Fabienne Lind and Hajo G. Boomgaarden published their new paper "What we do and don’t know: a meta-analysis of the knowledge gap hypothesis" in the Annals of the International Communication Association. Congratulations!

This article provides a meta-analysis of the knowledge gap hypothesis literature published between 1966 and 2018. The authors find the basic assumption of a positive education-knowledge relationship to be supported. This result is robust across different geographical settings of the knowledge topics examined, independent of the country of data collection, and – in line with the belief gap hypothesis – restricted to (politically) uncontested topics. The central assumption of the hypothesis – that an increase of mass media information fosters knowledge divides between those with less and more formal education – was supported. While TV fulfils a role as a knowledge gap maintainer, print media and especially online media use appears to increase knowledge inequalities between groups with discrepant educational attainment.

Fabienne Lind and Hajo G. Boomgaarden (2019) What we do and don’t know: a meta-analysis of the knowledge gap hypothesis. Annals of the International Communication Association.

Find the full paper here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23808985.2019.1614475