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CM : Communication and Media XI(36) 29–46 © 2016 CDI
Reformed gatekeeping
François Heinderyckx1
Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium
Tim P. Vos2
University of Missouri, USA
doi: 10.5937/comman11-10306
Abstract: is essay explores the state of gatekeeping theory at present. We discuss
whether gatekeeping theory has a future, how gatekeeping – as it has evolved – still oers
theoretical and explanatory value, and how gatekeeping must be reformed to maintain
its worth and relevance. e notion is approached from its purpose, nature, temporal-
ity, agents and context. e article argues that gatekeeping theory will remain relevant
pending a process of reform that must accompany that of journalism and news media.
Keywords: gatekeeping, news selection, journalism, news media, digital age.
1. Introduction
Gatekeeping theory came together to formalize some of the core pro-
cesses involved in journalism and news reporting. Because the news industry
is endemically in ux, and because it is currently undergoing systemic trans-
formations within the context of the development of digital technologies, all
theoretical frames in this area come under considerable pressure and challenge.
Pre-digital-era theories have to be adapted and prove their renewed relevance,
or be abandoned in obsolescence. Gatekeeping theory has been challenged long
before the current turmoil; in fact it was challenged almost from the start. It has
been tweaked, adapted, expanded, repurposed in various ways to improve it and
1 Contact with author: fheinder@ulb.ac.be.
2 Contact with author: vost@missouri.edu.
ORIGINAL SCIENTIFIC PAPER
29
Submitted: 18.02.2016.
Accepted for publication: 03.08.2016.
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to adjust to the evolution of the objects to which it applies. Yet, the magnitude
of the changes triggered by the digital transformations of media and communi-
cation introduces a discontinuity that could make gatekeeping theory lose part
or all of its relevance. To remain in the game, gatekeeping theory needs to be
revamped.
is essay explores the state of gatekeeping theory at present. We explore
whether gatekeeping theory has a future, how gatekeeping – as it has evolved
– still oers theoretical and explanatory value, and how gatekeeping must be
reformed to maintain its worth.
2. Requiem for Gatekeeping in a Digital Age?
e very idea of gatekeeping came about in the old media world – a time
when news products were few and hard to access, when editors made choices
and audiences simply lived quietly with those choices, when the tools for creat-
ing the news were limited, and when space for news was at a premium. In the
world of new, converged media where news is accessible via the internet, the
tools for news creation have vastly expanded, the space for news content has
grown massively, audiences are a source of constant and immediate feedback,
and audiences are more likely to choose news with little regard for who has
published it — gatekeeping theory might just have run its course.
It should come as little surprise that scholars and critics have challenged the
idea of gatekeeping and questioned its relevance in the digital age (see e.g., Pear-
son & Kosicki, 2016). Gatekeeping scholarship in its original form sought to
explain little more than how news got selected for publication (White, 1950).
e question of what news actually made it to the public was largely ignored
because it was assumed that legacy news media output largely constituted the
news environment (Shoemaker & Vos, 2009). In this scenario, legacy media
were the gatekeepers and the relevance of gatekeeping would rise or fall with
the vitality of the legacy media. In the early decades of the twenty-rst century,
legacy media are in trouble and new channels of information distribution are
sapping them of their control of the news and information environment.
Gatekeeping is questioned then because legacy media – established printed
newspapers and TV network news broadcasts – are seen as fading institutions.
While that is certainly believable, it begs the question of what it means that an
institution is fading. While fading is stated in the present tense, it is also clear
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that legacy media have not yet faded to irrelevance. Quite the opposite. Much
of the news that circulates through digital media originates with legacy media.
But more importantly, the observation comes with an implicit assumption or
projection about the future – that we will arrive at a digital age in which legacy
media will be replaced by some kind of new, digital replacement. However, as
researchers, we do our work in an empirical world. e digitization of news is
happening. But, it is also premature to say that a new digital age has eclipsed
the legacy media, particularly when it comes to the production of news. Lessons
should be learned from the failed predictions of the demise of the paper book,
which were supposed to be taken over by the so much more ecient e-books.
