A TERM PAPER

THE CONCEPT OF
GATEKEEPING
PRESENTED BY:
TIMEHIN STEPHANIE IYOMERE
Department of Mass
Communication
Matric No.

TABLE OF CONTENT
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History And Orientation of Gatekeeping

Page 3

Core Assumptions and Statements

Page 4

Definition What Is Gatekeeping

Page 5 6

The Gatekeeping Theory and Concept

Page 6

The Gatekeeping Model & Concept

Page 6

Favourite Methods of Gatekeeping Concept

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Concept

Scope and Application of Gatekeeping

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Levels of Media Gatekeeping

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The Functions of The Gatekeeper

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Conclusion

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References and Key Publications

THE CONCEPT OF GATEKEEPING

History and Orientation of Gatekeeping
Kurt Lewin was apparently the first one to use the term "Gatekeeping,"
which he used to describe a wife or mother as the person who decides
which foods end up on the family's dinner table. (Lewin, 1947).
The gatekeeper is the person who decides what shall pass through each
gate section, of which, in any process, there are several. Although he
applied it originally to the food chain, he then added that the gating
process can include a news item winding through communication
channels in a group. This is the point from which most gatekeeper studies
in communication are launched.
White (1961) was the person who seized upon Lewin's comments and
turned it solidly toward journalism in 1950. In the 1970s McCombs and
Shaw took a different direction when they looked at the effects of
gatekeepers' decisions. They found the audience learns how much
importance to attach to a news item from the emphasis the media place
on it. McCombs and Shaw pointed out that the gatekeeping concept is
related to the newer concept, agenda-setting. (McCombs et al, 1976).
The gatekeeper concept is now 50 years old and has slipped into the
language of many disciplines, including gatekeeping in organizations.
Core Assumptions and Statements
a) The gatekeeper decides which information will go forward, and
which will not. In other words a gatekeeper in a social system
decides which of a certain commodity materials, goods, and
information may enter the system.
b) Important to realize is that gatekeepers are able to control the
publics knowledge of the actual events by letting some stories pass
through the system but keeping others out.
c) Gatekeepers can also be seen as institutions or organizations. In a
political system there are gatekeepers, individuals or institutions
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which control access to positions of power and regulate the flow of

information and political influence.
d) Gatekeepers exist in many jobs, and their choices hold the potential
to colour mental pictures that are subsequently created in peoples
understanding of what is happening in the world around them.
e) Media gatekeeping showed that decision making is based on
principles of news values, organizational routines, input structure
and common sense.
f) Gatekeeping is vital in communication planning and almost all
communication planning roles include some aspect of gatekeeping.
The gatekeepers choices are a complex web of influences, preferences,
motives and common values.
Gatekeeping is inevitable and in some circumstances it can be useful.
Gatekeeping can also be dangerous, since it can lead to an abuse of
power by deciding what information to discard and what to let pass.
Nevertheless, gatekeeping is often a routine, guided by some set of
standard questions.
Definition - What Is Gatekeeping?
Gatekeeping is the process through which information is filtered for
dissemination, whether for publication, broadcasting, the Internet, or
some other mode of communication.
This process determines not only which information is selected, but also
what the content and nature of the messages, such as news, will be."
1. In exercising its "surveillance" function, every news medium has a
very large number of stories brought to its attention daily by
reporters, wire services, and a variety of other sources.
2. Due to a number of practical considerations, only a limited amount
of time or space is available in any medium for its daily
presentations of the news to its audience. The remaining space
must be devoted to advertising and other content.
3. Within any news organization there exists a news perspective, a
subculture that includes a complex set of criteria for judging a
particular news story - criteria based on economic needs of the
medium, organizational policy, definitions of newsworthiness,
conceptions of the nature of relevant audience, and beliefs about
fourth estate obligations of journalists.
4. This news perspective and its complex criteria are used by editors,
news directors, and other personnel who select a limited number of
news stories for presentation to the public and encode them in ways
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such that the requirements of the medium and the tastes of the
audience are met.
5. Therefore, personnel in the news organization become gatekeepers,
letting some stories pass through the system but keeping others
out, thus limiting, controlling, and shaping the public's knowledge of
the totality of actual event occurring in reality."
The Gatekeeping Concept:
The Gatekeeper decides what information should move to group or
individual and what information should not. Here, the gatekeeper are the
decision makers who letting the whole social system. The gatekeeper is
having its own influence like social, cultural, ethical and political. Based on
personal or social influences they let the information to the group.
Through this process the unwanted, sensible and controversial
informations are removed by the gate keeper which helps to control the
society or a group and letting them in a right path. In home mother plays
the vital role and she has to decide what their kids needs and what
should avoid.
In news medium editor play vital role. He has to decide what kind of news
items will publish and what should not. Every day the news channel
receives various news items from all over the world. The channel have its
own ethics and policies through this the editor decide the news items for
publish or aired. In some cases few news items are rejected by the editor
due the organizations policy or the news items which are not suitable for
publish.

