The Political Knowledge Gap in the New Media Environment: Evidence from Spain
Eva Anduiza, Aina Gallego and Laia Jorba
Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona
Corresponding author: [email protected]
Abstract
The availability of media and the possibilities of content selection have risen dramatically with
the expansion of the new media. There are contradicting expectations regarding the impact of
this process of choice expansion on the population’s political knowledge. Some authors argue
that increasing media choice is resulting in a widening knowledge gap. Those with many
cognitive abilities can benefit more from the increased information supply and those who are
politically interested have many means to learn about politics while the uninterested skip
political information and turn more and more ignorant about political affairs. A more optimistic
point of view is that increasing media and content choices provide opportunities for political
learning to the uninterested in politics and some of them may make use of these opportunities,
thus closing the knowledge gaps. In this paper we analyze the knowledge gap related to
education and to motivation in Spain, with a focus on how this gap is affected by media use. We
find that frequent Internet users are more knowledgeable about politics than non users. Welleducated Internet users learn more when they use the Internet than the less-educated users. In
that regard, the political knowledge gap related to education might be growing with the
introduction of new technologies. However, the knowledge gap between the interested and
uninterested is smaller for frequent Internet users than for non-users. These findings provide a
complex picture and contradict the pessimistic theory about the impact of increasing media
choice on political knowledge.
Paper prepared for delivery at the Joint Sessions of Workshops of the ECPR, Lisbon, April 2009
1
Introduction
In order to participate in politics and monitor the activities of the government, citizens need to
have a certain basic level of political knowledge, at least about the political system and the
candidates they would like to be their representatives. Political knowledge allows citizens to
make accurate evaluations of issues and candidates (Kim, Scheufele & Shanahan 2005).
However, political learning is costly and therefore not all people are knowledgeable about
politics. Some citizens have many cognitive abilities and it is relatively easy for them to make
sense of what happens in the political world. Some citizens are interested in politics or feel that
it is their obligation to keep an eye on the political world. They extract an intrinsic satisfaction
from devoting time and effort to be informed about politics. On the contrary, most citizens are
not well informed about politics. Since it is irrational to devote many resources to learn about
this issue, much political knowledge acquisition depends on the availability of free information
provided by the context, while doing such activities as discussing with others or while
consuming the media (Downs 1957).
The media are one of the main sources of political information for both the interested and the
uninterested. They contribute to frame political issues and promote political mobilization.
Media environments have changed dramatically in the last years with the increasing availability
of information and communication technology. Changes in the media context are expected to
produce changes in political knowledge and learning, which in turn would affect important
aspects of political involvement and in various civic activities. In the new media environment,
which offers more choices, motivation can be expected to play a stronger role when it comes to
predict exposure to political information and political learning. In addition, cognitive abilities
are more and more important to cope with the endless flow of information available in the new
media and to make sense of political events in an increasingly complex world. Still, a lot of
issues remain controversial. It is unclear how new information and communication technologies
affect the process of knowledge acquisition. The key question is what are the main facilitators
and obstacles for acquiring political knowledge in the new media context. Focusing mainly on
the impact of the Internet, we find skeptical (Scheufele and Nisbet 2002, Kim 2008, Prior 2005)
versus rather optimistic perspectives (Lupia and Philpot 2005, Jerit et al. 2006). Here not only
the structural media context, i.e. the availability of information, is important (Kim 2008, Curran
et al. 2009), but also the actual media use and exposure to political information (Kwak 1999).
Most research on the impact of media environments on political knowledge has focused on the
American case. However, the underlying theoretical arguments should apply in a broader scope
of settings and it is important to examine the effects of the expansion of the new media in other
2
contexts. Previous research on media use has mainly centered on testing differences between
television and newspaper consumption (Kwak 1999, Jeris et al. 2006), but more recently,
attention is increasingly devoted to the impact of the introduction of new information and
communication technologies, which we label here as new media.
This paper aims to find out whether the use of the new media produces an increase in the
knowledge gap between citizens with different levels of education and political motivation in
Spain. We widen the discussion focusing on the effects of Internet use and contribute to the
preliminary and exploratory existing research on this relation. The study uses data from a large
Spanish survey on the impact of the Internet on political participation carried out on November
2007. The paper is structured in four sections. Section 1 explains the main theoretical arguments
regarding the knowledge gap hypothesis. Section 2 introduces new theoretical variables in the
classic knowledge gap hypothesis like motivation, context and media use. Section 3 describes
the data and variable operationalization. Section 4 presents the empirical analyses. The last
section discusses the results.
The knowledge gap hypothesis
An increase in the availability of information in a society does not affect every citizen equally.
A long line of research on the differential political learning of different population groups began
with the knowledge gap hypothesis (Tichenor, Donohue and Olien 1970), which stated that in
rich information contexts, the gap in the political knowledge level between the most and least
advantaged population increases, leading to mayor political inequalities. Contrary to an initial
common sense that would lead us to consider that more availability of information leads to
increasing knowledge levels, the authors posed that as “the infusion of mass media information
into a social system increases, segments of population with higher socioeconomic status tend to
acquire this information at a faster rate than the lower status segments” (Tichenor, Donohue and
Olien 1970: 159-160). As information availability grows, the relative difference in political
knowledge between the most and least advantaged groups increased due to their unequal
learning speed. People in socially advantaged positions are better at acquiring and processing
political information and they disproportionately benefit from an increased information supply
because they have better cognitive skills, can place the information in a wider context, etc. A
large amount of literature has tested this hypothesis (i.e. Genova and Greenberg 1979, Scheufele
& Nisbet 2002, Jerit et al. 2006; for reviews see Gaziano 1997). Almost all studies have found
evidence supporting the notion that as information supply increases, the relationship between
3
knowledge and socioeconomic status becomes stronger, regardless of the topics, methods and
theoretical perspectives.