Since models and theories purport to describe and explain the empirical world,
we can only account for the here and now. In the meantime, we have a world in
transition – a world in which the old and the new co-exist (Pearson & Kosicki,
2016). e end may yet come for gatekeeping. But making that conclusion
now would be premature. What we can say is that gatekeeping is in transition.
is too unavoidably says something about the future; however, it remains rea-
sonably agnostic about the kind of future that awaits gatekeeping.
So, before anyone pronounces the death of gatekeeping theory, we owe the
patient a close examination. In fact, a rst step would be to make sure we are
even examining the right patient; or put more simply, we need to be sure what
is meant by gatekeeping before we mark its passing. Indeed, gatekeeping has
had a variety of meanings and these must be sorted out: ere is the concept of
gatekeeping, a gatekeeping function, a gatekeeping role, a gatekeeping model,
and gatekeeping theory.
e concept of gatekeeping has largely referred to how information circu-
lates or does not circulate (Lewin, 1951). Gatekeeping is a means for account-
ing for the reality that not all information is equally available to all persons.
e gatekeeping function refers to those realities of the social, physical, and
digital world that inhibit or advance the ow of information. ese factors that
inhibit or advance the ow of information can be independent of the agency
or intention of any particular actors in the information environment. A news
organization, for example, can perform a gatekeeping function whereby some
information becomes news and some does not. However, we can also talk
about a gatekeeping role. is refers to a normative role whereby certain actors
in the information environment see it as their duty or responsibility to pass
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along some information and not other forms or kinds of information (Janow-
itz, 1975). is role ows from an understanding of the role that news media
should play in society if certain pro-social values are to be realized. Granted, the
role can also be an expression of marketing considerations – seeking to target a
particular market demographic.
Indeed, it is these realities of the social, physical, and digital world that have
led scholars to seek to understand and explain the processes by which “tips,
hunches, and bits of information … get turned into news and how that news
is framed, emphasized, placed, and promoted” and how it reaches a reader,
listener, or viewer (Vos, 2015:4). Scholars have sought to produce gatekeeping
models that plot the channels of information distribution and identify the as-
pects and intentions of the social, physical, and digital world that shape the ow
of information (Shoemaker, 1991; White, 1950). ese models call research-
ers’ attention to factors that, at certain times and in certain places, plausibly
account for how certain kinds of information might make it to the public and
certain kinds of information might not.
Gatekeeping theory, meanwhile, goes beyond the factors identied in a
gatekeeping model and posits enduring features of the social, physical, and
digital worlds – things such as socialization and social institutions and norms –
and enduring human characteristics – things like cognitive and rational capaci-
ties – to oer explanations for a range of enduring patterns of news production
and reception (Shoemaker & Vos, 2009). us, gatekeeping theory is culturally
specic, but also identies features that account for human actions across time
and place. It is gatekeeping theory then that is the focus of our attention here.
We will argue that gatekeeping theory retains relevance, but that it must be
revisited and revitalized for the digital age.
3. Relevance for Gatekeeping in a Digital Age
So, why is gatekeeping theory worth keeping? e succinct answer is be-
cause the phenomena it describes and explains are still relevant. If the concept
of gatekeeping accounts for how information circulates or does not circulate
and why all information is not equally available to all persons, then it should
be clear that gatekeeping addresses phenomena that still very much exist. Since
circulation patterns of information are not simply random and since a variety of
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institutions, organizations, individuals, and technologies continue to perform a
gatekeeping function, gatekeeping theory has not yet exhausted its usefulness.
A common criticism of gatekeeping is that new digital technologies produce
substantially new production and distribution capacities, such that information
scarcity is no longer as relevant as it once was. However, these claims are being
made at the very time, particularly in the U.S., when the number of actors who
construct news is shrinking. Granted, the numbers of actors who distribute
information have grown more numerous – citizens share information via social
media and websites and aggregators represent an enormous expansion of news
and information distribution. But evidence is in short supply that would show
that the amount and nature of the actual news that reaches the public have
radically changed. Audiences also have a limited capacity to attend to news,
suggesting that the marketplace for news is more nite than pronouncements
about digital capacity typically acknowledge.
