The communication effects gap: a fields experiment on television and agricultural ignorance in India

Abstract

This paper attempts to interpret a part of the findings of a communication experiment carried out in India in the light of the communication effects gap hypothesis. Recent research in the U.S. mainly concentrated around the issues of perceived inequalities the knowledge gap created by the existing information delivery systems. The hypothesis that as the infusion of mass media information into a social system increases, segments of the population with higher socio-economic status tend to acquire this information at a faster rate than the lower status segments, so that the gap in knowledge between these segments tends to increase rather than decrease was tested in this paper. The results, however, indicated that television as a medium of information delivery did not discriminate between the socially powerful and the economically poor and seemed to be an equalizing tool.