Political knowledge acquisition is certainly affected by an individual’s education and cognitive
abilities. Parallel to individual characteristics, we need to take into account the media
environment in which people live, which can increase the relative gap in the knowledge level
among population groups. Tichenor, Donohue and Olien also argued that the impact of
individual characteristics and knowledge acquisition could not be the same when using different
media. Their theory applied mainly to the influence of newspaper reading on political
knowledge, but did not work for television, which was seen as a “knowledge leveler”.
Newspapers cover a wide range of issue dimensions, not only providing facts but also framing
the issue with explanations of causes and consequences that give the reader a whole picture of
the story contributing to hard political knowledge and efficacy (Neuman, Just and Crigler 1992).
Television exploits better the visual impact, emotional and dramatic components (Graber 2004),
presenting information in a less sophisticated manner that demands lower skill levels and even
if viewers aree unmotivated and passive, they can still learn significantly (Eveland and
Scheufele 2000, Kim 2008 and Graber 1990). Then, while newspapers tend to increase
knowledge gap between those advantaged and those less advantaged, television works as a
knowledge leveler, in the sense that “least educated benefit nearly as much as the most educated
(and in terms of relative gains, they do better)” (Jerit et al. 2006: 278).
The knowledge gap is relevant for democratic politics. Although there are different
interpretations about the extent to which citizens need to know about politics (Graber 1994,
Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996), political knowledge is a crucial variable for political
involvement (Palfrey and Poole 1987, Lassen 2005). People need to know about politics before
they become involved in any political activity or before they are able to make some evaluation
of the candidates or the parties as a basis for their voting decisions. Moreover, growing
inequalities in political knowledge might lead to more inequalities in political involvement and
in that situation it is unlikely that the demands and the interests of the disadvantaged population
are taken into account (Verba, Schlozman and Brady 1995).
The knowledge gap in the new media environment
We are now in a transition towards a high choice media environment, characterized by the
extension of the new information and communication technologies and the explosion of the
available information. These recent changes are deeply affecting the population’s habits and
4
they should also have an impact on political knowledge. The new media environment can be
characterized as a high choice setting (Prior 2007). A few decades ago the TV, the radio and
newspapers were the key sources of information and interpretation of the political world. This
was a low choice environment in the sense that the offer of information and entertainment was
limited. At certain periods of the days all channels emitted the same kind of programs and it was
not possible for the citizen to choose among different options depending on her motivations and
preferences. Today, with the expansion of the Internet and the cable TV, there are many more
alternative sources of information. The citizen can monitor much more efficiently her exposure
to news and other media contents. It is clear that the media scenario has changed on the supply
side of information and entertainment, but the changes are recent and we are beginning now to
be able to investigate what impacts they have on the citizens and on the political sphere. More
than any other new media, the Internet is the flagship of this revolution. The question thus arises
naturally: how does Internet use affect political knowledge acquisition and the political
knowledge gaps? There is a general suspicion in the literature that the expansion of the new
media has a great impact (Sunstein 2003; Norris 2001; Bimber 2001). However there is often no
consensus regarding the direction of the impact itself.
Two main factors have been advanced which connect increases in the information supply to a
widening knowledge gap: cognitive abilities and motivation. We will focus on how the Internet
use affects the link between cognitive abilities, motivation and political learning.
Firstly, cognitive abilities are important to understand a complex, plural world with a large
amount of available information which certainly characterizes the new media scenario. It can be
that upper classes make sense of and understand better complicated information (Tichenor et al.
1970, Eveland and Scheufele 2000). The availability of more information is not always
associated to greater quality of that information and increases in the supply are not accompanied
by an increasing ability to process information (Polat 2005, Bimber 2003, Clément 2002,
Noveck 2000). Cognitive abilities are necessary in order to sort out the important from the
superfluous, the hard-facts from the improbable. Internet information format is closer to textbased newspapers than to visual TV (Norris and Sanders 2003), what would lead to reinforcing
inequality patterns in knowledge acquisition. The “digital divide” is based on the requirement of
cognitive abilities to manage a complex, plural and increasing amount of information.
Therefore, it can be expected that the political knowledge gap widens for people who use the
Internet frequently, because those who have more cognitive resources are better able to
understand and process the information that they read online, whereas people who have few
cognitive skills are not able to do so.
5
The second source of skepticism, claims that when citizens have a wider choice, motivation
becomes more and more important to predict consumption of political information. Markus
Prior (2007) has formulated the most thoroughly articulated claim on the growing role of
motivation in high choice media environments. The core of his argument is that most people
have a basic preference either for entertainment or for news content but that the actual
consumption of political information and the subsequent political learning depends on the
options provided by the media environment. In a low choice environment little content selection
can be done, there are more inefficiencies in the media systems and many people end up
learning about politics even if they are not purposely looking for political content. This
observation is exemplified by the fact of watching evening news on TV. When all broadcast
channels emitted news on the evening, most people kept in touch with politics, if only because
at that time of the day there was nothing else on the screen. The new media environment on the
contrary is characterized by the enormous possibilities of content selection. People in a high
choice media environment are able to select among an almost unlimited set of options. Once
given the choice, exposure to the news will depend on motivation: people who want to learn
about politics will follow them, but those who are not interested will easily skip political content
and choose entertainment options instead.
