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Although prior evidence identified socioeconomic status as a key factor in the consumption of public affairs news information, equivalent evidence suggests that individual interests in news events are related to media consumption and information acquisition. Here, the comparative strengths of these two propositions are analyzed in the context of the “knowledge gap” hypothesis. For two news events, two-wave data from community samples assessed social interest and self-interest in the news, level of education, and knowledge about different aspects of the news events. Interest was more strongly related to knowledge than education, particularly for more complex information. Further, between the two field waves, more new information was learned by those with higher levels of interest.
Genova et al. (Mon,) studied this question.