International Encyclopedia of Communication Online

Extract

Communication inequality refers to differences in the generation, manipulation, and distribution of →  Information among social groups, as well as differences in: (1) access to and use of information channels, (2) attention to media content, (3) recall, knowledge, and comprehension, and (4) capacity to act on relevant information among individuals ( Viswanath 2006 ). The intellectual origins of the communication inequality theory can be traced to the knowledge gap hypothesis by Tichenor et al. (1970) , an early formalization of inequalities in communication research (→  Knowledge Gap Effects ). According to this hypothesis, benefits from information flows on a given topic are more likely to be accrued by people of higher socio-economic status compared to people of lower socio-economic status, thus widening the existing gaps rather than narrowing them, drawing attention to the unequal media effects. Subsequently, the term →  “digital divide” made its way through both scholarly and popular literatures, drawing attention to the unequal access to the →  Internet among different social groups. Viswanath expanded on these formulations of access to one medium (the Internet) and →  Media Effects on knowledge to incorporate the thesis of inequalities across the communication continuum as well as across information delivery systems ( Viswanath 2005, 2006 ). In its current formulation, ... log in or subscribe to read full text