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 publics 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
peoples 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 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.
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 gatekeepers 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