This study shows how additional measures of “involvement” can help explain variance in individuals' knowledge of election information and looks at differences in two operational definitions of knowledge. Adult respondents in the Austin, Texas, area were interviewed by telephone in October 1986. The study partially supports Krugman's (1977) contention that knowledge derived from newspaper reading may be best tapped by recall-type questions that access left-brain processing, whereas knowledge derived from television viewing may be best tapped by recognition-type questions that access right-brain processing. Although in general television- and newspaper-reliant individuals scored equally well on the recognition test of election knowledge, the study also shows that younger, newspaper-reliant individuals recalled more than did younger, television-reliant respondents. This was not true of older respondents, however, suggesting that long-term memory may help fill in the blanks in left-brain processing that may be neglected among those who are television reliant. The issue should be directed away from whether information is retrievable through recall-type questions and toward whether it is retrievable in a way that will be useful in making political decisions.
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