Local Community Ties, Community-Boundedness, and Local Public Affairs Knowledge Gaps

Abstract

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.”

Do Chinese Internet users care about news? Tracking news consumers on the Internet in a metropolis 2009–2011

“…Surveillance motivation is the prime driving force for news information attention. It can be characterized as a mediator (Viswanath et al, 2000) between socioeconomic status (SES) and news learning, as a moderator capable of reducing the knowledge gap (Kwak, 1999), and as an exogenous variable that accounts for a large proportion of the variance in news knowledge (Eveland, 2001(Eveland, , 2002. Hyman and Sheatsley (1947) found it essential to break audience's psychological barriers to stimulate people's interest in knowing.…”

Intertribal dance and cross cultural communication: Traditional powwows in Ohio

“…Toelken and Brown (1987) in particular also note that for off-reservation people, "urban Indians" and non-Indian participants, powwows affirm ties to the community. Development of community ties and levels of civic engagement are reciprocally related (Viswanath et al, 2000; the field research for which was conducted in central Ohio) and civic engagement in support of traditional ways is valued by tradition-oriented community members in resistance to a history of forced INTERTRIBAL DANCE AND CROSS CULTURAL COMMUNICATION 53 assimilation (Lake, 1991;Morris and Wander, 1990;Shaver, 1998). Affirmation of community ties and articulation of traditional values are especially important within the context of contemporary American Indian life, allowing seemingly incompatible elements of the non-Indian world, such as automobiles and competition, are incorporated in ways that are consistent with Indian values (Toelken, 1991;Toelken and Brown, 1987).…”

“…Without obvious community defining factors (such as geographic boundary, demographic similarity or level of knowledge (Viswanath et al, 2000)) it becomes necessary then to develop some sort of way for meaningful communication within this diverse "community" in order for participants to have a sense of community at all or to mobilize in opposition to perceived threats from the dominant culture. The powwow form itself is both a locus for and an enactment of rhetorical synthesis (Morris and Wander, 1990), which enables collective action from people with disparate standpoints and fields of experience (Orbe, 1998).…”

“…Both American Indians and non-Indians can take advantage of these opportunities to keep informed on issues of contemporary importance (Viswanath et al, 2000). For many non-Indians who are curious about Indians and for people who claim some Indian lineage but have a low level of cultural awareness, this cross cultural education can be very enlightening.…”

“…For example, most people are not familiar with American Indian newspapers such as News From Indian Country or the syndicated radio news program National Native News (which airs on public radio and has had award winning coverage out of central Ohio); many appreciate the alternative to mainstream press and information sources which they discover at a powwow. As Viswanath et al (2000) suggest, "knowing about the events and happenings in the community facilitates participation, articulation and mobilization" (p. 630); local media perform a "central integrative function" (Friedland andMcLeod, 1999 qtd in Viswanath et al, 2000) especially in context of the local demographics.…”