Individual and routine forces in gatekeeping

Journalism and Mass Communication Quaterly

Volumn 78, Issue 2, 2001, Pages 233-246

  Shoemaker, Pamela J ^b   Eichholz, Martin ^b   Kim, Eunyi ^a   Wrigley, Brenda ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO   (United States)

^b NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0041026901     PISSN: 10776990     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/107769900107800202     Document Type: Article

References (42)

1. Kurt Lewin, "Frontiers in Group Dynamics: Concept, Method and Reality in Science; Social Equilibria and Social Change," Human Relations 1 (June 1947) : 5-40; Kurt Lewin, "Frontiers in Group Dynamics: II. Channels of Group Life; Social Planning and Action Research," Human Relations 1 (November 1947): 143-53; Kurt Lewin, Field Theory in Social Science: Selected Theoretical Papers (NY: Harper, 1951).
2. Kurt Lewin, "Frontiers in Group Dynamics: Concept, Method and Reality in Science; Social Equilibria and Social Change," Human Relations 1 (June 1947) : 5-40; Kurt Lewin, "Frontiers in Group Dynamics: II. Channels of Group Life; Social Planning and Action Research," Human Relations 1 (November 1947): 143-53; Kurt Lewin, Field Theory in Social Science: Selected Theoretical Papers (NY: Harper, 1951).
3. Kurt Lewin, "Frontiers in Group Dynamics: Concept, Method and Reality in Science; Social Equilibria and Social Change," Human Relations 1 (June 1947) : 5-40; Kurt Lewin, "Frontiers in Group Dynamics: II. Channels of Group Life; Social Planning and Action Research," Human Relations 1 (November 1947): 143-53; Kurt Lewin, Field Theory in Social Science: Selected Theoretical Papers (NY: Harper, 1951).
4. David Manning White, "The 'Gate Keeper': A Case Study in the Selection of News," Journalism Quarterly 27 (fall 1950): 383-90.
5. George A. Donohue, Phillip J. Tichenor, and Clarice N. Olien, "Gatekeeping: Mass Media Systems and Information Control," in Current Perspectives in Mass Communication Research, ed. F.G. Kline and P. Tichenor (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1972), 41-70.
6. Pamela J. Shoemaker, Gatekeeping (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1991).
7. Pamela J. Shoemaker and Stephen D. Reese, Mediating the Message: Theories of Influences on Mass Media Content (NY: Longman, 1996).
8. S.R. Lichter, S. Rothman, and L.S. Lichter, The Media Elite (Bethesda, MD: Adler & Adler, 1986).
9. Lewin, "Frontiers in Group Dynamics;" Lewin, "Frontiers in Group Dynamics: II."
10. Lewin, "Frontiers in Group Dynamics;" Lewin, "Frontiers in Group Dynamics: II."
11. Lewin, Field Theory in Social Science, 175. Also Shoemaker, Gatekeeping, 7.
12. Lewin, Field Theory in Social Science, 175. Also Shoemaker, Gatekeeping, 7.
13. Bruce H. Westley and Malcolm S. MacLean Jr., "A Conceptual Model for Communications Research," Journalism Quarterly 34 (winter 1957): 31-38.
14. Westley and MacLean, "A Conceptual Model for Communications Research," Journalism Quarterly 34 (winter 1957): 38.
15. Lewin, Field Theory in Social Science, 186.
16. Shoemaker and Reese, Mediating the Message.
17. White, "The 'Gate Keeper.'"
18. D.H. Weaver and G.C. Wilhoit, The American Journalist in the 1990s: U.S. News People at the End of an Era (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1996).
19. A.Z. Bass, "Refining the 'Gatekeeper' Concept: A UN Radio Case Study," Journalism Quarterly 46 (spring 1969): 69-72.
20. E.A. Abbott and L.T. Brassfield, "Comparing Decisions on Releases by TV and Newspaper Gatekeepers," Journalism Quarterly 66 (winter 1989): 853-56.
21. R.L Jones, V.C. Troldahl, and J.K Hvistendahl, "News Selection Patterns from a State TTS Wire," Journalism Quarterly 38 (summer 1961): 303-312.
22. E.L. Sasser and J.T. Russell, "The Fallacy of News Judgment," Journalism Quarterly 49 (summer 1972): 280-84.
23. Shoemaker, Gatekeeping. 20. Weaver and Wilhoit, The American Journalist in the 1990s.
24. Shoemaker, Gatekeeping. 20. Weaver and Wilhoit, The American Journalist in the 1990s.
25. Lichter, Rothman, and Lichter, The Media Elite.
26. Shoemaker and Reese, Mediating the Message.
