CITATION AND COPYRIGHT INFORMATION:
Cite as: Dervin, B. (1980). Communication gaps and inequities: Moving toward a reconceptualization. In B. Dervin & M. Voigt (Eds.), Progress in communication sciences (Vol. 2, pp. 73-112). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Reprinted in: B. Dervin & L. Foreman-Wernet (with E. Lauterbach) (Eds.). (2003). Sense-Making Methodology reader: Selected writings of Brenda Dervin (pp.17-46). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
© Hampton Press and Brenda Dervin (2003), reprinted by permission of Ablex (1980).

BOOK PURCHASE:
To purchase a copy of this book, visit www.amazon.com, or contact Hampton Press at (800) 894-8955.

ABSTRACT:
In the recent (circa 1980) literature in the communication and information science fields, one increasingly saw references to a set of terms that differed in nuance but essentially referred to the same hypothesized phenomena. The terms—knowledge gap, information gap, information inequity, information poor, and, most recently, communication gap—all had been used by theorists who had observed that when it comes to information/communication availabilities in society, there are those who are rich and those who are poor. Moreover, these theorists hypothesized that as more information/communication becomes available, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Some of these theorists had focused primarily on the static portrait—the observation that there are indeed those who are information poor—and the prospect of rectifying that particular situation. Other writers, however, concerned themselves with the impact of the growth of information societies, the so-called “communication revolution,” on these inequities. These theorists were the ones who hypothesized that the poor get poorer while the rich get richer, a process now labeled as “the knowledge gap hypothesis.” And, of course, in the context of literatures in the late 1990s and the early 2000s, the phenomenon has been extended to the digital divide and related gaps.

In this work, Dervin reviews the formulation of the communication gap and inequities ideas—their origins, their logical foundations, and how theoretic trends in the communication and information science fields in the late 1970s were not only changing the nature of the ideas but, in some cases, making them no longer useful or appropriate. Dervin sees the critical review presented in the 1980 article as still relevant today.

TO OBTAIN FULL TEXT:
You may request access to the full text URL by completing this form. (This will open a new window.)

OTHER MATERIALS BY THIS AUTHOR ON THIS WEB SITE:
See:  http://communication.sbs.ohio-state.edu/sense-making/AAauthors/authorlistdervin.html