Revisiting the Hypothesis of the Political Knowledge Gap in the Asian Context

Abstract

Knowledge and information translate into social power. Lack of knowledge can result in exclusion from social resources, thus leading to a lack of social power and eventually undermining democracy. Previous findings demonstrate that the gap in political knowledge based on socioeconomic status (SES) is produced by the difference in newspaper reading between classes. Some findings have indicated that the Internet is reproducing the existing patterns of political communication, further increasing the gap between social classes. Although these results have been extensively confirmed outside Asia, the cultural context of Asian countries can often be sufficiently distinctive to differ from tendencies in other parts of the world concerning the social context of media use. This study examines whether different forms of news media function to increase the gap in political knowledge between socioeconomic classes in East Asia. In particular, given the significant rise in the number of Asians who rely on the Internet for political information, we focus on the effect of the use of Internet on the knowledge gap between socioeconomic levels. We find that Internet use appears to significantly increase SES-based gaps in political knowledge in Japan, but not Korea.