Good evening, folks
It's time for the year-to-year review of the “classical theory change” column。
Review of prior periods
The silent spiral
Third-person effects
"new classic theory change"
Agenda settings for the new classic theory
The theory that brings you together today is the “knowledge gap” and is believed to be no stranger to it. Let's just get started
I. Theory of knowledge
(i) context of the ditch theory
In the united states of america in the 1960s, there was a growing social voice for equal opportunities in education, one of which was in the context of the wide social visibility of disparities in learning abilities and achievement between rich and poor children in schools。
In other words, well-off children usually receive better pre-school education before they enter primary school, while poor children, because of their family difficulties, have no money to buy enlightenment books or to hire a hometeacher, and when they enter primary school, they naturally have a clear gap in learning abilities and achievement. Studies have shown that this gap widens with the rise in grade levels and leads to advancement rates, educational qualifications and even future occupational and social polarization. This phenomenon, which was caused by unequal socio-economic structures, was attributed by racists to the question of human qualities。
Under strong social pressure at the time, the united states government had launched a supplementary education programme that sought to improve the educational conditions of poor children through mass communication and other means, one of the major projects being the production of a children's enlightenment education television series entitled sesame street. The use of already high television media to reduce inequalities in access to education for rich and poor children is an important intention in producing this series。
However, a subsequent study of the actual results found that while the results of sesame street had produced good educational results for both rich and poor children, it was those rich children who had the most access to and use of the programmes. This series, which aims at reducing inequality in access to education, has actually resulted in widening the gap between the two。
(ii) specific content of the ditch theory
In 1970, united states scholars ticino, donoghue, orion and others, based on a series of empirical studies, first explicitly presented the knowledge gap theory hypothesis in the article “the growth of mass communication flows and knowledge differences”。
They believe that mass communication activities can lead to an increase in the amount of knowledge, both for those with high and low socio-economic status, but since those with high socio-economic status tend to have faster access to information than those with low socio-economic status, the gap in knowledge between them will continue to widen and widen over time as more information is transmitted by the mass media。
(iii) understanding the causes of the widening of the ditch
According to ticino and others, in addition to the factors of exposure to the media and the economic conditions of learning, the widening of the knowledge gap is caused by:
(1) differences in communication skills — access to knowledge of public affairs and science requires a degree of reading and understanding
(2) differences in the amount of knowledge that exists — the more knowledge is stored, the faster the new things, the new knowledge is understood and acquired
(3) differences in the social sphere - the wider the social sphere, the more dynamic the interpersonal communication, the faster the acquisition of knowledge
(4) factors of selective exposure, understanding and memory of information - - the closer the standard, level and content of life to the media, the higher the level of exposure to and use of the media
(5) the nature of the mass media - the medium that disseminates public affairs and scientific knowledge of a certain depth is mainly the print media, and its audience is mainly concentrated in the higher academic strata。
In all these respects, the socio-economically high classes are in a favourable position, which is the root cause of the growing “knowledge gap” in society。
Ii. New manifestations of the change in knowledge gap theory
Objectively, the emergence of socialized media can provide an unprecedented platform for the dissemination of information. Although, theoretically, socialized media lower the threshold of access to information and knowledge, accompanied by robust search engine functions and the mass of information, and their interactive and open nature, mean equal access to information and expression. This suggests that the emergence of socialized media has the advantage of narrowing the “knowledge gap”, but the reality is that only a few high-income segments of the population have access to the internet at the beginning of its appearance。
In other words, the internet has a high “access gap” threshold. With the spread of the internet, the threshold of the “access gap” has been lowered, and the gap in the level of internet use, the “second divide”, and the “access gap”, has gradually increased. With the impact of the gap between the “access ditch” and the “use ditch”, the issue of the “know-how ditch” has not been completely addressed in socialized media。
Increased gaps in participation in public affairs between individual users and groups
The two-way interactive nature of the dissemination of public information in socialized media shows that it has a significant role to play in promoting participation in public affairs, but the digital divide has further increased the imbalance in public substantive participation. The use of social media is an essential prerequisite for the participation of public affairs in social media。
“knowledges” are almost ubiquitous and have permeated people's economic, political and social lives, becoming a social problem that has become prominent in the information age。
Canadian scholar claude gaer warned that the information society could create new hierarchies, forming two levels: “the `information-rich' class of people who own and can take full advantage of network information, and the `information-poor' class of people who cannot afford to buy hardware and use the network. The polarization of access to information can lead to inequality in political participation.” this indicates that the imbalance in the dissemination of information in socialized media leads to unequal access to and use of information, leading to an imbalance in the ability of people to participate in public practice, that “information rich” can effectively participate in and influence public affairs, and that “information poor” are marginalized from public affairs. As participation in public affairs continues to increase, there is a growing gap in the capacity of different users to participate in public affairs。
2. Increased individual disparities in cultural literacy among individual users and groups
Traditional mass media provide structured information that is organized by professional media staff, that is, the “playing role” in traditional media。
“putting people at risk” enables the production and dissemination of information to be maintained in a relatively stable and orderly state. However, in the social media, the absence of the role of “tangibility” has allowed the proliferation of large amounts of information on the internet, which continues to develop in an disorderly fashion. Added to this is the growing prevalence of information garbage and information, and the almost ubiquitous web of rumours, most of which are covered in science, making it more difficult for users to identify。
Low cultural users lack the ability to search for valuable information and rational scientific thinking, and are less capable of identifying information in the face of confusion, but users ' internet usage skills determine to a certain extent the effectiveness of users ' use of the internet. It is clear that users with a higher level of knowledge and education dominate both in searching for useful information and in identifying its authenticity。
3. Increased individual disparities in media literacy among individual users and groups
There is a widening gap in individual media literacy, i. E., a widening gap in individuals ' willingness and ability to receive information. The information products presented in the new media represent the integration function of the media, which has led to a significant increase in the recreational nature of the media, by focusing the attention of its audiences on the entertainment function, and by focusing on the use and perception of the new media by the majority of the low socio-economic audiences and on their recreational rather than their media nature。
To some extent, the spread of the internet and new media has not increased the time for users to gain access to resources and knowledge via mobile phones, but has instead led some users to become obsessed with the internet world, out of touch with the real world, where “network addiction” once became a serious social problem, which is one of the reasons for the widening gap between users。
Okay
This is the time to talk about the shift in knowledge theory in the new media environment
I'll see you next time
