A little bit about information and society

Network Gatekeeping Theory – what is it? how can researchers use it?

Gatekeeping theories have been a popular heuristic for describing information control for years, but none have attained a full theoretical status in the context of networks. Network Gatekeeping Theory defines basic concepts like gatekeepers, gatekeeping and gatekeeping mechanisms and gated. It helps understanding relationships among gatekeepers and between gatekeepers and gated, the entity subjected to a gatekeeping process.  Network Gatekeeping Salience proposes identifying gated and their salience to gatekeepers by four attributes (1) their political power in relation to the gatekeeper; (2) their information production ability; (3) their relationship with the gatekeeper; and (4) their alternatives in the context of gatekeeping.

In a web 2.0 world the relationship of gatekeepers-gated is intriguing. The users ability to produce information and the dynamic relationship between users and gatekeepers makes NGT (Network Gatekeeping Theory) a great framework to analyze these chages.

An elaborated article about Network Gatekeeping Theory can be found here: Barzilai-Nahon Karine, 2008, “Toward a Theory of Network Gatekeeping: A Framework for Exploring Information Control“, Journal of the American Information Science and Technology, Vol. 59(9), pp. 1-20.

Network Gatekeeping Theory. This was created by the help of http://www.wordle.net

This was created by the help of http://www.wordle.net

Tags: , , ,

Subscribe

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe now to receive more just like it.

There Are 2 Brilliant Comments

Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed

  1. Prince Achor says:

    It is quite interesting to see a lucid explanation of the network gatekeeping coming from you. As a scholar I have always wanted to read articles and blog post from senior colleagues like you. I have read lots of your articles on information gatekeeping and fuzziness. Keep it up

  2. Jon says:

    Was Metatron not the
    Gatekeeper of the
    Gods

Post a Comment

Your email address will not be published.

Top