their psychological makeup, learned experiences, social relationships, and social category memberships.
  2. Despite these differences, people with more education tend to have better developed cognitive and communication skills, broader social spheres with more and more diverse social contacts, and a greater amount of stored information than their counterparts with less education.
  3. People with greater education also tend express interest in, and expose themselves to, a broader range of topics, including serious topics like public affairs, science, and health news.
  4. Therefore, as the infusion of mass media information into a social system increases, segments of the population with higher socioeconomic status tend to acquire this information at a faster rate than the lower status segments so that the gap in knowledge between these segments tends to increase rather than decrease.

Read more about this topic:  Knowledge Gap Hypothesis

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

    “There must be a profound recognition that parents are the first teachers and that education begins before formal schooling and is deeply rooted in the values, traditions, and norms of family and culture.”
    —Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)

    “Product of a myriad various minds and contending tongues, compact of obscure and minute association, a language has its own abundant and often recondite laws, in the habitual and summary recognition of which scholarship consists.”
    —Walter Pater (1839–1894)

    “All knowledge is ambiguous.”
    —J.S. Habgood (b. 1927)

    “The theatre is the best way of showing the gap between what is said and what is seen to be done, and that is why, ragged and gap-toothed as it is, it has still a far healthier potential than some poorer, abandoned arts.”
    —David Hare (b. 1947)

    “The wheels and springs of man are all set to the hypothesis of the permanence of nature. We are not built like a ship to be tossed, but like a house to stand.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)