Prior’s theory is mainly developed to account for the impact of the transition from the
broadband TV to the cable television system. However, the argument is generally based on the
idea that having more choices affects the actual content selection. This argument applies to the
Internet because it dramatically increases the possibilities of choosing the content that
individuals prefer (Norris 2001, Eveland and Scheufele 2000). The prediction of this theory is
that the consumption of political information on the Internet is more strongly mediated by
motivation than it is in traditional media such as broadband TV. What follows is that the more
people’s media consumption is made on the Internet, the larger the knowledge gaps between
those who are interested in politics and those who are not should grow. Thus it is not so much
abilities which drive learning on the Internet, but motivation. To sum up, in the new media
environment, motivation is more relevant as a predictor of exposure and the knowledge gap
between the interested and the uninterested is expected to grow. In turn, this gap would increase
the participatory inequality between the most and less privileged citizens (DiMaggio and
Hargittai 2001, Scheufele and Nisbet 2002).
On the contrary, there are reasons to argue that the use of the Internet could have a positive
effect on the political learning of the politically uninterested or be a knowledge leveler at least
for some segments of the population. In the Internet, unlimited information can be obtained with
relatively little effort (Bimber 2001). True, those who actively search for it are the interested,
6
but at the same time, the high degree of interactivity and horizontality in the Internet use may
allow opportunities to learn about politics even for people who don’t actively search this
information. We can identify three main mechanisms why this could happen. Firstly, many
web-pages contain news portals such as well-known email servers. Many users, even if they are
not interested in politics, read news headlines while doing other uses of the Internet such as
consulting their email boxes. Similarly, many web-pages or blogs on non-political issues
contain some pieces of political information intermixed with other kinds of contents. In other
words, there are many non-political sites which contain at least some political news and
information and people who is uninterested in politics is likely to encounter and read some
political information while being online.
Secondly, many Internet users entertain themselves on the net. As we will see later in this paper
two thirds of the Spanish Internet users admit that they usually surf the net with no purpose or
aim in particular. These Internet users, who can be labeled random surfers, just spend time
online looking at web-pages in an unplanned way. In this sense, the sole fact of being online is a
way of entertainment. It is likely that the random surfers encounter some political information in
their time spent online with no purpose in particular and some of this information will be read,
too. Thus we can expect that some people who are uninterested in politics but spend time online
surfing the net randomly learn some facts about politics just as they entertain themselves going
from one web-page to another.
Finally, pay TV and the Internet are high choice media and allow selective consumption, which
theoretically means that unwanted contents can be avoided easily and that the citizen can
monitor her exposure efficiently, choosing what is of personal interest among a virtually
unlimited pool of contents. However, the Internet is fundamentally different to cable TV in the
possibilities that it offers for content production (Flanagin and Metzger 2001) and this fact
might be consequential for the present research question. Prior’s thesis has been developed
mainly to account for a situation in which the citizen chooses among different TV channels,
according to her preferences and acts as a consumer in a market. However, in the Internet, and
particularly in the web 2.0, the user does not only choose to visit or not visit certain web-pages
according to her preferences, but she is deeply embedded in networks of friends and
acquaintances that continuously produce content and send information. Take the email as an
example. Many users receive unsolicited emails with political content sent by friends, family or
workmates (Gibson, Lusoli and Ward 2005, 577). Regardless of the recipient’s political interest,
it is very likely that he or she reads the political email she receives, just because they have been
sent by someone they know. In this sense, the user is not an isolated consumer in a market, but
she is embedded in complex networks and makes decisions taking different criteria into
7
account. Unlike in the case of cable TV, people in the Internet do not only take into account
their preferences when consuming contents. In this sense, the Internet can be seen as a context
in which the ability to decide about which contents to consume is much more determined by
factors other than motivation than in the case of cable TV.
These arguments cast doubts on the prediction that Internet use can be expected to widen
knowledge gaps between the interested and the uninterested in politics, because they hint at
mechanisms by which some people who is uninterested in politics can learn about politics while
being online. On the other hand, it seems more straightforward that those who have many
cognitive resources can make sense of the information that they encounter online more easily
and thus the knowledge gap related to cognitive abilities should grow.
Testing the hypotheses in the Spanish context
The empirical section of the paper examines some evidence on this topic for the Spanish setting.
As is usual the case, most theories on the impact of the media have been developed and tested in
the US. However, it is important to test the theories in other contexts for two main reasons.
First, if the results are similar in different settings, this finding reinforces the validity of the
theoretical arguments. Second, analyzing what happens in other countries can help to
understand how the context shapes individual behavior and learning. Indeed, a growing strain of
research points out that the differences in the regulation and characteristics of the media systems
lead to different content being broadcasted and this affect political learning (Curran et al. 2009)
In Spain the traditional media 1 system and the framework for programming and advertising is
highly regulated by the state and controlled by independent agencies. Even when channels are
both in public and in private hands, 80% of the audience is concentrated by two public channels
and two private ones (even after taken into account pay or cable TV which still has a marginal
role). External regulation and the desire to construct a serious and professional image, tend to
1
We classify the TV, radio and newspapers as traditional communication media, which besides of having
a longer history in our societies do not facilitate content selection. The main criterion to distinguish
between old and new media is not chronological, which by definition would dilute as time goes by, but
typological. New media allow interactivity and increase the possibilities of content selection dramatically.
Although old media are ruled by different policies, they have a similar structure of contents. In all of them
there are similar news sections: international, national, society, culture, sports, and so on. This means that
everyone, regardless of the channel or newspaper chosen, is subject to information that does not interest
him, which is encountered because it is in the same support as other contents. Editorial decisions have a
very strong importance in this context and the agenda is highly dominated by a few actors. News is
provided by the same agencies and the full provision of news across different media is quite similar, even
if the ideological interpretation differs.
