Reformed gatekeeping

ORIGINAL SCIENTIFIC PAPER Submitted: 18.02.2016. Accepted for publication: 03.08.2016. Reformed gatekeeping François Heinderyckx1 Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium Tim P. Vos2 University of Missouri, USA doi: 10.5937/comman11-10306 Abstract: his essay explores the state of gatekeeping theory at present. We discuss whether gatekeeping theory has a future, how gatekeeping – as it has evolved – still ofers theoretical and explanatory value, and how gatekeeping must be reformed to maintain its worth and relevance. he notion is approached from its purpose, nature, temporality, agents and context. he 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 processes involved in journalism and news reporting. Because the news industry is endemically in lux, and because it is currently undergoing systemic transformations 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: [email protected]. 2 Contact with author: [email protected]. CM : Communication and Media XI(36) 29–46 © 2016 CDI 29 Reformed gatekeeping François Heinderyckx, Tim P. Vos 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 communication 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. his essay explores the state of gatekeeping theory at present. We explore whether gatekeeping theory has a future, how gatekeeping – as it has evolved – still ofers theoretical and explanatory value, and how gatekeeping must be reformed to maintain its worth. 2. Requiem for Gatekeeping in a Digital Age? he 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 creating 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., Pearson & Kosicki, 2016). Gatekeeping scholarship in its original form sought to explain little more than how news got selected for publication (White, 1950). he 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-irst 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 30 CM : Communication and Media XI(36) 29–46 © 2016 CDI François Heinderyckx, Tim P. Vos Reformed gatekeeping 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. he 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 eicient 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). he end may yet come for gatekeeping. But making that conclusion now would be premature. What we can say is that gatekeeping is in transition. his too unavoidably says something about the future; however, it remains reasonably 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 irst 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: here is the concept of gatekeeping, a gatekeeping function, a gatekeeping role, a gatekeeping model, and gatekeeping theory. he concept of gatekeeping has largely referred to how information circulates or does not circulate (Lewin, 1951). Gatekeeping is a means for accounting for the reality that not all information is equally available to all persons. he gatekeeping function refers to those realities of the social, physical, and digital world that inhibit or advance the low of information. hese factors that inhibit or advance the low 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. his refers to a normative role whereby certain actors in the information environment see it as their duty or responsibility to pass CM : Communication and Media XI(36) 29–46 © 2016 CDI 31 Reformed gatekeeping François Heinderyckx, Tim P. Vos along some information and not other forms or kinds of information (Janowitz, 1975). his role lows 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 aspects and intentions of the social, physical, and digital world that shape the low of information (Shoemaker, 1991; White, 1950). hese models call researchers’ 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 identiied 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 capacities – to ofer explanations for a range of enduring patterns of news production and reception (Shoemaker & Vos, 2009). hus, gatekeeping theory is culturally speciic, but also identiies 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? he succinct answer is because 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 32 CM : Communication and Media XI(36) 29–46 © 2016 CDI François Heinderyckx, Tim P. Vos Reformed gatekeeping 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 inite 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 aggregators – continue to make choices and those choices – because they limit the news available to the public – have consequences for the public and institutional decision makers (Starkman, 2014). And this is why gatekeeping models and gatekeeping theory are still vitally important – they allow us to address important 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 gatekeeping role. hey recognize a moral obligation to limit certain kinds of news – for example, sensationalism and public relations disguised as news – and to emphasize news of signiicance – for example, news that exposes public corruption or CM : Communication and Media XI(36) 29–46 © 2016 CDI 33 Reformed gatekeeping François Heinderyckx, Tim P. Vos threats to public safety or health. Other journalists, of course, embrace other obligations, such as giving audiences what they want and hopefully raising revenues in the process (Bourdieu, 2005). Critical theorists have examined the news environment precisely because they identify the consequences of those gatekeeping 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. he 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., Warren, 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. he 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 gatekeeping function has lost most of its signiicance. he rapid growth in news portals 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 ield 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 lowing freely, the phenomenon still seemed to be in evidence in the Flint water case and hence merits our theorizing. 34 CM : Communication and Media XI(36) 29–46 © 2016 CDI François Heinderyckx, Tim P. Vos Reformed gatekeeping Second, the story of Flint’s water quality did eventually become a signiicant national news story, with the accompanying outrage directed at public oicials who had had a hand in creating and concealing the crisis. But, it was the presence of national, legacy media that eventually ampliied 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. hird, 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 identiied the role of government and oicials sources as the keepers of information gates. he fact that government sources in Flint repeatedly airmed 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 environment and did so in the Flint case as well. Local news organizations – the most likely to uncover the crisis – were under stafed and struggled to put suicient 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). hus, audience cues also downplayed the story. And social system characteristics, such as the marginalized racial and class characteristics of those most afected by the crisis, presumably fed into audience disinterest. hus, each of the factors mentioned here are well established in the gatekeeping scholarship as factors that structure the news environment, suggesting 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. he early reformulations were less a matter of adjusting to shifting news realities than to shifting theoretical complexity. White’s CM : Communication and Media XI(36) 29–46 © 2016 CDI 35 Reformed gatekeeping François Heinderyckx, Tim P. Vos (1950) version of gatekeeping focused on news selection. Later versions sought to explain how information was selected, shaped and framed (Reese & Ballinger, 2001). White’s version located explanation at an individual level, conceptualizing gatekeeping as a journalist’s decision making. Subsequent scholars soon began to point to structure factors that inluenced 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 identiiable gatekeepers and what the nature of those might be is much more debatable. Whether or not the original metaphor of items