One of the oldest social science theories applied to the study of communication, the gatekeeping approach emphasizes the movement of bits of information through channels, with an emphasis on decision points (gates) and decision-makers (gatekeepers). Forces on both sides of a gate can either help or hinder the information’s passage through a channel. The gatekeeping process shapes and produces various images of reality, not only because some bits of information are selected and others rejected, but because communication agents put information together in different ways. In addition, the timing and repetition of information can affect the prominence of events or topics and can influence the probability of future information diffusion.
Gatekeeping was originally modeled as a series of linear processes within the mass media, but in the late 20th century the flow of information through the mass and social media began to interact. Information is now understood to flow among journalists, among social media users, and among agents of both types of media. All such communication agents are gatekeepers. In addition, we can study these networked interconnections as one level of analysis, with the supra-gatekeepers (such as Facebook or Twitter) adding their own gatekeeping processes over and beyond those of their own clients of the mass media.
In addition to looking at various pairwise relationships between gatekeepers, gatekeeping theory should go beyond to instead consider the entire web of gatekeepers as a whole or system. A system is composed of elements (gatekeepers), interactions (relationships among them), and a goal or function. Multiple functions have been proposed by 20th-century scholars (such as socialization, entertainment, or surveillance) for the mass media, but scholars should now consider the function(s) of the gatekeeping system (mass and social media, as well as supra-gatekeepers) as a whole. Although each type of medium can be analyzed as its own system, such analysis would not facilitate new thinking about the various ways in which these partial systems affect one another and how the whole system functions beyond the simple addition of its parts.
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Gatekeeping and Journalism
Pamela J. Shoemaker
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Global Jihad and International Media Use
el-Sayed el-Aswad, M. Joseph Sirgy, Richard J. Estes, and Don R. Rahtz
Globalization and international media are potent contributors to the rise of the Islamist global jihad. Widespread digital communication technologies that connect people all over the world are a substantial component of globalization. Over the past three decades, “virtual jihad” has emerged as a potent disseminator of radical religious-political ideologies, instilling fear and fostering instability worldwide. Western and global media, while often misrepresenting Islam and Muslims, have played a significant role in disseminating jihadist ideologies. The involvement of global jihadists (mujāhidīn) across myriad media outlets and platforms has allowed them to promote their agenda around the world. Using the Internet and media outlets, global jihadists are able to attract and recruit people to their ranks in an accelerated manner. Jihadists have engaged in media activities that have empowered and expanded the global jihad movement, even in the face of increased mitigation efforts.
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Glocalization of the Television Format in China
Yang Liu
For the past two decades, global television formats have received more attention in academia. Being theorized as mass-produced transnational cultural products, global TV formats have been articulated as dynamic junctures of cultural imperialism, media imperialism, and cultural homogenization in the realms of media and popular culture. These theoretical approaches, however, adopt a dualistic understanding of globality and locality, ignoring the multi-relational interactions between discourses of the global format and the local context constrained by specificities of global TV formats’ importing countries. Compared to the notion of globalization, glocalization attends more to the dialectical relationship between the global and the local, with its emphasis on postmodern understanding of local contents’ reproduction or repackaging within the framework delineated by global TV formats. With global TV formats’ transnational flow, these cultural commodities have gone through complex reproduction or adaptation in order to fit importing countries’ specific cultural, social, and even political milieus. Besides adaptation, global TV formats are inevitably subject to incompatible constraints in importing countries and thus exposed to disputes that may bring damages to their sustainability outside of their countries of origin. In order to present a comprehensive review of cross-border transaction and glocalization of global TV formats, it is necessary to examine this phenomenon’s origin and global expansion and explore its entrance into China. This can be done by analyzing the rise and fall of The Voice as a representative case and as one of the most successful global TV formats in the Chinese context within the framework of glocalization.
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Media Literacy and Communication
Erica Scharrer and Yuxi Zhou
Media literacy refers to the ability to interact with media from a position of active inquiry, carefully considering media texts, the forces and factors that shape those texts, and the ways in which audiences interpret the texts or otherwise respond. Media access, use, creation, analysis, and evaluation skills are considered essential for citizenship in the contemporary world. Media literacy education encompasses efforts to advance media literacy within a group of individuals and spur their motivation to apply media literacy skills and perspectives in interactions with media. Yet, there are barriers that impede the widespread adoption of media literacy education in various global locations. There is disparity, for instance, in the degree to which local, regional, or national policies support media literacy education in schools as well as in the training, funding, or other resources available to educators.
Considerable variability in the assumptions and objectives that scholars and practitioners bring to media literacy education has been identified. Some of that variability reflects differing emphases in Communication and Media Studies paradigms including whether media literacy education should be considered as a means of protecting children and adolescents from the potential for negative effects of media. Sometimes positioned as an alternative to a more protectionist approach, media literacy education can be viewed as a platform from which to encourage young people’s creative self-expression and to emphasize their (and others’) agency rather than vulnerability. The ways in which media literacy education is carried out and how and what is assessed to determine what such education can achieve differs, as well. In spite of these differences, there are overarching commonalities in media literacy conceptualization and empirical evidence that media literacy education can build skills necessary for citizenship in an increasingly media- and information-rich world.
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Queer Migration and Digital Media
Andrew DJ Shield
Migration—whether international or internal, forced or voluntary—intertwines with digital media, especially for sexual minorities and trans people who seek out platforms catering to lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ) people. Online networks foster transnational flows of ideas and information, which can enable international travel. The ways that queer people interact on digital media in the 21st century have emerged not only from decades of online subcultures—such as 1990s chatrooms and profile sites—but also from predigital media cultures, such as printed personal ads in gay and lesbian journals. The internet accelerated the growth of media platforms and queer international networks, both of which continued to develop with the advent of mobile phone apps and the proliferation of social media. Online media—from blogs to hashtags to “hook-up” apps—can relate to all aspects of the migration process. Before, during, and after a move, queer migrants access online media for information about LGBTQ laws and norms or for help with the logistics of migration. When in a new country, queer migrants use online media to try to connect with locals. During these interactions, migrants might encounter forms of xenophobia, racism, and exclusion. In spite or because of these experiences, queer migrants utilize digital media to build new networks, such as queer diasporic communities aimed at social or political activities.
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Understanding Communication Through a Historical Lens
Clark Callahan
Historical emergences of new communications technologies have had a dramatic impact on the structures of international contact. While these advances come in many forms, they all affect the ecology of international communications. Some forms of advances, such as the physical, are often overlooked and perhaps even trivialized. Advances like the stirrup and hay allowed increased movements, often in the form of conquests that brought disparate people and cultures into physical contact. Intellectual advancements such as the scientific method, mathematics like calculus and trigonometry, Copernicus’s heliocentrism, and Darwin’s theory of evolution bridged international boundaries through the formation and maintenance of international academic communities.
