ABSTRACT

Coordination is an essential tool in every society. Societies today, acknowledge this fact and employ all
measures to achieve coordination. However, the Media in a bid to achieve organization in every
society,employ gate keeping, since gatekeeping helps to determine the type of information that is
eventually disseminated to the people and how it should be produced. Unfortunately, many media
houses/ professionals in Nigeria do not effectively apply gatekeeping as the ought to, because of some
barriers arising from ownership and editorial policy.
In Nigeria today, many news organization attempting to be the first to break the news have neglected the
insight of journalism and embraced professional weakness by opening the gate of their platforms to
conflict and half-truths.
INTRODUCTION

It is clear to us that mass communication is the process whereby Media organizations produce and
transmit programmes to large public’s and the process by which these messages are
sought,used,understood and influenced by audience.
Central to any study of mass communication are the media,media organization distribute messages that
affect and reflect the cultures of society and they provide information simultaneously to a large
heterogeneous audience making the media part of society’s institutional forces.
McQuail(2005) says that the term "gatekeeping" has been widely used as a metaphor to describe the
process by which selections are made in media work, especially decisions regarding whether or not to
allow a particular news report to pass through the "gate" of a medium into the news channels and finally
to the general public.
To understand the media,we will want to accept their implication as " mediation" because they come
between the audience and the world. It is therefore no wonder then,when LittleJohn citing McQuail
identifies several metaphors to capture this idea;" media as telescope that enables us to see beyond our
immediate surrounding, interpreters that help us to make sense of our experience,platforms or carriers
that converting information,interactive communication that include feedback,signposts that provide us
with instructions and directions,filters that screen parts of experience and focus on others,mirror that
reflect ourselves back to us and barriers that block the truth". In the same vein, Joshua Meyrowitz adds
three additional metaphors media as conduits,media as languages and media as environments(LittleJohn
2002:304-305).
HISTORY OF GATEKEEPING

Gatekeeping as a news process was identified in the literature as early as 1922, though not yet given a
formal theoretical name. In his book 'The Immigrant Press', Park explains the process, "out of all of the
events that happen and are recorded every day by correspondents, reporters, and the news agencies, the
editor chooses certain items for publication which he regards as more important or more interesting than
others. The remainder he condemns to oblivion and the wastebasket. There is an enormous amount of
news 'killed' every day"[5] (p. 328).

Formally, gatekeeping was identified in Lewin's (1943) publication Forces Behind Food Habits and Methods
of Change.[2] Working during World War II, Kurt Lewin conducted field research initially among
Midwestern housewives to determine how to effectively change their families' food consumption during
this time of war. Lewin recognized that for food to go from a store or a garden to the dining table, there
were various decision-making processes it had to pass on the way there. At a time when men were
thought to control all household decisions, Lewin found that "food does not move by its own impetus.
Entering or not entering a channel and moving from one section of a channel to another is affected by a
'gatekeeper'" (p. 37). The gatekeeper, in this case, was typically the housewife, or sometimes a maid in
more affluent households. Lewin's research demonstrated that not all members of a family have equal
weight in making household food decisions and that the wife, who typically shops for and prepares the
food controls the gates, based on a variety of considerations. Lewin's study published in 1943 became the
impetus for another article in 1947 in which he introduces the idea of feedback in group decision making,
which complicates the role of the gatekeeper.[6] Feedback acknowledges that the set of considerations a
gatekeeper uses in making decisions may vary depending on considerations of the group.

MEANING OF GATEKEEPING

Gatekeeping is the process through which information is filtered for dissemination, whether for
publication, broadcasting,the internet, or some other mode of communication.

WHO IS A GATE KEEPER?

Gatekeepers are people or policies that act as a go-between, controlling access from one point to another.

According to Heibert et Al(1989), the word gate keeper is essentially a sociological term used in mass
communication research and may not have been recognized by many media professionals. The term was
originally coined by Kurt Lewin in 1947 in human relations to describe the process by which news item
travelling through channels gains clearance at certain check points along the way.
Lewin regard these checkpoints as Gates and the individuals and organisations who give clearance as
"gatekeepers".
ROLES OF GATEKEEPERS

1. Gatekeepers can reject outrightly,copies that they consider distasteful. Oftentimes,the gatekeepers
can add to messages by combining information from the other source.
2. Gate keepers also operate at both the sending and receiving ends of the distribution channels.
3. The gate keepers aso modifies the emphasis of the message. For instance,in news messags,
emphasis is changed by headline size and story placement.
4. On global scene, the role of a gate keeper is two-fold, these includes wire services, decision-
making and that handling negative news like fraud, man induced disasters like the 9-11 in the
United States of America, sex and other acts of terriorism.
5. Gate keepers serve three basic functions in mass communication, they have the power to delete
messages, they can increase the amount and importance of certain kinds of information and they
can decrease the amount and importance of a specific kind of information.