8
pose orientation to public service and information as a leading value for the whole system. Even
when private channels tend to give more soft news than public ones, the general trend in the last
years has been to take more seriously the information role of media. In Spain, almost all
broadcast channels offer news at 3pm and at 9 pm 2 . At those periods of the day, people who
have no pay-TV or do not use Internet at home have only two options: look at the news or shut
down the TV. In that sense, an important segment of the Spanish population still lives in a low
choice media environment. According to the data gathered in our survey 48% of the respondents
are in that situation because they neither have cable TV nor the Internet at home. This fact
allows us to test the differences between people in a high choice and a low choice media
environment. The expected consequence of the traditional media system is that the exposure to
news should he higher in market media models (Currant et al. 2009). As for newspapers, there
are six main international and national oriented newspapers, providing hard news coverage,
while there are also many other issue and regional oriented newspapers. The newspaper market
is thus competitive.
New media are on the contrary not comprehensively regulated and have just begun to be widely
used in recent years. Cable TV is not yet a usual asset in Spanish homes. In late 2007 only 26%
of the respondents to our survey reported that they had pay-TV at home. In addition, in the
preliminary analysis pay-TV was not found to affect political knowledge or the knowledge gap
in a significant way and thus it has been excluded from the analyses. By contrast, about 50% of
the population reported that they were Internet users when the survey was carried out. This
figure is similar to that reported by other surveys done in the same year. A 50% split between
users and non-users is very adequate to study the impact of the availability of the Internet in the
Spanish case in a cross-sectional study. In the absence of longitudinal data, which would be
superior when it comes to study the impact of the extension of the new media on political
knowledge, a second best research design consists in comparing the political knowledge level of
users and non-users.
In the empirical section we focus on the following questions and hypotheses. First, we expect
that there is a gap in the political knowledge level of those who are highly and poorly educated,
and those who are interested or uninterested in politics. Secondly, even if this is not the main
preoccupation of this paper, we will examine the relative impact of different factors on political
knowledge, including the overall exposure to traditional media, overall exposure to the Internet,
2
However, some channels have slightly different schedules. The second public channel offers news at
13pm and 8.30 pm. In two free channels (Cuatro and La Sexta) the news are broadcasted at 14.25 and
20.25 approximately. However, the Cuatro news is very long and overlaps completely with the other
news. These three channels are those with fewer audiences in Spain.
9
as the main new media, political news consumption in the traditional media and the new media,
political interest, education, and some relevant controls. Thirdly, we want to know if the
knowledge gaps are larger for different kinds of people depending on their news consumption.
We expect that the knowledge gap between the well-educated and the poorly educated grows
when they use the Internet. According to the pessimist perspective, we should expect that the
knowledge gap between the interested and the uninterested in politics is larger for frequent
Internet users. On the contrary, the optimist perspective predicts that the knowledge gap will be
stable or even close when people spend a lot of time on the Internet. The final step will consist
in examining possible explanations of the change detected in the knowledge gap for Internet
users. As we will see, we find that the knowledge gap due to motivation shrinks for Internet
users. We hypothesize that this fact is the result of certain specific uses people do of the
Internet, such as surfing randomly or reading emails with political content from acquaintances.
We finally test this hypothesis.
Data and variable operationalization
In order to analyze these questions we use data from an academic survey carried out to 3.739
respondents which was designed to investigate the impact of the Internet on political
participation. It was administered face to face in Spain in November 2007 3 . The sampling
included an overrepresentation of people aged 18 to 40 years in order to have a high number of
Internet users, and thus this survey is particularly suited to test theories on the impact of new
media.
The dependent variable of interest is political knowledge which is measured by adding the
correct answers to three factual knowledge questions which were administered in the survey.
The respondents were asked to name the President of their regional government, the Minister
for work and social affairs and the President of France. The possible values of the scale are
reporting no correct answer, one, two, or three correct answers. The variable is recoded to range
from 0, which stands for the minimum level of political knowledge to 1, which is the maximum
level of political knowledge. We recognize that information is not the same as knowledge
(Grönlund 2007): the first can be just accumulation of data, while the latter is understood as the
3
The questionnaire was designed specifically by a research team at the UAB to study the link between
consumption of new and old media and political participation and attitudes in Spain. The fieldwork was
done by the Spanish Centro de Investigaciones Sociologicas. More information can be found at
www.polnetuab.net and www.cis.es.
10
accurate use of information to make sense of the political world 4 . But even if from a theoretical
point of view both concepts are not the same, knowledge is frequently measured as a correct
answer to some political issues and factual questions, which strictly would account for political
information. There are more complex measurements of political knowledge that distinguish
between knowledge about the political system, everyday’s politics and ideological differences
among actors 5 . However, Delli Carpini and Keeter (1996) concluded that there is a basic
common dimension of political knowledge. Moreover, as Jerit et al. (2006) explain, general
knowledge is more stable and highly dependent on socialization, while specific-domain
knowledge are preferable to measure variability and updating of knowledge, and consequently
the impact of the information environment.
We do not have direct measures of cognitive abilities, but we use education as a proxy variable
for them. Education is coded 5 categories which range from having no studies to having tertiary
education (for details on variable coding see appendix 1).
The key motivation variable that we take into account is political interest. Interest is one of the
most important predictors of political attentiveness and engagement. Although it is unclear
where political interest comes from, we know that it is one of the pathways that link the socioeconomic status to political behavior and that in addition it has an independent effect on it
(Verba, Schlozman and Brady 1995). Political interest has four categories, going from very
interested to not at all interested in politics and has been coded to range between 0 and 1, as all
the other variables in the analysis.
In our analysis we consider Internet users as people who are exposed to the new media and thus
in a high choice environment, while non users are considered to be in a low choice environment.
We distinguish between overall exposure and specific political uses. Internet use, or overall
exposure, is measured as a continuous variable with a question that asks how frequently the
respondent uses the Internet, ranging from 0, which is never, to 1 for those who use the Internet
6 to 7 days a week. In addition we include a variable that accounts for the frequency with which
the respondent uses the Internet to be informed about politics.
