“Tuesday talk”

04-10-2011

By

M.Saravanan. PhD Research Scholar

Gatekeeping

Kurt Lewin coins the word called “Gate keeping” in 1947

he was born in German 1890. He was a great Psychologist and pioneer in Social Psychology

gate keeping is nothing but to block unwanted or useless things by using a gate. Be it publication, broadcasting, the Internet, or some other type of communication.

first it is widely used in the field of psychology and later it occupies the field of communication. Now it’s one of the essential theories in communication studies.

Kurt Lewin

Gate keeping

Kurt lewin First observed food habits in families (and seeing housewives as gatekeepers at that time); this was later applied in a major way to the editors in news publications.

“WHO” is Gatekeeper ?

“A person who controls access to something, decide whether a given message will be distributed by a mass medium”.

We use the term mass media to describe that transmit information to many people,such as those that create web pages, news portal or blogs on the internet,newpaper,television and radio companies, as well as magazines.

Individuals can also act as gatekeepers, deciding what information to include in an email or in a blog.

Concept

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 information’s are removed by the gate keeper which helps to control the society.

Example : In home mother plays the vital role and she has to decide what their kid’s needs and what should avoid.

Overview of gatekeeping theory

David Mann White (1950) suggested the selection process in newspapers and argued that news items were rejected for three reasons:

1.personal feelings of the gatekeeper 2. insufficient space 3. The story had appeared previously

1970 Maxwell mcCombs and Donald Shaw pointed out that the gate keeping concept is related to newer agenda setting theory.

Overview of gatekeeping theory

gatekeeping in mass communication can be seen as the overall process through which social reality transmitted by the news media is constructed, and is not just a series of ‘in’ and ‘out’ decisions” (Shoemaker, Eichholz, Kim, & Wrigley, 2001).

Gatekeeping is “the process of culling and crafting countless bits of information into the limited number of messages that reach people each day. . .” the center of the mass media’s role in society (Shoemaker & Vos, 2009)

NewsMedium in Gatekeeper

gatekeeper 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.

Shoemaker and Reese noted, news room

organization structured, the gatekeepers do not alone, but are part of the team.

David Manning White’s adaptation of the gate

keeping model

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.

A news channel can’t 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 can’t show

gate keeping model – assume the international television news channel:

News items: N1: Texas bull fighting N2: International terror issues N3: UN discussions N4: religious abuse on international community

Gatekeeper: Chief Editor

Selected News Items: N2: International terror issues N3: UN discussions

International terror issues and UN discussions are universal common news that won’t affect the channel reputation in public and organizations policy.

Discarded News Items: (on popularity)

N1: Texas bull fighting

(The Texas bull fighting because it is not internationally popular story)

Discarded News Items: (on policy)

N4: Religious abuse on International community

The news channel can’t show the religious abuses also because it may hurt audience directly and it may affect organizations policy also.

Gate Keeping theory occur various fields of study.information science Management of information systems

(MIS)Management political sciencecommunication studiesLawPublic affairsSociology

The concept of gatekeeping, starting and covers many fields of research and practice

White, 1950 Snider, 1967; (Bass, 1969; Pavlik and McIntosh 76 Tushman & Katz, 1980 Schultze & Boland, 2000 Sturges, 2001; and others

Changes in gatekeeping research

Berkowitz(1990) research, television gatekeepers claimed to make selection decision based on their “instincts”.

In addition Berkowitz (1991) found that “news judgments” and “news values” influence gate keeping.

field journal Abbr.

Journal Title Rank Number of Articles with GK Presence

Total Number of Articles Published

Percent of Total Articles with GK Presence

Communication

CR Communication Research

3 2 344 0.58%

ics Information Communication and Society

- 4 333 1.20%

JMCQ Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly

12 76 1739 4.37%

NMS New Media Society

29 16 380 4.21%

Total Communication Articles

98 2796 3.51%

Articles containing a Gatekeeping(GK) concept

mass communication field (1995-2007)

Total of 24,669 articles in eight disciplines for the twelve-year period,

END