CHALLENGES OF GATE KEEPING.

1. The inability of the editors as gate keepers to give the audience what they want. For instance, in
the United States of America, research comparing audience interest in the news topics and
editorial judgement of the same matter has shown wide mismatching (Bogart,1979,Hargrove and
Stempel 2002 and Robinson and Levy,1986).
2. The issue of distortion. The basic effect of gatekeeping is that the message is altered in someway.
However,if this alteration massively distorts reality,the gate keeping function becomes
unsatisfactory.
3. The inability of gatekeepers to determine the sovial, cultural profile and ideology of the Audience
is a source of major challenge to the gatekeepers world wide.
4. The gate keepers selection process is fraught with challenges,because his recognition and
interpretation of events According to his background, experience and mood may be full of biases.

IMPORTANCE OF GATEKEEPING

This functions has been analyzed and discussed by mass communication scholars for decades.
Overall,the mass media serves four gate keeping functions: Relaying, Limiting, Expanding
and Reinterpreting ( Bittner,1996).

1. Relaying: In terms of relaying, mass media requires some third party to get a message from
one human to the next. Whereas, interpersonal communication only requires some channel
or sensory route, mass media messages need to" hitch a ride" on an additional channel to be
received. For example, a sports illustrated cover pstory that you read at All.com went through
several human "gates", including a writer,editor, publisher, photographer and webmaster, as
well as one media "gate"- the internet. We also require more than sensory ability to receive
mass media messages. While hearing and/ or sight are typically all that's needed to
understand what someone standing in front of you is saying, you'll need a computer,
smartphone, or tablet to pick up that SI.com cover story. In summary, relaying refers to d gate
keeping function of transmitting a message, which usually requires technology and
equipment that the media outlet controls and has access to, but we do not. Although we
relay messages in other forms of communication such as interpersonal and small group, we
are primarily receivers when it comes to mass communication,which makes us depend on the
gatekeepers to relay the message.

2. Limiting: In terms of the gate keeping function of Limiting,media outlets decide whether or
not to pass something along to the media channel so it can be relayed. Because most
commercial media is limited and expensive, almost every message we receive is edited, which
is inherently Limiting.
A limited message doesn't necessarily mean the message is bad or manipulated, as editing is
a necessity. But a range of forces including time constraints, advertiser pressure, censorship,
or personal bias, among others, can influence editing choices. Limiting based on bias or self
interest isn't necessarily bad as long as those who relay the message don't claim to be
objective. This kind of Limiting also allows us to have more control over the media messages
we receive. For example, niche websites and cable channels allows us to narrow in on already
limited content, so we don't have to sift through everything on our own.

3. Expanding: Gate keeping also function to expand messages. For example, a blogger may
take story from a more traditional news source and fact check it or do additional research,
interview additional sources, and post it on his or her blog. In this case, expanding helps us
get more information than we would otherwise. So we can be informed.
On the other hand, gatekeeper who expands a message by falsifying evidence or making up
details either to appear more credible or to mislead others is being unethical.

4. Reinterpret: Gatekeepers function to reinterpret mass media messages. Reinterpretation is

useful when gatekeepers translate a message from something too complex or foreign for us to
understand into something meaningful. In the lead-up to the supreme court's June 2012
ruling on president Obama's health- care- overhaul bill, the media came under scrutiny for
not doing a better job of informing the public about the core content and implications of the
legislation that had been passed. Given that policy language is different for many to
understand and that legislation contains many details that may not be important to average
people, a concise and lay reinterpretations of the content by the gatekeepers ( the media
outlets) would have helped the public better understand the bill. Of course, when media
outlets reinterpret content to the point that is untruthful or misleading, they are not ethically
fulfilling the gate keeping function of reinterpretation.
In each of these gatekeeping functions, the media can fulfill or fail it's role as " Fourth
estate" of government- or government" Watch dog".
RECOMMENDATION

For gatekeeping to be effective in Nigeria, few suggestions are necessary.

1. Journalist should realize that at each point in time, they play the roles of gatekeepers and must be
vast in the policy of their media houses if they must operate fairly and wisely.
2. The proper use of words,headlines,photographs could limit and reduce the problem of the gate
keepers and will make his function less burdensome and complicated.
3. It is also instructive that the gatekeepers in Nigeria should consider the socio-cultuaral, religious
and ideological persuasions of the Nigerian audience.
4. The issue of the resurrected discourse in the National assembly about the information bill should
be vigorously pursued because it could change the Fortune of journalist in this country.
5. Gate keepers should always remember that they hold the public trust and should in no way play
with it or allow it to slip off their fingers because doing so,will spell doom for the profession.

CONCLUSION