A PROCESS MODEL OF EDUCATION'S MODERATING ROLE IN PARTISAN-BASED ATTITUDES TOWARD POLITICIZED ISSUES

Abstract

Recent research has renewed interest in the influence of education, political ideology and attention to media on "knowledge gaps" and "belief gaps" about politically charged issues (Tichenor, Donohue & Olien, 1970; Hindman, 2009, 2012; Meirick, 2012). Based on secondary analysis of Pew Center poll data, this study proposes and tests a process model (Hayes, 2013) depicting education's role in predicting beliefs - some politicized and others not - about the level of threat posed to the United States by North Korea, Iran and China. The model treats beliefs about the threat posed to the U.S. by the nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran as politicized and finds that education and perceived credibility of Fox News significantly interact as predictors of those beliefs. However, it treats beliefs about the threat posed to the U.S. by China as not politicized and finds no such interaction between education and perceived credibility of Fox News.