Learning About Current Affairs: Traditional News, Infotainment, and New Media’s Impact on the Knowledge Gap

• In Event: Knowledge Gaps and Knowledge Gains

Abstract

Formulated in the “knowledge gap hypothesis,” scholars fear that some citizens become less knowledgeable about political affairs than others as the consequence of chances in the media landscape. Especially now traditional news media’s popularity is waning and new (plat)forms of news have emerged, investigating this phenomenon is important. This study employs a three-wave panel survey (n=3,240) to analyze how exposure to different kinds of media affects knowledge gain. Whereas exposure to hard news, satire, online news and Twitter positively affects knowledge; knowledge does not rise with increased exposure to newspapers, soft news and Facebook. Moderation analysis, though, shows that increased exposure to hard television news only positively affects the knowledge of citizens with little politics interest (i.e., leveling the knowledge gap). Mediation analysis, however, demonstrates that it are especially the politically interested citizens who expose themselves to the media that cause knowledge gain (i.e., amplifying the knowledge gap).

Authors

• Mark Boukes, Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR), U of Amsterdam

• Rens Vliegenthart, U of Amsterdam