The Present State and Future Issues in Gatekeeping Research

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  • メディアのゲートキーピング研究 : 現状と課題
  • メディア ノ ゲートキーピング ケンキュウ : ゲンジョウ ト カダイ

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The notion of "gatekeeping" introduced by D. M. White in 1950 refers to the process of selecting news for people in society. People in society mainly depend on information selected by media to understand what happens in broader society. In this sense, media is important to our understandings of the social reality. The purpose of this article is to evaluate the status of the gatekeeping theory and to then suggest strategies for empirical research in the future. To evaluate the status of this theory, a historical review is conducted. There are five areas of the research, which constitute five levels of the gate-keeping factors. These areas have been divided into five levels of analysis: individual, media routine, organizational, social institutional and social system. In this article, the former four levels are discussed individually. The last level, social system, however, is so deeply and widely rooted in the whole of society that it is not explicitly discussed as it is too complex to model effectively. After the classification of gatekeeping, two issues are suggested for the future. The first is empirical research methods. At each research level, models of analysis are discussed. Out of all of the four levels, the routine analysis level is the first to be researched because routines are traditions that journalists use in daily activities. The second issue is the inclusion of new media such as social media. Traditional gatekeeping studies have focus less on new media and more on mass media. But now new media have the power to influence people in their selections of news to be examined.

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