Concept
gatekeeping
The selection process that determines whether a story or piece of information passes through a media channel; the first link in the formation of the media agenda.
Gatekeeping is the selection process that determines whether a story, event or piece of information passes through a mass communication channel: out of an endless number of events, some pass “through the gate” and some are eliminated. It is the first link in the formation of the media agenda; in agenda-setting, the answer to “which issues enter the media agenda?” is sought here.
An early study in the field of news is David Manning White’s 1950 article: he classified, by content, the wire stories that the telegraph editor of a small newspaper used and rejected over seven days, and examined the editor’s reasons. Later research draws on Kurt Lewin’s concept of “force”: Shoemaker and colleagues’ study of fifty bills in Congress showed that in newspaper gatekeeping, routine-level forces (editors’ news-value judgments) mattered more than the individual characteristics of the writers.
The detail of the concept is covered in the Gatekeeping lesson; here only its link to agenda-setting matters. In the Turkish literature the names “kapı bekçisi” and “eşik bekçiliği” also occur for this concept.
Example
In White’s 1950 study, the wire stories that the telegraph editor of a small newspaper used and dropped over one week were examined, together with the reasons the editor gave.