Gatekeeping in the Digital Age

207 Pages·2016·3.26 MB·English

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Gatekeeping in the Digital Age
Welbers, K.
2016
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Welbers, K. (2016). Gatekeeping in the Digital Age. [PhD-Thesis - Research and graduation internal, Vrije
Universiteit Amsterdam]. Vrije Universiteit.
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Download date: 23. Jan. 2023
Gatekeeping in the Digital Age
Kasper Welbers
Gatekeeping in the Digital Age
ISBN: 978-94-6295-530-1
This dissertation was written at the department of Communication
ScienceoftheVrije Universiteit Amsterdam,andwaspartiallyfunded
by the Stichting Het Persinstituut.
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Published by: Uitgeverij BOXPress, Vianen
(cid:13)c Kasper Welbers, Amsterdam, 2016
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VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT
Gatekeeping in the Digital Age
ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT
ter verkrijging van de graad Doctor aan
de Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam,
op gezag van de rector magnificus
prof.dr. V. Subramaniam,
in het openbaar te verdedigen
ten overstaan van de promotiecommissie
van de Faculteit der Sociale Wetenschappen
op vrijdag 9 december 2016 om 13.45 uur
in de aula van de universiteit,
De Boelelaan 1105
door
Kasper Welbers
geboren te Gennep
promotor: prof.dr. J. Kleinnijenhuis
copromotoren: dr. W.H. van Atteveldt
dr. P.C. Ruigrok
overige leden: prof.dr R. Vliegenthart
prof.dr P. Verdegem
prof.dr I. Costera Meijer
dr. W.R. van Hage
prof.dr E.A. Konijn

Contents
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Gatekeeping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 Changes in the gatekeeping process . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.3 Focus of this dissertation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.4 Outline of dissertation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2 Changing of the guard 23
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.2 Gatekeeping in the digital age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.3 Intermedia agenda-setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.4 Granularity of agenda-items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.5 Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.6 Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.7 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.8 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3 Old wine in new bottles 45
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.2 Content homogeneity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.3 Data and analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.4 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.5 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4 A gatekeeper among gatekeepers 69
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
4.2 The gatekeeping role of news agencies . . . . . . . . . . 72
4.3 Newspapers and news agencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
4.4 News agencies in the Netherlands . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
4.5 The influence of ANP on Dutch newspapers . . . . . . . 74
CONTENTS
4.6 Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
4.7 Measuring news agency influence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
4.8 Measuring document similarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4.9 Method of analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.10 Validity and similarity threshold . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.11 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
4.12 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
5 News selection criteria in the digital age 93
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
5.2 Audience preferences in gatekeeping . . . . . . . . . . . 95
5.3 The lure of online audience metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
5.4 Journalism as an institution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
5.5 Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
5.6 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
5.7 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
6 The RNewsflow package 115
6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
6.2 Preparing the data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
6.3 Calculating document similarities . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
6.4 Analyzing the document network . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
6.5 Alternative applications of this package . . . . . . . . . 135
6.6 Conclusion and future improvements . . . . . . . . . . . 137
7 General discussion 139
7.1 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
7.2 Changes in the gatekeeping process . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
7.3 Implications for gatekeeping research . . . . . . . . . . . 156
7.4 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Bibliography 165
English summary 183
Dutch summary 189
Acknowledgments 197
Chapter 1
Introduction
“ALL the reporters in the world working all the hours of the
day could not witness all the happenings in the world.”
— Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion, 1922
The news messages on which citizens base their image of reality are
the outcome of a rigorous selection process. Of all the events that occur
each day, few come to the attention of journalists, and even fewer are
selected as potential news messages. Only a handful of these messages
get published, and merely a pinch trickles down to prominent news
platformssuchasfrontpagesofnationalnewspapersandtelevisionnews
broadcasts.
The people that are in a strong position to influence this selection
process have been conceptualized as gatekeepers: they control gates
in the communication channels through which news flows into society
(Lewin, 1947; White, 1950). By deciding which events are covered and
how these events are described in news messages, gatekeepers have a
strong impact on citizens’ awareness of political issues and the inter-
pretation of these issues (Chong & Druckman, 2007; Hardt, 1979; Mc-
Combs & Shaw, 1972). Accordingly, the question “who are the most
influential gatekeepers?” is high on the agenda of communication stud-
ies and highly relevant for communication policy (Shoemaker & Vos,
2009). This dissertation contributes to answering this question in an
age of digital communication.
Two recent books on gatekeeping theory stress the fact that gate-
keeping is in a state of transition (Shoemaker & Vos, 2009; Vos & Hein-
deryckx, 2015). One of the main causes for this transition is the pro-
1