lowing 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 digital 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 reductionism, an alternative strategy consists in examining the complex object from different angles, using diferent 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 ive theoretical levels by Shoemaker and her colleagues (Shoemaker, 1991; Shoemaker & Vos, 2009; Shoemaker, Vos, & 36 CM : Communication and Media XI(36) 29–46 © 2016 CDI François Heinderyckx, Tim P. Vos Reformed gatekeeping Reese, 2008): individual, communication routines, organizational, social institution, 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 speciic aspects of the process. To understand 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. he 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 inancial 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 it 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. he abundance of content combined with sophisticated digital technologies create 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 ilter 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 iddling with various ways to process and repurpose content so that media might meet these expectations of personalized content. By trial and error, they stretch and manhandle gatekeeping in ways that become a signiicant factor in shaping the evolution of gatekeeping. CM : Communication and Media XI(36) 29–46 © 2016 CDI 37 Reformed gatekeeping François Heinderyckx, Tim P. Vos 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 contribute 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 generously, some gatekeepers use their gatekeeping choices to distinguish themselves from the lood of potential competitors and thereby develop a brand identity (Phillips, 2015). Gatekeeping’s purpose is to market the gatekeeping organization (Tandoc & Vos, 2015). hus, 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. he very nature of gatekeeping is changing. From a process of selection and production determined by the presumed relevance of certain events for a speciic 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 diversity, quantity and quick turnover of content. he main driver of this extended gatekeeping is to attract traffic (clickbait) and stimulate recommendation (buzz). he 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, various forms of algorithmic gatekeeping have become part and parcel of the news media industry. Because the original gatekeepers were essentially human operators (reporters and editors), gatekeeping theory has always struggled to unpack gatekeeping from within the complexity of human cognition and decision making. he 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 algorithmiication of gatekeeping, we must now wonder how the process can be modeled into mathematical equations and how this will afect the overall balance of news production and dissemination. Algorithms are trade secrets and they have become 38 CM : Communication and Media XI(36) 29–46 © 2016 CDI François Heinderyckx, Tim P. Vos Reformed gatekeeping 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 relevance (Harcup & O’Neill, 2001) towards one of popularity. he primary unit of newsworthiness is increasingly how popular a story will be among digital users, 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 traic) and how it can be narrated to enhance its potential. Gatekeeping becomes increasingly driven by the expected, then the measured efect 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 account for the kind of news that reaches an audience (Vos, 2015). his requires attention to channels of distribution, including social media, aggregation, and traditional media channels (horson & Wells, 2015). Gatekeeping has sometimes 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. he Flint water-poisoning story suggests why this might need to be the case. he story found open gates. However, those gates did not open into channels that led to anything like a signiicant audience. he 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. he temporality of gatekeeping was also altered by the fast pace imposed upon news media by the continuous low 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 CM : Communication and Media XI(36) 29–46 © 2016 CDI 39 Reformed gatekeeping François Heinderyckx, Tim P. Vos verify or weigh the importance of a story is a luxury (Le Cam & Domingo, 2015). he 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. he turnover that has become consubstantial with digital outlets has created the need for a new form of reverse gatekeeping whereby it must be decided what story must be taken of the homepage to make room for new stories. he 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 erroneous 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. he art of taking stories of digital outlets is mysterious, like traditional gatekeeping, but in a diferent 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 newspaper becomes tomorrow’s ish 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). his is not even to mention how web search engine operators, sometimes compelled by court orders, must process a dense low of requests for un-referencing based on “the right to be forgotten” (Ambrose & Ausloos, 2013, p. 1). hus, gatekeeping must now account for both the publishing and the un-publishing of news. he Agents of Gatekeeping. he agents of gatekeeping are also changing hands. Once largely a matter of news professionals, gatekeeping has been reappropriated 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 discussed 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-proit 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. hey are more gatewatchers than genuine gatekeepers 40 CM : Communication and Media XI(36) 29–46 © 2016 CDI François Heinderyckx, Tim P. Vos Reformed gatekeeping (Bruns, 2005). hese 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 (horson & Wells, 2015). hese 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. hey share stories via social media. he 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. hese become portals for sharing information and shaping subsequent news coverage. he 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 gatekeeper. 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. he context of gatekeeping is changing along with the news industry, propelled by changing consumer habits and by economic disruptions (Kaye & Quinn, 2010). he 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 afected by the transition, in connection 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. he gatekeeping 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 CM : Communication and Media XI(36) 29–46 © 2016 CDI 41 Reformed gatekeeping François Heinderyckx, Tim P. Vos 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 fading 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-inding (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. hus, we are left to account for a news environment with both traditional and new purposes, natures, agents, temporalities, and contexts. heorizing about new environments comes with challenges. heories are supposed to ofer 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 ofer “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. 42 CM : Communication and Media XI(36) 29–46 © 2016 CDI François Heinderyckx, Tim P. Vos Reformed gatekeeping References Ambrose, M. L. & Ausloos, J. (2013). he Right to be Forgotten across the Pond. Journal of Information Policy, 3: 1–23. Anderson, C. W. (2013). Towards a Sociology of Computational and Algorithmic Journalism. New Media & Society, 15(7), 1005–1021. Bourdieu, P. (2005). he Political Field, the Social Science Field, and the Journalistic Field. In R. Benson & E. Neveu (Eds.), Bourdieu and the journalistic ield (pp. 29–47). Malden, MA: Polity. Bruns, A. (2005). Gatewatching: Collaborative Online News Production. New York: P. Lang. Bruns, A. (2011). 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