Example:
An international news channel receives numbers of news items within day
like international terror issues, UN discussions, Texas bull fighting and
religious abuse on international community.
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A news channel cant show all those news items to audience because it
may affect the channel reputation in public and organizations policy. Here,
editor decides the news items especially he cant show the Texas bull
fighting because it is not internationally popular story. But the same time
the news channel cant show the religious abuses also because it may
hurt audience directly and it may affect organizations policy also. But
international terror issues and UN discussions are universal common news
that wont affect the channel reputation in public and organizations policy.
1. The News items:
N1: Texas bull fighting,
N2: International terror issues,
N3: UN discussions,
N4: religious abuse on international community
2. The Gatekeeper: Chief Editor
3. The Selected News Items:
N2: International terror issues, N3: UN discussions,
4. Discarded News Items: (On Popularity)
N1: Texas bull fighting
5. Discarded News Items: (On Policy)
N4: Religious abuse on International community

The Gatekeeping Model And Concept

Lewin identified several parts of the gatekeeping process in his 1943
article.
1) Information moves step by step through channels. The number of
channels varies and the amount of time in each channel can vary.
2) Information must pass a gate to move from one channel to the
next, such that;
3) Forces govern channels. There may be opposing psychological
forces causing conflict which creates resistance to movement
through the channel. Further,
4) There may be several channels that lead to the same end result.
And
5) Different actors may control the channels and act as gatekeepers at
different times.
Favourite Methods of Gatekeeping Concept
Interviews, surveys, network analysis.
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Scope and Application of Gatekeeping Concept

This theory is related to the mass media and organizations. In the mass
media the focus is on the organizational structure of newsrooms and
events. Gatekeeping is also an important in organizations, since
employees and management are using ways of influence.
Example
A wire service editor decides alone what news audiences will receive from
another continent. The idea is that if the gatekeepers selections are
biased, the readers understanding will therefore be a little biased.
Westley & MacLean's Model

Westley and MacLean's model is based on Newcombs idea of coorientation.

Multiple events (X), some are discovered by the sender (A), then travels to
the mass media (C -gatekeeper), then to the receiver (B).
Levels of Media Gatekeeping
1. Individuals Decisions are personal.
2. Routine Practices of Communication Work Decisions are
made according to a pre-established and generalized set of
practices.
3. Communication Organizations Exists within an environment of
social institutions that affect the gatekeeping process.
4. Social Institutions Events vary to a degree that they are
culturally available as news items.

5. Societies Culture, indicators of social significance, including

political, influences selection decisions affecting the extent to which
different parts of the world are covered and how they are covered.
The Functions of the Gatekeeper
Media outlets also serve a gatekeeping function, which means they affect
or control the information that is transmitted to their audiences. This
function has been analyzed and discussed by mass communication
scholars for decades.
Overall, the mass media serves four gatekeeping functions:
i.

Relaying,

ii.

Limiting,

iii.

Expanding, and

iv.

Reinterpreting.

i.

Relaying refers to the gatekeeping function of transmitting a message,

which usually requires technology and equipment that the media outlet
controls and has access to, but we do not. Although we relay messages
in other forms of communication such as interpersonal and small
group, we are primarily receivers when it comes to mass
communication, which makes us depend on the gatekeeper to relay the
message.

ii.

Limiting refers to when media outlets decide whether or not to pass

something along to the media channel so it can be relayed. Because
most commercial media space is so limited and expensive, almost
every message we receive is edited, which is inherently limiting.
A limited message doesnt necessarily mean the message is bad or
manipulated, as editing is a necessity. But a range of forces including
time constraints, advertiser pressure, censorship, or personal bias,
among others, can influence editing choices. Limiting based on bias or
self-interest isnt necessarily bad as long as those who relay the
message dont claim to be objective.
In fact, many people choose to engage with media messages that have
been limited to match their own personal views or preferences. This
kind of limiting also allows us to have more control over the media
messages we receive. For example, niche websites and cable channels
allow us to narrow in on already-limited content, so we dont have to
sift through everything on our own.

iii.