4
There is also another related concept is political sophistication (Luskin 1987), but still its measurements
simplifies in knowledge indicators.
5
Traditionally only two categories had been differentiated: general or civic knowledge versus policy or
specific –facts and issues– knowledge (S.H. Kim 2008). For instance, Genova and Greenberg refer only
to structural political knowledge, what we have called political system knowledge, and factual one,
including the two other categories of political knowledge described above (1979). Prior (2005) uses also a
parallel double category in which he distinguished between civic knowledge and political knowledge.
11
The consumption of traditional media is likewise split between overall use and political uses.
We include a variable that asks how many hours a respondent spends every day watching TV or
hearing to the radio. It accounts for the overall exposure to these media. As for the political
uses, we include the frequency of newspapers readership (excluding the sports press), and the
frequency with which the respondent reports that she looks or listens to the news on the TV or
the radio. All are coded from 0 (minimum value) to 1 (maximum value).
Finally, we have included a number of variables which can be expected to affect the levels of
political knowledge, such as socio-demographics, and the frequency of political discussion. As
there are many missing values in the income variable, we have imputed those by regressing
income on 20 variables and imputing the predicted income to each missing value. A variable
age squared has been introduced to account for the possibility that the relationship between age
and knowledge is not linear. All variables except for age and age squared are recoded to range
from 0 to 1.
Analysis
First, we need to know how large is the gap in the political knowledge of relevant segments of
the population. The following figures report the mean number of correct items reported by
several population groups according to their education background and their self-reported level
of political interest. As there were three knowledge items, the maximum number of correct
items is three, the minimum is zero. It is clear that there is a strong, positive and linear
relationship between education and political knowledge and between political interest and
political knowledge. On average, those who are very educated or very interested in politics are
able to give more than twice as many correct answers to the political knowledge questions than
those who have not completed their primary education or those who are completely uninterested
in politics.
12
Next, we want to examine the determinants of political knowledge in order to understand which
factors are relevant when it comes to develop or fail to develop it. Political knowledge should
depend both on motivation and on the media environment in which a person lives because it
shapes the opportunities and the alternatives for political learning. We also need to control for
other relevant factors that can be expected to influence political knowledge. We analyse the
impact of political discussion and socio-demographics. In addition to overall media exposure we
also examine the specific impact of political media exposure. As all the variables except for age
are coded to range between 0 and 1, we can roughly compare the magnitude of the coefficients,
which shall be interpreted as the average difference in the number of correct political knowledge
items when we move from the maximum to the minimum of the variable. Political knowledge is
also coded to range from 0 to 1.
13
Table 1. Determinants of political knowledge in Spain
Coef.
Std. Err.
Political attitudes
Political interest
0,179***
0,022
Political discussion
0,126***
0,019
Resources and socio-demographics
Education
0,241***
0,022
Income
0,112***
0,034
Age
0,018***
0,002
Age squared
0,000***
0,000
Woman
-0,104*** 0,009
Non-political media exposure
Internet use
0,044***
0,016
Entertainment TV and radio
0,040**
0,018
Political media use
News in TV and radio
0,025
0,021
Press consumption
0,090***
0,013
Political info. online
0,041**
0,018
Constant
-0,351*** 0,041
N
3597
Adjusted R2
0,364
***p<0,005; **p<0,05; *p<0,1
As expected, political interest, education and age are the most powerful predictors of political
knowledge. All other variables have the likely effect. One unexpected finding is that people who
report seeing or hearing the news on TV or on the radio frequently are not any more
knowledgeable about politics than people who don’t regularly watch the news. One explanation
could be that watching news in TV or radio is correlated with other variables in the model. The
variables are obviously correlated with each other 6 . However, none of them has a correlation
with news viewing stronger than 0,21 and thus we can rule out multicolinearity. Secondly, it
might be that people do not learn any factual knowledge from their news consumption on TV,
which is implausible given previous literature that regards news viewing as a knowledge
leveller. Finally, it might be that this measure is inaccurate, and that many people report
viewing news because they think that this is socially desirable. However, we cannot ascertain
the reason for this finding beyond pure speculation.
6
The strongest correlations, besides that between age and age squared, are those between political interest
and political discussion (0,72), frequency of Internet use and education (0,60) and education and income
(0,56).
14
The focus of interest in this research is to investigate the knowledge gaps in Spain and the
impact of the media environment on them. We want to know if using the Internet
disproportionately fosters the political knowledge of people with more education, or with more
interest for politics. This differential impact on some kinds of people would lead to widening or
shrinking knowledge gaps. We test this possibility by introducing interaction terms between
education, political interest and frequency of Internet use in the regressions. The interaction
terms test the hypothesis that some segments of the population (the well-educated or the poorly
educated; the interested or the uninterested in politics) disproportionately benefit from their
exposure to the Internet. That is to say, we examine if some people learn more than others when
they use this new medium 7 .
Table 2. Internet use and the knowledge gap in Spain
Interaction with
education
Coef.
Std. Err.
Political attitudes
Political interest
Political discussion
Socio-demographics
Education
Income
Age
Age squared
Woman
Non-political media exposure
Internet use
Entertainment TV and radio
Political media use
News in TV and radio
Press consumption
Political info. online
Interactions
Education*Internet use
Interest*Internet use
Constant
N
Adjusted R2
***p<0,005; **p<0,05; *p<0,1
Interaction with political
interest
Coef.
Std. Err.
