Process of Gate Keeping in Media: From Old Trend to New

Abstract

Mass media is has playing significant role in strengthening the society, promoting knowledge, globalizing the world and disseminating the information. The study presents the importance of gate keeping. The objective of the study was to know about the different models of gate keeping described by the different media scientists from early age to present. Media gathers information from all over the world, which can not publish, broadcast or telecast as it is because there is very little time and space, so every form of media has to define its content. The process by which this practice is done, called gate keeping. Through this process information is filtered for dissemination. The quantitative methodology used for this study. Data is gathered from early gate keeping model to latest model. The study concluded that Gate keeping is a selection process in which all the information is organized by level of importance and interest. The gatekeeper or gatekeepers fix on which information is relevant after sorting it out in a hierarchy that determines what they need. Information from important topics, controversial issues, and contemporary news stories has a higher tendency of being selected. Moreover, the gatekeeper alone can’t decide how the information is sorted, for this purpose there are many gate keepers who determine which information will be pass out to People, a gatekeeper is always having its own influences like social, cultural, ethical and political.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n1s1p588