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Political knowledge is a central concept in the study of public opinion and political behavior. Yet what the field collectively believes about this construct is based on dozens of studies using different indicators of knowledge. We identify two theoretically relevant dimensions: atemporaldimension that corresponds to the time when a fact was established and atopicaldimension that relates to whether the fact is policy-specific or general. The resulting typology yields four types of knowledge questions. In an analysis of more than 300 knowledge items from late in the first decade of the 2000s, we examine whether classic findings regarding the predictors of knowledge withstand differences across types of questions. In the case of education and the mass media, the mechanisms for becoming informed operate differently across question types. However, differences in the levels of knowledge between men and women are robust, reinforcing the importance of including gender-relevant items in knowledge batteries.

This article presents data from Canada's first comprehensive Election-Day Exit Poll, which surveyed 664 voters as they exited polling booths during the 2005 Vancouver civic election. Researchers asked voters to take two tests to estimate their political knowledge levels. The results reveal that voters' knowledge regarding political actors can be most effectively enhanced by increasing information dissemination and reducing candidates' voter-contact costs, perhaps best accomplished through electoral reform and more directly distributing relevant information to voters. Increasing voters' political system knowledge is more difficult but also less critical as respondents' test scores in this area are already very high. Suggested policy measures might help improve political knowledge, and hence voting participation rates, among non-voters.

Amid sunny skies and cool temperatures in San Francisco, 5,857
political scientists gathered for the ninety-seventh APSA Anuual
Meeting held August 29 to September 2 at the Hilton San Francisco,
Hotel Nikko and Renaissance Parc Fifty-Five hotels (and were lodged
at eight additional hotels within walking distance). With members of
the press, exhibitors and guests, the total attendance was 6,282,
exceeding any previous West Coast meetings by more than 700 total
attendees.

Building on the growing body of research on campaign learning, this paper considers the way that learning about policy issues depends on the nature of the issue and its relevance for the individual citizen. Specifically, the analysis finds that seniors learned much more than non-seniors about candidate positions on an emerging Social Security issue that was heavily emphasized in the 2000 campaign, but not when the same issue was more familiar and largely ignored by the candidates and press in the 2004 campaign. Yet, even without additional learning or campaign emphasis, seniors still knew more than non-seniors in the later contest. These results suggest that once party positions become familiar to them, issue publics will hold their information advantage across future elections without dependence on further campaign emphasis. Adapted from the source document.

AbstractThe study explored the sources of political knowledge using data from the 1984 Canadian National Election Study. Two dimensions of political knowledge were measured: factual knowledge, in which respondents were asked to name the 10 provincial premiers; and conceptual knowledge, in terms of respondents' abilities to define and use the concepts of left and right. The authors tested four explanations of people's levels of political knowledge; these dealt with education, political participation, media effects and region, with controls for income, residency in several provinces, age and sex. Education was significantly associated with both forms of knowledge, but especially with conceptual knowledge. Reading about politics in newspapers and magazines was strongly related to the two knowledge variables. The effects of reliance on television for political information, however, were much weaker. There were significant effects for region, with the patterns depending on the type of knowledge. The study concludes with some observations about the role of knowledge in political behaviour.