Knowledge Gap Hypothesis - Refining The Hypothesis

Refining The Hypothesis

Although by the mid 1970s extensive data supported the existence of a knowledge gap among low and high socioeconomic status individuals, Donohue, Tichenor, and Olien (1975) sought to refine the hypothesis to determine under what conditions the knowledge gap might be attenuated or even eliminated. To this end, they examined survey data on national and local issues from probability samples of 16 Minnesota communities gathered between 1969 and 1975. Donohue and colleagues identified three variables that weakened the knowledge gap:

1. Level of basic social concern aroused by the issue - Local issues that directly implicated the community tended to arouse greater social concern than national issues that did not implicate the community. Local issues, then, tended to decrease the magnitude of the knowledge gap.
2. Level of social conflict surrounding the issue - Up to the point at which a communication breakdown occurred, issues with more perceived conflict tended to draw more attention and, thus, decrease the magnitude of the knowledge gap.
3. Level of homogeneity of the community - Because smaller, more homogeneous communities tend to exhibit less social differentiation and variety in sources of information than larger, more heterogeneous communities, homogeneous communities tended to exhibit smaller knowledge gaps than heterogeneous communities.