Gatekeeping

For this blog post I am supposed to talk about a topic that was discussed in another groups EOTO presentations. One topic that interested me was gatekeeping.  

Gatekeeping can be defined as the activity of controlling, and usually limiting, general access to something. And when speaking in terms of media and broadcasting it is the filtering and/or withholding information from certain groups of people. It is something that I knew of but never put time into researching it. I always thought it was an inherently bad thing but it’s not always bad. There are a lot of factors that play a role in determining what is broadcasted; things like your geographical location, the time of year, and other current events. For example, people in North Carolina aren't going to be told the weather in Hawaii because it isn't relevant to them. This is why the news is centered around Donald Trump and what he’s doing and not what the troops are doing overseas; it’s not considered relevant enough for us to hear about it anymore. 

Part of me appreciates this because it would get overwhelming hearing about each and everything going on in the world but the other part of me doesn't like the practice because I know that media outlets are withholding information that they SHOULD be sharing. Information that maybe wouldn’t agree with all of the other news they’ve reported on, or information that would damage their image and potentially make them lose viewers (FOX News, for example).  
  

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