27. Stephen D. Reese, "The News Paradigm and the Ideology of Objectivity: A Socialist at the Wall Street Journal," Critical Studies in Mass Communication 7 (December 1990): 390-409.
28. The Library of Congress THOMAS website defines major legislation as follows: "The Major Legislation link on the THOMAS homepage is a 'short cut' to direct you to bills that have undergone floor action, been the subject of hearings or debate in Congress, or that have received media attention. They are selected by legislative analysts in the Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress" (http://thomas.loc.gov/ home/majdef.html, 1998).
29. The Lexis-Nexis database used was MAJPAP (major papers), a subdatabase of the NEWS database. A bill's "short title(s) as enacted" (provided on the THOMAS website) functioned as the main search term. The time frame for each bill was defined as the duration of legislative action plus one month. Thus, the generic search term was "KEYWORD W/S KEYWORD W/S KEYWORD ... AND DATE AFT ... AND DATE BEF..." For the six bills that included several sub-bills and had more than one short title, a separate search for each sub-bill was conducted. The search results were combined, whereby we made sure that each article was counted only once.
30. Excluded from the analysis were international newspapers, Information Bank Abstracts, articles appearing more than once (unchanged) in other editions of the same paper, Journal of Commerce articles (weekly journal), Newswire articles, and PR wire articles.
31. We included only staff writers because they are directly influenced by the decisions their editors make. Lexis-Nexis articles usually identify staff writers. However, in cases where only a name was given, we assumed that the author was a staff writer. Excluded from our analysis were contributing writers, "Compiled by ..." authors, columnists, authors from other papers, news service writers, "Special to the..." authors, guest writers (e.g., politicians, community representatives), and authors of letters to the editor. If an article had multiple authors, all of them were included in our survey.
32. One study of key leaders in urban affairs yielded a response rate of 50%. Other studies yielded 24.5% for members of the American Sociological Association, 53% for deans of professional schools, and 50% for university women faculty and staff members. (D.C. Miller, Handbook of Research Design and Social Measurement [Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1991], 146-48.)
33. For gender, 30% of respondents were female, compared with 34% of nonrespondents; 70% of respondents were male, compared with 66% of nonrespondents. For geographic region, 39% of respondents' newspapers were located in the east (44% nonrespondents); 26% Midwest (27% nonrespondents); 19% south (16% nonrespondents); 16% Pacific (14% nonrespondents ).
34. 20% of respondents were female, compared with 27% of nonrespondents; 80% of respondents were male, compared with 73% of nonrespondents. For geographic region, 20% respondents in the east (33% nonrespondents), 40% Midwest (27% nonrespondents), 40% south (20% nonrespondents), and 0% Pacific (20% nonrespondents).
35. F for gender = .18, ns; F for geographic region = 1.71, ns.
36. Had we observed statistically significant bivariate relationships between journalists' characteristics and how prominently bills were covered, we had planned to run hierarchical regression analysis to determine whether routine forces would predict coverage quantity even when controlling for individual forces. As Table 2 shows, this became unnecessary, because the control variables were unrelated to the dependent variables.
37. Lewin, "Frontiers in Group Dynamics"; Lewin , "Frontiers in Group Dynamics: II"; Lewin, Field Theory in Social Science.
38. Lewin, "Frontiers in Group Dynamics"; Lewin , "Frontiers in Group Dynamics: II"; Lewin, Field Theory in Social Science.
39. Lewin, "Frontiers in Group Dynamics"; Lewin , "Frontiers in Group Dynamics: II"; Lewin, Field Theory in Social Science.
40. Shoemaker and Reese, Mediating the Message.
41. Shoemaker and Reese, Mediating the Message.
42. Shoemaker, Gatekeeping.