Gatekeeping

regulate the flow of information

History and Orientation

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

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. Important to realize is that gatekeepers are able to control

the public’s knowledge of the actual events by letting some stories pass through the system but

keeping others out. Gatekeepers can also be seen as institutions or organizations. In a political

system there are gatekeepers, individuals or institutions which control access to positions of

power and regulate the flow of information and political influence. Gatekeepers exist in many

jobs, and their choices hold the potential to color mental pictures that are subsequently created in

people’s understanding of what is happening in the world around them. Media gatekeeping

showed that decision making is based on principles of news values, organizational routines, input

structure and common sense. Gatekeeping is vital in communication planning and almost al

communication planning roles include some aspect of gatekeeping.

The gatekeeper’s 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.

Conceptual Model

Source: White (1964)

Related to gatekeeping in media. For gatekeeping in organizations this model is not

recommended.

Favorite Methods

Interviews, surveys, networkanalysis.

Scope and Application

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 gatekeeper’s selections are biased, the readers’ understanding will

therefore be a little biased.

See Wenig for example on gatekeeping in organizations.

References

Key publications

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. "

Wenig,

Snider, P.B. (1967). “'Mr.Gates; revisited: A 1966 version of the 1949 case study,” Journalism

Quarterly 44 (3):419-427.

Berkowitz, D (1990). “Refining the gatekeeping metaphor for local television news,” Journal of

Broadcasting & Electronic Media 34 (1)55-68.

Carpenter, Edmund, "The New Languages," in Exploration in Communication, eds. Edmund

Carpenter and Marshall McLuhan (Boston: Beacon Press, 1960).

Krol, Ed, The Whole Internet, (Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly and Associates, Inc., 1992).

LaQuey, Tracy and Jeanne C. Ryder, The Internet Companion: A Beginner's Guide to Global

Networking, (Reading Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1992).

Eng, Paul and Julie Tilsners, "Up all night with the Internet," Business Week, no. 3357, p. 14,

February 7, 1994.

"Inside Internet," MacLean's, January 7, 1994, p 45.

Lewin, Kurt, "Frontiers in Group Dynamics," Human Relations, v. 1, no. 2, 1947, p. 145.

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.

Bass, Abraham A, "Redefining the 'gatekeeper' concept: a U.N. Radio case study, Journalism

Quarterly, 46: 59-72 (Spring, 1969).

Buckalew, James K., "A Q-Analysis of television news editors' decision, Journalism Quarterly,

46: 135-37 (Spring 1969).

McCombs, Maxwell E. and Donald L. Shaw, "Structuring the unseen environment," Journal of

Communication, v. 26 no. 2, pp. 18-22 (Winter, 1976).

Willis, Jim, "Editors, readers and news judgement," Editor and Publisher, v. 120, no. 6, pp. 14-

15 (February 7, 1987).

Dimmick, John, "The gate-keeper: An uncertainty theory," Journalism Monographs, no. 37,

1974.

See also Media, Culture and Society