The gatekeeper model: why it's so hard to get out of the information bubble

You can often hear from the older generation that now people seem to have gone berserk. The news is full of maniacs and pedophiles. This has never happened before, only benevolent Soviet citizens. Although it was in the USSR that the “baby hunter” Anatoly Biryukov, the serial killers of children Vladimir Vinnichevsky and Anatoly Slivko and many others operated. It’s just that because of censorship, not everything got into the media, and a simple rule worked: the less you know, the better you sleep.

But censorship is not the only barrier to the dissemination of information. Fast forward to the editorial office of a morning regional newspaper somewhere in the European part of the world in the second half of the 20th century. The journalist chooses the news that will appear on the pages of the media. A fire at a local grocery store will definitely thrill readers, even if the fire is only one square meter. The tsunami on the coast in Asia claimed the lives of hundreds of people, but this is so far away, and the publication is not rubber, it is limited by the number of pages, - cross out.

Feminists staged a protest on the main street of the city - interesting, but the editor does not like these "female things", he will still reject the note, we do not take it. And you should definitely write about the victory of the local football team in a friendly match, because a friend of a journalist plays in it. In general, not everything will get into the newspaper.

The information that the end consumer receives goes through a screening process. It is called the gatekeeper model.

What is the gatekeeper model

The gatekeeper model is the concept of filtering information for distribution through communication channels. Usually, this refers to the media and other structures that broadcast to a large audience. That is, the principle of data transfer here is from few to many. Sometimes the concept is called gatekeeping (from the English words gate - “gate” and to keep - “guard”), and the gatekeeper is called a gatekeeper.

This term was first formulated by the German and American psychologist Kurt Lewin. stood at the origins experiment 1942–1943 with housewives who, in the face of a shortage of meat, tried to explain the benefits of offal. One group of women listened to lectures about it, the other participated in the discussion. As a result of these meetings, 3% of participants from the first group and 30% from the second began to use offal. In his research, Levin concludes that food does not end up on the table by itself. Someone decides to buy and cook it. Therefore, it is important to understand who is the “gatekeeper”, who is on guard of the channel through which the products are in the house - the husband, wife or someone else, and work with this person. If he says “no” to certain dishes, they will not appear on the menu.

The fact that not all information gets into the media, but the most interesting or important from the point of view of editors and journalists, was thought even before this experiment. Thus, sociologist Robert Park described data selection process as early as 1922, but did not name it in any way. And after Levin formulated the idea of ​​the gatekeeper, the puzzle came together, and the concept was extended to the press, broadcasting and other communication channels.

How the gatekeeper model works

The essence of the concept is that the person to whom information flows, processes it and decides what to skip next and what to reject. That is, it becomes the gatekeeper that opens doors for some data and closes for others. Moreover, there can be several gatekeepers in a communication channel. For example, this happens with the chain “journalist → editor → founder/advertiser”.

In this case, do not suspect the worst. Most often, when selecting information, content producers trying satisfy the interests of your audience. That is, to transmit over the channel data that readers or viewers will like and will be in demand. Moreover, the importance of the information occasion can block gatekeeper preferences.

However, other factors may also be involved. First of all, these are the personal preferences of a person and the peculiarities of his worldview, the editorial policy of the publication, and so on. An important element is self-censorship. The gatekeeper sometimes does not let information through because he suspects that he may face consequences or that it will be rejected by the gatekeeper at a level above. In addition, some purposefully manage data in order to propaganda.

How Gatekeepers Affect the Content Consumer

In an ideal world, this concept would be extremely useful. A single person really does not need all the information. If only because many data do not affect it in any way and are even useless for general development. For example, it is unlikely that a resident of Udmurtia will be struck by the statistics of milk yields in a village in the Saratov region, although any regional media receives such press releases in batches. One can only be glad that someone takes on all this informational noise and extracts something interesting from it. But at the same time, one must understand that one or two unidirectional sources form a definite and inexhaustible picture of the world, even if they are authoritative and deserve respect in everything.

But there is also good news. Researchers considerthat thanks to the Internet, gatekeepers have less power over information. Because now everyone is a kind of independent content producer. But to understand the information flow from the Web, to separate the wheat from the chaff, you will have to do it yourself.

What to do to minimize the influence of the gatekeeper

Use different sources of information

Those who want to perceive what is happening in the world in a more voluminous way have to go beyond a single channel of information, even if it is about the same news — the presentation may vary. Unfortunately, this is not always pleasant, as you need to study points of view that differ from yours. Moreover, viewing sources of different directions does not mean at all that the truth is somewhere in the middle or no one knows it. Just so you get more data to analyze the situation.

Know your gatekeepers

A person is so arranged that he often remembers information, but forgets its source. That is why the data from the authoritative media and the anonymous Telegram channel is perceived and transmitted as equal. This is not quite the right approach. It is important to know who selects information, according to what principles they work. For example, the YouTube channel of a science journalist can be more reliable than the statements of an academician of an unknown academy in the media. A science journalist is also a gatekeeper. But rather useful: it will exclude incorrectly conducted studies from the sample and include reliable ones.

And anonymous sources are not sources at all, since no one is responsible for the information in them. If the data is not confirmed, take it with a great deal of caution.