The Interaction of the Individual's Social Environment, Attention and Interest, and Public Affairs Media Use on Political Knowledge Holding

Abstract

This study examines the interplay between an individual's social environment or milieu and the individual's own motivations for political knowledge, such as political interest and attention to public affairs media. Political knowledge is the dependent variable. The sample survey, multiple regression design examines the respondent's perception of his or her political social environment by measuring the perceived politicization of the respondent's family, friends, and co-workers. The study found that the perception of one's social environment made a significant contribution to the respondent's level of political knowledge even after controlling for traditional individual-level predictors. Further, this article examined the interactions between the individual's social milieu and two other predictors of knowledge—attention/interest and public affairs media use. The interactions as a group provided a small but significant contribution after controlling for all other variables.