Meanwhile, news organizations continue to embrace a gatekeeping role by
deciding how they want to use their limited resources to create an identity or
brand (Tandoc, 2014; Tandoc & Vos, 2015). While legacy media, for example,
face greater and greater competition, the response has been to become more
selective, not less, about what gets published. News organizations – and ag-
gregators – continue to make choices and those choices – because they limit
the news available to the public – have consequences for the public and institu-
tional decision makers (Starkman, 2014). And this is why gatekeeping models
and gatekeeping theory are still vitally important – they allow us to address im-
portant questions that merit public attention and debate. As posed elsewhere:
“given the range and variety of journalists and news organizations engaged in
decision-making, how is it that those journalists and news organizations, when
confronted by a complex phenomenon, are capable of producing such a narrow
range of news messages?” (Vos, 2015, p. 7). From perspectives that see news –
news that is accurate, nuanced, and empowering – as essential to enlightened
self-governance (Christians, Glasser, McQuail, Nordenstreng, & White, 2009),
anything that shapes or limits the news environment bears scrutiny.
As mentioned at the outset many journalists embrace a normative gatekeep-
ing role. ey recognize a moral obligation to limit certain kinds of news – for
example, sensationalism and public relations disguised as news – and to empha-
size news of signicance – for example, news that exposes public corruption or
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threats to public safety or health. Other journalists, of course, embrace other
obligations, such as giving audiences what they want and hopefully raising reve-
nues in the process (Bourdieu, 2005). Critical theorists have examined the news
environment precisely because they identify the consequences of those gate-
keeping choices as critical to public justice and public health. Indeed, if a public
corruption is largely ignored or minimized within the news environment, if a
serious threat to the public health receives only limited local exposure, how
could such normative failings be explained? While critical theory might point
to broad explanatory frameworks, gatekeeping theory potentially explains how
such failings can come about (Schudson, 2012; Shoemaker & Vos, 2009).
Take, for example, a recent debate among U.S. journalists about a general
failure to cover a major public health crisis in the upper midwestern city of
Flint, Michigan. e episode is a useful lens through which to examine the state
of gatekeeping and gatekeeping theory and illustrative of some of the points
raised thus far and points to be elaborated on below. Media critics (e.g., War-
ren, 2016), including the public editor of the New York Times (Sullivan, 2016),
asked how it could be that major news outlets could give such scant attention
to lead-poisoning from the public water supply of a sizeable American city. e
Times’ public editor put the question to the paper’s executive deputy editor.
What ensued was a discussion about news judgment and editorial decisions, a
framework that focused on an individual level of analysis. Other critics (e.g.,
Moore, 2016), meanwhile, pointed to governmental inaction and the dearth
of news about the contamination and suggested the answer could be found in
the class and race of the city’s inhabitants. What does the episode help us to see
and explore?
First, gatekeeping theory has been questioned on the grounds that the gate-
keeping function has lost most of its signicance. e rapid growth in news por-
tals and the predominance of social media was supposed to make any attempt at
gatekeeping a pointless exercise. Legacy media might hold back on a story, but
Twitter, Facebook, or other social media would add so many open gates to the
news eld that information could not be contained. Yet, the lead poisoning story
received limited public traction in Michigan and only passing attention outside
the state. Policymakers inside and outside the state gave the public health threat
essentially no public attention. If the gatekeeping phenomenon is one of keeping
information from owing freely, the phenomenon still seemed to be in evidence
in the Flint water case and hence merits our theorizing.
