This study focused on the roles that community integration and community-boundedness (the relevance of a topic for a specific community) play on knowledge gaps. Given the extensive evidence linking media exposure with community ties, the authors hypothesized that ties with the local community could potentially mitigate local public affairs knowledge gaps. They also examined if the relevance of a topic to a subgroup would lead to lower knowledge gaps. A survey of 661 residents of Franklin County, Ohio, showed that whereas community ties were unrelated to knowledge, community-boundedness could be an important determinant of knowledge gaps on local public affairs. Additional analysis of the data also suggests that length of association with the community could be a potentially important contingent condition in the amelioration of knowledge gaps. The authors argue that their findings extend traditional findings of knowledge gaps that apply to geographically defined communities to studying “communities without propinquity.”

OF THE most powerful hopes advanced by theories of representative government is that news media remain free so they may educate the public in making political choices. Ignorance condemns people to sway with the most available rhetoric. The uninformed person chooses randomly or out of habit to support candidates or policies. 1 Often he or she avoids the political arena altogetherperhaps because of hedonism or alienation. 2 1 An analogy to this point, drawn from laws of inertia, can be found in Converse (1962). 1 The conventional image of the alienated and withdrawn citizen may be badly out of date, however. Recent studies have disclosed many people who are distrustful of government, but who combine this feeling with intensely held attitudes about political issues. Extreme conservatives and liberals can be expected to possess above average levels of information. See Miller (1974), and following comment by Jack Citrin and rejoinder.Abstract Adults' use of newspapers is found to correlate positively with having reasons for preferring one U.S. senatorial candidate over another. Television exposure is negatively related to political "reasoning" to a nearly significant degree. Data were provided by a 1974 nationwide, postelection survey. Analysis was conducted at the aggregate level, examining media behavior and political knowledge in 67 news markets. News markets with competition among daily newspapers show greater levels of information than monopoly areas, controlling for education and interest in politics. Results suggest that a decline in newspaper penetration, lessened competition, or shift toward use of television for news would weaken peoples' understanding about partisan candidates.

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The Hypermedia Interaction Cycle (HIC) proposed in this paper is an iterative, self-regulatory model that captures the dynamics of hypermedia interaction from a user's perspective. The interaction cycle was divided into three distinct phases: preparation, exploration, and consolidation. The dynamics between two motivational components, namely self-efficacy factors and goal conditions, were examined within the HIC using a browsing task that involved searching for news-story ideas on the World Wide Web. Findings suggest that a cyclical model involving shifting states of goals and self-efficacy can capture some of the dynamics of motivation within the HIC. Furthermore, there was evidence of a self-regulatory pattern between the motivational components in the model.

This survey shows that readers often aredissatisfied utith the infmmational value of quotes and background used in news stories. The authors suggest that readers' criticism of structure orform can help journalists to improve story structure.

This study examines the role of media in a local election using media use andpublicperceptionsof mediaand their interactionsas key independent variables. Some support is found for the notion that media do not exert direct ejfects on behavioral outcomes, but rather this process depends on how people perceive the media t h q use in terms of their ties to special interests in the community and the interaction of this perception with media use.Although the role of mass media in national and state elections has been detailed extensively over the years, the picture is less clear in the case of local elections. Yet, local elections occur more frequently, are closer to people's everyday lives, and may have more direct and immediate consequences for life in a given community than more remote political choices.

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In a study of a public school controversy, a knowledge gap is found that the authors describe as a gap of disaffection. Among women only, higher education leads to greater knowledge, but does so partly through reduced trust of government and lower perceived fairness of the news media. Similar findings occur with other less powerful groups.