Page 174 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2015 Vol. 41

Wenjie ZHOU, Hui YAN & Shenglong HAN / Exploring information divide based on a theoretical view of information source horizon 173

1) The correlation coefficient of the scores of different interviewees on the broadness of
information sources horizon is 0.87 (r=0.892) and correlation is significant at the 0.01 level.
Thus, male and female interviewers are highly similar on the broadness of their information
source horizon. In other words, no significant differences were found among genders. Therefore,
gender is not a key factor to cause information divide. If we aim to measure the information
richness or poverty through the differentiation of information source preference, gender is not so
helpful.
2) The correlation coefficient is varied due to variance of age. For those interviewees under 50,
they have significant correlation coefficient (r>0.49, p<0.01). The correlation coefficient of those
people aged 20-29 and above 50, they are at two poles of interviewees, tends to decrease (r=0.322,
p<0.05). Thus, we found that the information source horizon is similar for those people who have
similar age. Along with increasing of variability of information agents’ age, the similarity tends
to decrease. This shows that a large span of age may affect the broadness of information source
horizon of information agent, but for this study, we are not aiming to reveal the exact relationship
between the span of people’s age and their information richness.
3) The income of information agent is proved correlated to the selection of information
sources. Thus, those people with different level of income remain similar in their information
source horizon. This conclusion sounds in contradiction with the findings of digital divide
researches which confirmed the close relationship of income and digital divide. The reasons for
this phenomenon are quite simple: income can affect the information divide through the affection
of information infrastructure related to information access. From a perspective of Information
Source Horizon, those people with different income are similar in their preference of information
source selection, interests and so on. In other words, those people with high income may live in
rich information source surroundings; But if they only have a limited information source horizon,
they may turn blind eyes to the valuable information sources around them. Therefore, they tend
to fall into poverty on information. For this reason, high income merely offers a possibility for
information richness. Aiming to make this possibility come true, information agents need to have
relevant ability on construction in his/her mind and bring information sources around him/her into
his/her information source horizon.
4) Educational level is a potential factor which affects information source horizon. Our study
found that the correlation coefficients of information source horizon of primary school group,
junior middle school group and senior middle school group were higher than the coefficients of
primary school group and college and above group. Thus, along with the increasing of educational
level, the similarity of information source horizon tends to decrease. However, information divide
is caused by the differentiation of information source horizon to some extent.
5) The relationship between occupation and information source horizon are complex. From
table 2, we can conclude that some occupations are strongly correlated with the information
source selection (e.g., the correlation coefficient of civil servants and company employee reach to