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Second, the story of Flint’s water quality did eventually become a signicant
national news story, with the accompanying outrage directed at public ocials
who had had a hand in creating and concealing the crisis. But, it was the pres-
ence of national, legacy media that eventually amplied the story and brought
about an examination of policy failures (Hiner, 2016). As discussed later, the
legacy media had the cultural capital to place the crisis on the public agenda,
illustrating that the qualities of the gatekeeper are not immaterial. In other
words, lots of open gates in local media and, presumably, in social media made
almost no impact compared to the open gates of a national cable network, a
national TV network, and a national newspaper.
ird, when it comes to actually explaining how the story could be held
back for so long, gatekeeping theory provides a useful set of conceptual tools.
Gatekeeping scholarship has long identied the role of government and ocials
sources as the keepers of information gates. e fact that government sources
in Flint repeatedly armed that the drinking water was safe, and the fact
that journalists repeated these claims, kept the story in check. News routines
that rely on and privilege elite sources regularly structure the news environ-
ment and did so in the Flint case as well. Local news organizations – the most
likely to uncover the crisis – were under staed and struggled to put sucient
resources into the story. Organizational characteristics have long shaped the
news environment, as they did in this case. News organizations are not isolated
from powerful institutional narratives, such as belief in a watchdog role, and
Flint media began to put investigative resources into the story. Meanwhile, the
readership of the local newspaper did not show widespread interest in the story,
clicking instead in far greater numbers on stories about a state sports rivalry
and routine weather (Hiner, 2016). us, audience cues also downplayed the
story. And social system characteristics, such as the marginalized racial and class
characteristics of those most aected by the crisis, presumably fed into audience
disinterest. us, each of the factors mentioned here are well established in the
gatekeeping scholarship as factors that structure the news environment, sug-
gesting the utility of gatekeeping theory in this important case and cases like it.
4. Reform for Gatekeeping in a Digital Age
Gatekeeping scholarship, as noted above, has reformulated the concept of
gatekeeping at various times. e early reformulations were less a matter of ad-
justing to shifting news realities than to shifting theoretical complexity. White’s
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(1950) version of gatekeeping focused on news selection. Later versions sought
to explain how information was selected, shaped and framed (Reese & Ball-
inger, 2001). White’s version located explanation at an individual level, con-
ceptualizing gatekeeping as a journalist’s decision making. Subsequent scholars
soon began to point to structure factors that inuenced individual decision
making (Gieber, 1956; Pool & Shulman, 1959). Shoemaker (1991) would
systematize these factors into a single gatekeeping model and thereby create a
second life for gatekeeping theory.
Revisiting gatekeeping theory anew begins with testing whether or not its
epistemic core remains relevant. From the broadest sense of gatekeeping as “the
process of culling and crafting countless bits of information into the limited
number of messages that reach people each day” (Shoemaker & Vos, 2009, p.
1), there is no doubt that gatekeeping will remain relevant for as long as news
will be processed and disseminated to an audience. Whether or not that process
is in the hands of identiable gatekeepers and what the nature of those might
be is much more debatable. Whether or not the original metaphor of items
owing through channels punctuated by a succession of gates still adequately
models the way events become news must also be closely examined. If all this
appears to remain at least partially relevant, then what we think we know about
gatekeeping must be updated to digital-media-grade realities.
Gatekeeping, in the broad sense, has outgrown its original metaphor into a
complex mesh of concepts and theories that must inevitably be broken down
into smaller conceptual units to be upgraded to the current realities of the digi-
tal age. Breaking down complex mechanisms into smaller, manageable parts, is
how modern science has dealt with complexity since René Descartes and later
Isaac Newton introduced reductionism in the 17th century. Reductionism is a
risky route where the smaller parts are closely intertwined to the point where
each of those parts cannot be properly understood when considered isolated
from the others. To face complexity while avoiding the drawbacks of reduction-
ism, an alternative strategy consists in examining the complex object from dif-
ferent angles, using dierent perspectives. By doing so, we preserve a somewhat
holistic view which divides the object not in a succession of steps, but rather in
several layers cutting across the overall process.
