Organizational Communication Commons^™

Gatekeeping In A Tv News Editorial Conference: Shift Of Force, Other Media, Personal Experience And Pack Mentality, Kyril Daniel Plaskon

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study uses Gatekeeping Theory and Conversational Analysis to describe how four factors influence news gatekeepers in a small group at one TV station. The four factors include shifting forces, other media, personal experience and pack mentality. They were identified through conversational analysis of pilot data and the research questions are supported in the literature as common influences in news gatekeeping. This study describes how those four elements occur during group conversation.

Analysis of the recorded data collected in five editorial conferences describes how the four factors are expressed by the gatekeepers as they consider events that may become news. …