0,179***
0,127***
0,022
0,019
0,220***
0,123***
0,028
0,019
0,196***
0,114***
0,018***
0,000***
-0,106***
0,029
0,034
0,002
0,000
0,009
0,241***
0,111***
0,018***
0,000***
-0,103***
0,022
0,034
0,002
0,000
0,009
-0,021
0,041**
0,027
0,091***
0,034*
0,032
0,018
0,021
0,013
0,019
0,074***
0,040**
0,023
0,090***
0,057***
0,020
0,018
0,021
0,013
0,019
0,106**
-0,331***
3597
0,367
0,044
0,042
-0,091**
-0,364***
3597
0,368
0,037
0,041
7
Two different regressions were run because interaction terms need to be interpreted taking into account
the main and the interacted effects and interpretation is much more difficult when there are various
interaction terms. However, the sign and level of significance are the same with different specifications
15
The knowledge gap between the well educated and the poorly educated is larger for Internet
users than for non-Internet users. In this regression, using the Internet has now no significant
positive effect on political knowledge. The interaction between education and Internet use is
positive and significant, thus only some Internet users –the highly educated– learn about politics
when they are online. This fact implies that Internet use reinforces the knowledge gaps because
the well-educated who use the Internet learn more politically than their less educated fellow
citizens who spend time online. This is the kind of reinforcing effect that was expected, because
cognitive abilities are hypothesized to be important for political learning in a textual,
information-rich and complex medium such as the Internet.
The second regression comes to an entirely different result. The main effect of using the Internet
is still positive and significant, thus on average frequent Internet users know more about politics
than non-Internet users, even after controlling for other factors. However, the interaction
between political interest and Internet use is negative and significant. The interpretation is that
political interest is less strongly related to political learning in the case for frequent Internet
users than it is for non Internet users. The knowledge gap between the political interested and
the uninterested closes when people go online. This finding is more surprising from a theoretical
point of view, because most previous research suggest that motivation should be a stronger
predictor of political learning in high choice media settings.
Additional regression analyses have been carried out in order to examine the impact of the use
of traditional media (TV, radio and newspapers) on the knowledge gaps due to cognitive
abilities and motivation. The results are not displayed but the main findings are that there is a
negative interaction between education and frequency of news viewing on the radio or TV.
Looking at the news on radio and TV is thus a knowledge leveler, and the poorly educated learn
disproportionately more from their news exposure. Secondly, there is negative interaction
between political interest and newspaper readership. This fact points out that the differences in
the political knowledge of people who do not read newspapers depend to a great extent on their
level of political interest. On the contrary, people who read newspapers regularly have similar
levels of political knowledge, independently of their interest in politics. The other interactions
included are not significant.
Since it is often difficult to interpret the magnitude of the interaction terms, the following figure
graphically displays the predicted level of political knowledge (in a scale ranging from 0 to 1) of
people who are not Internet users and for heavy Internet users (six to seven days a week) sorted
by their political interest. We need to specify the values of the other variables in the model in
order to calculate the predicted political knowledge for different kinds of individuals. The
16
values displayed correspond to 40 year old women and the level of all the other variables have
been set to their means 8 . The graph makes clear that the political knowledge gap between the
interested and the uninterested in politics is smaller in the case of frequent Internet users than
for non-Internet users. In other words, politically interested and uninterested heavy Internet
users are more similar in their level of political knowledge than are non-users, even after
controlling for a wide set of variables. Motivation seems to play a smaller role for political
learning in the Internet high choice environment than in the traditional low choice environment
of those who don’t use the Internet.
The last step that we carry out is to examine possible intermediary mechanisms that might
explain the shrinking knowledge gap between the political interested and uninterested Internet
users. In the theoretical section we have hypothesized about possible mechanisms that could
lead to political learning of the politically uninterested in the time they spend online. In the
survey we have data that allow to test two intermediary mechanisms that could link time spent
online to more political knowledge of the politically uninterested Internet users. The
respondents where asked if they spend time surfing in the new with no aim in particular. This is
what we called random surfers, and they are 67 percent of the Spanish Internet users. If the
hypothesis that people encounter political information when they surf the net, they read it and
learn some facts about politics even if they were not intendedly searching for it, is true, then we
expect that random surfers know more about politics than those who do not have this habit.
8
The only exception is that for Internet users the value of consuming political information online has
been set at its mean. This value is zero for non users, who logically cannot use the Internet to read
political information.
17
Secondly, we have proposed that many people receive unsolicited political information from
people they know such as familiy members, friends and work mates, which they read. Some
politically uninterested would then learn about politics just because information and
mobilization stimuly was sent to them and not because they have an intrinsic thematical interest
in the information. We have a four-item battery in the survey that asks if the respondent has
received emails with positive information about political parties or candidates, with criticisms
about them, with requests to sign a petition, and with other kinds of political content. The four
items were added into a variable that is coded 0 if the respondent has not received an email with
any of these contents in the last 12 months and 1 if the respondent has received at least one such
email. This two variables are included in the regression models in order to observe if their
inclusion
Table 3: Possible pathways that explain the shrinking knowledge gap
Random surfers and
Unsolicited political
unsearched information
emails
Coef.
Std. Err.
Coef.
Std. Err.
Causal pathway
Surfs with no target
-0,006
0,014
Receives political emails
0,013
0,014
Motivation
Political interest
0,222***
0,028
0,221***
0,028
Political discussion
0,124***
0,019
0,122***
0,019
Socio-demographics
Education
0,238***
0,022
0,240***
0,022
Income (imputed)
0,113***
0,034
0,110***
0,034
Age
0,018***
0,002
0,018***
0,002
Age squared
0,000***
0,000
0,000***
0,000
Woman
-0,103***
0,009
-0,103***
0,009
Non-political media exposure
Use of the Internet
0,077***
0,022
0,071***
0,020
Use of TV or radio
0,018
0,040**
0,018
0,039**
Political media use
News in TV and radio
0,023
0,021
0,023
0,021
Press consumption
0,089***
0,013
0,090***
0,013
Political info. online
0,060***
0,019
0,055**
0,019
Interaction
Interest*Internet
-0,094**
0,037
-0,096**
0,037
Constant
-0,359***
0,041
-0,367***
0,041
N
3597
3597
Adjusted R2
0,364
0,365
***p<0,005; **p<0,05; *p<0,1
18
Neither of the two variables examined has an impact on political knowledge. Thus we do not
find support for the theory that some uninterested Internet users learn about politics in an
unintended way when they surf the Internet with no aim in particular nor that they learn because
they receive unsolicited emails with political information and mobilization stimuli from their
acquaintances and learn by reading them. It remains unclear why the knowledge gaps related to
political interest close when people have access to the Internet.