Gatekeeping has been sliced into ve theoretical levels by Shoemaker and
her colleagues (Shoemaker, 1991; Shoemaker & Vos, 2009; Shoemaker, Vos, &
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Reese, 2008): individual, communication routines, organizational, social insti-
tution, and social system. Each of these levels can host an in-depth analysis of
gatekeeping overall, without isolating one step or another, though some levels
might be of particular importance for specic aspects of the process. To under-
stand how gatekeeping has evolved over the course of the digital transition, we
can also proceed by examining the alteration in the purpose of gatekeeping, its
very nature, its temporality, its agents, and its context (Heinderyckx, 2015).
Purpose of Gatekeeping. e purpose of gatekeeping has enlarged beyond
mere editorial space management given that digital media have considerably
lightened the strict limits constraining print, radio and television news outlets.
Digital outlets proudly did away with limited editorial space, which could lead
to believe that gatekeeping loses its importance accordingly (Bruns, 2011). Yet
producing content requires human and technological means, both of which
come at a considerable cost. In a context where nancial resources are scarce
and media struggle to develop new business models, news media have to make
choices as much as ever. Technology does make space for ever more content, but
the limited resources available to produce content limit news production. Yet,
news media feel compelled to t in the culture of abundance that is associated
with digital outlets (Curran, 2010). Because ‘the goat must be fed’ (Stencel,
Adair, & Kamalakanthan, 2014), a range of new practices have developed to
curate content from around the web to cram the digital operations of media
outlets, thus opening up a new purpose for gatekeeping.
Yet, the attention span of individuals remains stable and very limited. e
abundance of content combined with sophisticated digital technologies cre-
ate high expectations for a kind of individualized gatekeeping. Although the
‘Daily Me’ conceptualized by Nicholas Negroponte (1995) over twenty years
ago hasn’t yet materialized, the tools available to curate and lter content will
at some point empower individuals to become their own gatekeeper, though a
second-degree gatekeeper given that the supply of content to which they have
access functions with its own gatekeeping mechanisms. An entire industry of
start-ups is constantly ddling with various ways to process and repurpose con-
tent so that media might meet these expectations of personalized content. By
trial and error, they stretch and manhandle gatekeeping in ways that become a
signicant factor in shaping the evolution of gatekeeping.
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As suggested above, legacy media no longer have a monopoly when it comes
to determining the scope and content of the news environment. Gatekeepers
no longer presume that their role is to shape the news environment, but to con-
tribute to it. Hence, in some cases, the purpose has evolved into getting a news
organization’s share of customers and revenue (Tandoc, 2014). Put more gener-
ously, some gatekeepers use their gatekeeping choices to distinguish themselves
from the ood of potential competitors and thereby develop a brand identity
(Phillips, 2015). Gatekeeping’s purpose is to market the gatekeeping organiza-
tion (Tandoc & Vos, 2015). us, gatekeeping must be theorized not just as
factors shaping the news environment – although this remains highly relevant
– but also factors that shape gatekeepers’ brands and identities.
Nature of Gatekeeping. e very nature of gatekeeping is changing. From
a process of selection and production determined by the presumed relevance
of certain events for a specic audience (White, 1950), gatekeeping now also
includes the various ways by which media outlets must tap into a much wider
range of channels (not just news sources) to dazzle the audience with the diver-
sity, quantity and quick turnover of content. e main driver of this extended
gatekeeping is to attract traffic (clickbait) and stimulate recommendation
(buzz).
e exponential mass of content housed within the digital media system
also gave birth to a string of automated technologies which we have come to
believe are the only way to deal with content abundance. At the core of these
technologies, mysterious (and secret) algorithms are said to be able to cater to
our every need in content management (Anderson, 2013). Whatever the need
or the expectation, algorithmic magic will provide a solution. As a result, vari-
ous forms of algorithmic gatekeeping have become part and parcel of the news
media industry. Because the original gatekeepers were essentially human opera-
tors (reporters and editors), gatekeeping theory has always struggled to unpack
gatekeeping from within the complexity of human cognition and decision
making. e online search selection behavior of readers and viewers of news is
now also part of what is captured by algorithms, thereby making individuals
into contributors to their own news environment. With the algorithmication
of gatekeeping, we must now wonder how the process can be modeled into
mathematical equations and how this will aect the overall balance of news pro-
duction and dissemination. Algorithms are trade secrets and they have become
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something of a myth associated with a certain degree of magic and fascination.
