The term "gatekeeping" is commonly used among millennials as a term to describe someone making judgments. The person making judgments about someone in this context is the "gatekeeper." This contemporary usage of the word is amusingly inaccurate. Gatekeeping is defined by Mass Communication Theory as "the process of selecting, and then filtering, items of media that can be consumed within the time or space that an individual happens to have."
Gatekeeping is associated with different forms of power such as selecting different types of news to a consumer, brokering and storing information, and controlling to access networks. These networks can be anything from social media to mainstream news. Provided by UMN Library, gatekeepers are people in a position of power who decide which messages are produced, what they contain, where they are placed, and who places them.
As humans, we gate keep information inherently to filter out information that we don't need. We consume data that is relevant to us and ignore billions of data points. This helps us maintain our personal sanity. While we gate keep for ourselves, the information and media that we consume has been already "gatekept" for us. Gatekeeping has evolved to become the center of media's role in our public lives.
Gatekeeping is most commonly used in news. Editors and journalists filter content for publication, content that is tailored for viewers. While the content that consumers view that has been filtered by information tech companies, news companies, and social media firms is very important, the content that we as viewers see is also something that should be highlighted. Gatekeeping is a form of "neutral censorship" that is normally viewpoint neutral, but gatekeeper biases create hubs for partisan selection of media. This is the danger in gatekeeping if it is left unchecked. Companies gatekeeping information should be kept under strict scrutiny to minimize propaganda and avoid controlling people's opinions.
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