Expanding - Gatekeepers also function to expand messages. For

example, a blogger may take a story from a more traditional news
source and fact check it or do additional research, interview additional
sources, and post it on his or her blog. In this case, expanding helps us
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get more information than we would otherwise so we can be better

informed.
On the other hand, a gatekeeper who expands a message by falsifying
evidence or making up details either to appear more credible or to
mislead others is being unethical.
iv.

Reinterpret - Also, gatekeepers function to reinterpret mass media

messages. Reinterpretation is useful when gatekeepers translate a
message from something too complex or foreign for us to understand
into something meaningful. In the lead-up to the Supreme Courts June
2012 ruling on President Obamas health-care-overhaul bill, the media
came under scrutiny for not doing a better job of informing the public
about the core content and implications of the legislation that had been
passed. Given that policy language is difficult for many to understand
and that legislation contains many details that may not be important to
average people, a concise and lay reinterpretation of the content by
the gatekeepers (the media outlets) would have helped the public
better understand the bill.
Of course, when media outlets reinterpret content to the point that it is
untruthful or misleading, they are not ethically fulfilling the gatekeeping
function of reinterpretation.
In each of these gatekeeping functions, the media can fulfil or fail to fulfil
its role as the fourth estate of governmentor government
watchdog.

Conclusion:
Growing research concern among communication scholars is not so much
about content and structure, but as about the journalist who determine
the content of the media. In mass communication, the first point of call of
gatekeeping is the reporter. In an occasion, it is not all event that
occurred, that is reported by the reporter. He (reporter) chooses some
event out of a million incident that occurred in the occasion.
Also, the editor of a media outfit is in position to choose from many
reports filled in by different reporter once he/she (editor) deemed to be of
greater news worthy for publication. Off course, not all reports filled by
reporter that must be published for public consumption. The editor being
one of the cardinal agent of mass media and to extension gatekeeping is
in position to edit article of the mass media removing those he found
irrelevant and adding thing he found wanting to the message before
publication.

The editor draws a scale reference, choosing and dropping reports without
any query from any report. The choice of the editor may be for
competence or for socio-political and economic reasons. No one can tell.
References/Key publications
a) White, David Manning. (1964). "The 'Gatekeeper': A Case Study In the
Selection of News, In: Lewis A. Dexter / David M. White (Hrsg.): People,
Society and Mass Communications. London S. 160 - 172. "
b) Wenig, Snider, P.B. (1967). 'Mr.Gates; revisited: A 1966 version of the
1949 case study, Journalism Quarterly 44 (3):419-427.
c) Berkowitz, D (1990). Refining the gatekeeping metaphor for local
television news, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 34 (1)5568.
d) Carpenter, Edmund, "The New Languages," in Exploration in
Communication, eds. Edmund Carpenter and Marshall McLuhan
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1960).
e) Krol, Ed, The Whole Internet, (Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly and Associates,
Inc., 1992).
f) LaQuey, Tracy and Jeanne C. Ryder, The Internet Companion: A
Beginner's Guide to Global Networking, (Reading Massachusetts:
Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1992).
g) Eng, Paul and Julie Tilsners, "Up all night with the Internet," Business
Week, no. 3357, p. 14, February 7, 1994.
h) "Inside Internet," MacLean's, January 7, 1994, p 45.
i) Lewin, Kurt, "Frontiers in Group Dynamics," Human Relations, v. 1, no.
2, 1947, p. 145.
j) Bleske, Glen L., "Ms. Gates Takes Over: an updated version of a 1949
case study," Newspaper Research Journal, v. 12 no. 4 pp. 88-97.
k) Bass, Abraham A, "Redefining the 'gatekeeper' concept: a U.N. Radio
case study, Journalism Quarterly, 46: 59-72 (Spring, 1969).
l) Buckalew, James K., "A Q-Analysis of television news editors' decision,
Journalism Quarterly, 46: 135-37 (Spring 1969).
m) McCombs, Maxwell E. and Donald L. Shaw, "Structuring the unseen
environment," Journal of Communication, v. 26 no. 2, pp. 18-22 (Winter,
1976).
n) Willis, Jim, "Editors, readers and news judgement," Editor and
Publisher, v. 120, no. 6, pp. 14-15 (February 7, 1987).
o) Dimmick, John, "The gate-keeper: An uncertainty theory," Journalism
Monographs, no. 37, 1974.
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p) Wikipedia

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