Yet, the same algorithms are still developed by human operators whose views on
gatekeeping are still key and of which the application or online service will only
be an approximate modeling in the form of an algorithm.
Gatekeeping in the digital age has considerably shifted from a logic of rel-
evance (Harcup & O’Neill, 2001) towards one of popularity. e primary unit
of newsworthiness is increasingly how popular a story will be among digital us-
ers, how many clicks, likes, retweets or whatever else measure of digital impact
may be considered (Tandoc, 2014). What matters overall is whether a story
will attract attention (and trac) and how it can be narrated to enhance its
potential. Gatekeeping becomes increasingly driven by the expected, then the
measured eect it will have in attracting a sizeable audience, preferably one that
is of interest to advertisers (Tandoc, 2015).
While early theories of gatekeeping stopped with explaining why news turns
out the way it does, recent theorizing has extended the objects of study to ac-
count for the kind of news that reaches an audience (Vos, 2015). is requires
attention to channels of distribution, including social media, aggregation, and
traditional media channels (orson & Wells, 2015). Gatekeeping has some-
times been linked to media’s agenda-setting function, but this relationship has
become more critical. In an information-abundant environment, only some
news maintains a place on the public agenda beyond a 24-hour news cycle.
Gatekeeping theory must now account for this phenomenon as well.
As attention turns to alternative channels of news distribution, attention
must also turn to the nature of those gatekeeping channels. While all these
channels have largely been seen in the same theoretical terms, they may require
careful theoretical distinctions. e Flint water-poisoning story suggests why
this might need to be the case. e story found open gates. However, those
gates did not open into channels that led to anything like a signicant audience.
e channels did not have the capacity or cultural capital to move the public
agenda. It took the open gates of the national, legacy media for the issue to
reach a critical mass.
Temporality of Gatekeeping. e temporality of gatekeeping was also
altered by the fast pace imposed upon news media by the continuous ow of
news that has overwhelmed the news cycles of the traditional media (Phillips,
2015). Online outlets are expected to be so fast that just taking the time to
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verify or weigh the importance of a story is a luxury (Le Cam & Domingo,
2015). e online operations of some of the most serious media tend to be
considerably more lax with rigor and even ethics, so that online media dare to
publish stories that would not make the cut in their traditional outlet, be it a
newspaper, a radio or a television news segment.
e turnover that has become consubstantial with digital outlets has cre-
ated the need for a new form of reverse gatekeeping whereby it must be decided
what story must be taken o the homepage to make room for new stories. e
criteria for doing so can be a lack of interest as measured by clicks, or just a
decrease in interest, or the fact that a story might have been found to be erro-
neous or biased. Gatekeeping used to be a one-way street; digital outlets have
made it a two-way street where stories make it in, and at some point must make
it out. e art of taking stories o digital outlets is mysterious, like traditional
gatekeeping, but in a dierent way.
Likewise, gatekeeping must explain how news is removed from or altered in
a news archive. While news was seen in the past as ephemeral – today’s news-
paper becomes tomorrow’s sh wrap – news can now live on in news archives,
ready to be accessed with a simple search. With this seeming permanency have
come the occasional calls to delete or alter stories in the archive (English, 2009).
is is not even to mention how web search engine operators, sometimes com-
pelled by court orders, must process a dense ow of requests for un-referencing
based on “the right to be forgotten” (Ambrose & Ausloos, 2013, p. 1). us,
gatekeeping must now account for both the publishing and the un-publishing
of news.
e Agents of Gatekeeping. e agents of gatekeeping are also changing
hands. Once largely a matter of news professionals, gatekeeping has been reap-
propriated by new actors on the news scene. From civil society organizations to
citizen journalists and interest groups, the digital news scene is cluttered with
various outlets providing content that is competing for attention with the more
traditional news outlets (Powers, 2014). In the case of the Flint water crisis dis-
cussed above, one of the prominent investigative journalists who uncovered the
story was no longer working for the local newspaper, but for the American Civil
Liberties Union, an advocacy, non-prot organization (Clark, 2015).
