Blog Post #9

for my presentation for our latest EOTO slides was about the gatekeeping theory. i began discussing the two definitions of gatekeeping itself, the one from oxford dictionary which is: "the activity of controlling and or limiting general access to something." and the second from urban dictionary, which is typically now more the more common usage, and that definition is: "Hiding your interests and hobbies to keep them from growing to be “mainstream." the term gatekeeping is now a slang term used a lot over social media referring to trends. the term was first coined by Kurt Lewin a social psychologist who used the word to understand human behavior in 1943. gatekeeping theory however is about how not all news becomes released to the public, or if it is released, its pushed down to be hidden from mainstream media. one of my most important examples during my presentation was speaking about the blog post we'd previously done on antiwar.com. when i was visiting that website i was shocked at how many headlines and stories id never heard of that seemed like incredibly important information. a lot of gatekeeping is done because the news channel itself might be effected by the releases of particular stories. it could harm their reputation or discourage their typical audience. its all about what should and shouldn't be public knowledge. this is decided by the news editor, otherwise known as "Mr. Gates" which are large shoes to fill. this person has the role to decide what stories get published or killed.

https://www.communicationtheory.org/gatekeeping-theory/

https://masscommtheory.com/theory-overviews/gatekeeping-theory/