Discussion
In this paper we were interested in examining a variant of the knowledge gap hypothesis
focusing on the impact of Internet use on political knowledge in the Spanish case. We
distinguished between the knowledge gap due to motivation and the gap due to cognitive
abilities. The knowledge gap hypothesis clearly leads us to think that the expansion of the
Internet should widen the knowledge gaps related to cognitive abilities, because they are more
and more important in an increasingly complex world. In the first place we have tested and
proved that in Spain, in line with other countries, the use of new information and
communication technology is associated with an increased relationship between education and
differences in knowledge. This is true for newspaper users, but it is also true for the Internet.
Knowledge gaps between the more a less privileged in society widens in the high media choice
environment of the Internet. That is to say that the most educated citizens are the ones taking
more advantage of new possibilities open by the Internet. In this sense, it is probably the
requirement of having advanced cognitive abilities and capacities to process an overwhelming
quantity of information what can account for the differences in knowledge acquisition and
sharpen political inequalities.
Internet is not a knowledge leveler for people with different cognitive abilities, but rather a
knowledge gap magnifier: the knowledge level of those with more education that consume
political information on the Internet increases faster than the knowledge of the poorly educated
who consume political information. The consequences of newspapers and the Internet
consumption on the one side, versus TV and radio consumption on the other would be almost
opposite. While the first media tend to widen the knowledge gap between the educated and the
uneducated, TV and radio are knowledge levelers. The distinction may be related to regulation
framework in which TV operate: in a public media system like the Spanish one, the public
regulation force the broadcaster channels to focus on a quality public oriented information
service maximizing opportunities for the whole population to get informed and, in consequence,
becoming an integrating source. Education is not as necessary to learn about politics as in the
19
case of newspapers and the Internet because TV and radio news are given in a more light
character, accompanied normally by images, what helps the citizen to make sense of and to
remember the pieces of information.
However, another of the main finding of this research deserves a special mention. We have seen
that there are contending arguments regarding how being in a high choice media environment
should affect the role of motivation on political knowledge acquisition. Pessimist accounts say
that in the Internet motivation has a stronger role when it comes to be exposed to political
information, because there are unlimited content options among which to choose. Optimist
accounts claim that there is much inefficiency in the Internet, which leads to unplanned and
unsearched exposure to political information, and which in turn can lead to some political
learning of the politically uninterested. These pathways are related to one of the characteristics
of the Internet, which is its interaction dimension that is not shared by the newspapers. We have
seen that the less interested in politics, when they have access to the Internet and use it
frequently, gain more political knowledge, once controlled by education and other factors. What
is important from this result is that unintended exposure may happen for that group of not
interested individuals. In this sense, we would need not to be so pessimistic about the Internet
extension and the possibility of growing political inequalities, when there are some positive
effects of its use on political learning of the uninterested.
However, we have not been able to provide a compelling explanation on why the
Internet use closes the knowledge gap between the political interested and the
uninterested, and this is certainly a direction for future research. In addition, it remains
utterly unclear how the fact of using the Internet might affect the development of
motivations towards political learning. Another important field for future research
should focus on the factors affecting political motivation and its relation with media
uses.
Bibliography
Bimber, B. 2001. "Information and Political Engagement in America: The Search for Effects of
Information Technology at the Individual Level". Political Research Quarterly, vol. 54, no. 1,
pp. 53-67.
Bimber, B. 2003. Information and American Democracy. New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Clément, M. 2002 “Internet, l’avenir radieux!”, in Serfaty, V. (Ed.) L’Internet en politique: des
Etats-Unis à l’Europe. Strasbourg: Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg.
20
Curran, J., et al. 2009. “Media System, Public Knowledge and Democracy: A Comparative
Study”. European Journal of Communication, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 5-26.
Delli Carpini, M. X. and Keeter, S. (1996). What Americans Know about Politics and Why it
Matters. New Haven: Yale University Press.
DiMaggio, P. and Hargittai, E. 2001. “From the Digital Divide to Digital Inequality: Studying
Internet Use as Penetration Increases” Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies, working
paper 15, Princeton University.
Downs, A. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper & Row.
Eveland, W.P.,JR. and Schuefele, D.A. 2000. “Connection News Media Use with Gaps in
Knowledge and Participation”, Political Communication vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 215-237.
Flanazin, A.J. and Metzger, M.J. 2001. “Internet use in the contemporary media environment”.
Human Communication Research, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 153-181.
Gaziano, C. 1997. “Forecast 2000: Widening Knowledge Gaps”, Journalism and Mass
Communication Quarterly, vol. 74, no. 2, pp. 237-264.
Genova, B.K.L and Greenberg, B.S. 1979 “Interest in News and Knowledge Gap”, The Public
Opinion Quarterly vol 43, no 1, pp. 79-91.
Gibson, R.K., Lusoli, W. and Ward, S. 2005. “Online Participation in the UK: Testing a
“Contextualised” Model of Internet Effects”. British Journal of Politics and International
Relations, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 561-583.
Graber, D.A. 2004. “Mediated Politics and Citizenship in the Twenty-First Century”. Annual
Review of Psychology, vol. 55, pp. 545-571.