Increasingly gatekeepers do not even have to shape information as news,
but rather act as curators who merely navigate it and select and relay bits that
can be easily repurposed. ey are more gatewatchers than genuine gatekeepers
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(Bruns, 2005). ese gatekeepers can also create alternative channels for news
distribution. Politicians, preachers, activists, or anyone with a social following
use social media, blogs, or other means to curate news for those who follow
them (orson & Wells, 2015). ese agents are essential to explaining how
some news does or does not end up making it to the public or to the public
issue agenda.
In this same sense, the audience also functions as an important gatekeeping
channel (Shoemaker & Vos, 2009). Audience members email news stories –
and recipes and cat videos – to friends and family. ey share stories via social
media. e audience also has access to commenting sections and forums on
news sites that allow them to communicate to fellow readers, but also with
news organizations. ese become portals for sharing information and shaping
subsequent news coverage.
e mythology of the digital age has it that anyone can become anything,
including a content producer or a gatekeeper. Here, it is too often speculated
that because anyone is enabled to do things that used to be the monopoly of
certain professions, then everyone is likely to do it in the foreseeable future. Yet
not everyone wants to become his or her own news media curator and gate-
keeper. In fact, it can be argued that as the background noise increases, people
will want to rely increasing on professional gatekeepers in order to manage the
overwhelming mass of content that pours on them continuously.
Context of Gatekeeping. e context of gatekeeping is changing along with
the news industry, propelled by changing consumer habits and by economic
disruptions (Kaye & Quinn, 2010). e technologies made available to the
news professionals, but also to their audiences, are bringing changes of such
magnitude that major systemic changes are taking place quickly and almost
organically, without anyone really calling the shots. Gatekeeping becomes just
one among many factors that are inevitably aected by the transition, in con-
nection with many other factors, all of which are swept along with the digital
transition.
5. Transition of Gatekeeping
For some, the end of gatekeeping cannot come soon enough. e gatekeep-
ing role is seen as an unhealthy form of paternalism. It is not just that audiences
have new power in the digital media environment, but that audience power
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is to be celebrated and embraced. For others, normative judgments about the
gatekeeping role are immaterial. Gatekeeping is simply seen as a phenomenon
that is fading from the modern scene. Gatekeeping theory, it is believed, is fad-
ing with it.
It is tempting to see the many changes in the gatekeeping environment and
to pronounce gatekeeping’s demise. However, the most intellectually honest
approach at the present is to see that gatekeeping theory must account for a
world in transition. Gatewatching (Bruns, 2005) and way-nding (Pearson &
Kosicki, 2016) clearly describe aspects of the digital media environment that
need not be reduced to gatekeeping. But the new digital universe has not yet
arrived in its full manifestation, assuming it ever will. us, we are left to ac-
count for a news environment with both traditional and new purposes, natures,
agents, temporalities, and contexts.
eorizing about new environments comes with challenges. eories are
supposed to oer general principles. But, for social scientists, the goal is often
nomothetic explanations; i.e., theories that explain a class of situations or events
or that oer “abstract, general, or universal statements or laws” (Lehmann,
2010:50). Most scholars would concede that theory does not need to speak to
all times and all places, but what is the value of our theorizing if it captures only
a snapshot in a seemingly constantly moving picture? Gatekeeping theory must
be reformed; however, it will need to keep being reformed for the foreseeable
future.
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Reformed gatekeepingFrançois Heinderyckx, Tim P. Vos
CM : Communication and Media XI(36) 29–46 © 2016 CDI
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