What is gate keeping in mass communication?

Answer 1

Gatekeeping is an expression referring to someone (or something) that intentionally changes a communication. In other words, a message is very often altered before it reaches its intended audience. Sometimes, gatekeeping is totally benign: let's say I wrote a book and I submitted my manuscript. My editor thought one chapter was not very clearly written and she asked for a number of changes to it. Or, I'm a radio news reporter and I come back to the station with a great story, but the news director says it's too long and it needs to be shortened. These are two examples of gatekeeping that are well-intended. Editing is a form of gatekeeping. Time can be a gatekeeper too (on radio and TV, stories can only be a certain number of minutes, whether the reporter likes that or not).

But some gatekeeping is not benign-- the most common form of gatekeeping that is negative is censorship. I write a high school graduation speech that is polite but it is critical of certain things at my school. The headmaster says I cannot read it unless I remove the criticisms. Or, I am a cirizen and I am upset about a policy the governor recently implemented; I try to discuss it at a town hall meeting the governor is holding, but he shuts my microphone off and orders me to leave. Throughout history, presidents, prime ministers, kings, and dictators have resisted listening to criticism; some have even tried to prevent the public from hearing any dissent. There have been instances where a controversial documentary was not shown on TV, or a news report was suddenly eliminated because a sponsor complained.