Graber, D.A. 1990. “Seeing is Remembering: How Visuals Contribute to Learning from
Television News”. Journal of Communication, vol. 40, no. 3, pp. 134-155.
Graber, D.A. 1994. “Why Voters Fail Information Tests: Can the Hurdles be Overcome?”
Political Communication vol. 11, no.4, pp. 331-346.
Grönlund, K. 2007. “Knowing and Not Knowing. The Internet and Political Information”.
Scandinavian Political Studies. vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 397-418.
Jerit, J., Barabas, J, and Bolsen, T. 2006. “Citizens, Knowledge, and the Information
Environment”, American Journal of Political Science, vol. 50, no 2, pp. 266-282.
Kim, S.H. 2008. “Testing the Knowledge Gap Hypothesis in South Korea: Traditional News
Media, the Internet, and Political Learning. International Journal of Public Opinion Research,
vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 193-210.
Kim, S.H., Scheufele, D.A. & Shanahan, J. 2005. “Who Cares about Issues? Issue Voting and
the Role of News Media during the 2000 US Presidential Election”. Journal of Communication
vol. 55: 103-121.
Kwak, Nojin. 1999. “Revisiting the Knowledge Gap Hypothesis: Education, Motivation, and
Media Use”. Communication Research, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 385-413.
Lassen, D. 2005. "The Effect of Information on Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Natural
Experiment." American Journal of Political Science. Vol. 49 no 1, pp. 103-118.
Lupia, A. and Philpot, T.S. 2005. "Views from Inside the Net: How Websites Affect Young
Adults' Political Interest". The Journal of Politics, vol. 67, no. 4, pp. 1122-1142.
Luskin, R.C. 1987. “Measuring Political Sophistication”, American Journal of Political Science,
vol. 31: 856-899.
Neuman, W.E., Just, M.R., and Crigler, A.N. 1992. Common Knowledge: News and the
Construction of Political Meaning. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
21
Norris, P. 2001. Digital Divide: Civic Engagement, Information Poverty, and the Internet
worldwide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Norris, P. and Sanders, M. 2003.”Message or medium? Campaign learning during the 2001
British General Election”, Political Communication, vol. 20, pp. 233-262.
Noveck, B.S. 2000. "Paradoxical Partners: Electronic Communication and Electronic
Democracy" in Ferdinand, P. (ed.) The Internet, Democracy, and Democratization. London:
Frank Cass.
Palfrey, T.R. and Poole, K.T. 1987. “The Relationship between Information, Ideology, and
Voting Behavior”. American Journal of Political Science, vol. 31, no. 3, pp. 511-530.
Polat, R.K. 2005. "The Internet and Political Participation: Exploring the Explanatory Links".
European Journal of Communication, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 435-459.
Prior, M. 2005. "News vs. Entertainment: How Increasing Media Choice Widens Gaps in
Political Knowledge and Turnout". American Journal of Political Science, vol. 49, no. 3, pp.
577-592.
Prior, M. 2007. Post-Broadcast Democracy: How Media Choice Increases Inequality in
Political Involvement and Polarizes Elections. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Schuefele, D.A. and Nisbet, M. 2002. " Being a Citizen Online: New Opportunities and Dead
Ends". The Harvard Journal of Press/Politics. Vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 55-75.
Sunstein, C.R. 2003. República.com. Internet, democracia y libertad. Barcelona: Paidós.
Tichenor, P.J, Donohue, G.A. and Olien, C.N 1970. “Mass Media Flow and Differential Growth
in Knowledge”. Public Opinion Quarterly, vol. 34, pp. 159-170.
Verba, S., Schlozman, K.L. and Brady, H.E. 1995. Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in
American Politics. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
22
Appendix 1. Variables coding
Political knowledge: 0= No correct item; 0,33 =1 correct item; 0,67= 2 correct items ; 1= 3
correct items
Interest in politics: 0= Not interested; 0,33= Not very interested; 0,67= Quite interested; 1=
Very interested
Political discussion: 0= Never; 0,17= Less frequently than once a month; 0,33= Once a month;
0,5= Several times a month; 0,67= Once a week; 0,84= Several times a week; 1= Every day
Education: 0= no studies; 0,25= Primary education; 0,5= Lower secondary education; 0,75=
Upper secondary education; 1= Tertiary education
Household total income (monthly): 0= Less than 300€; 0,11= 301 to 600€; 0,22= 601 to 900€;
0,33= 901 to 1200€; 0,44= 1201 to 1800€; 0,55= 1801 to 2400€; 0,66= 2401 to 3000€; 0,88=
3001 to 4500€; 0,88= 4501 to 6000€; 1= More than 6000€
Age: Continuous in years. Minimum 18, maximum 95
Age squared: Age squared
Woman: 0= Man; 1=Woman
Frequency of Internet use: 0= No Internet use; 0,2= Less frequently than a few times a month;
0,4= A few times a month; 0,6= 1-2 days per week; 0,8= 3-5 days per week; 1= 6-7 days a
week.
Television or radio exposure (any content consumption): 0= Never; 0,25= Less than one hour a
day; 0,5= 1-2 hours a day; 0,75=2-3 hours a day; 1= More than 3 hours a day
Viewing or listening news in TV or radio: 0= Never; 0,25= Less than once a week; 0,5= 1-2
days a week; 0,75=3-4 days a week; 1= Every day
Search of political information on the Internet: 0= Never; 0,25= Less frequently; 0,5= Once a
month; 0,75= Once a week; 1= More than once a week
Surfing the new with no defined aim: 0= Does not use the Internet to surf with no purpose; 1=
Uses the Internet to surf with no purpose
Reception of political emails: 0= has not received any political email in the last 12 months; 1
Has received a political email (with a criticism or support for a party, a petition, information on
a campaign or other political content) in the last 12 months
23