Corte, Meredith A. (2009-08). The Effects of Individual and Routine Forces in Gatekeeping on Student Journalists and Editors of University Newspaper Publications. Master's Thesis. Thesis uri icon

abstract

  • Most gatekeeping studies involve evaluating journalists and editors with years of
    media writing experience to determine how they are influenced by gatekeeping forces.
    While many universities publish a campus newspaper that is written and edited by the
    students, no research was found analyzing the impact that gatekeeping has on student
    newspaper publications. Therefore, this study attempted to measure the influence of
    gatekeeping forces on student reporters and student editors who work on university
    newspaper publications.
    Data was collected through a web-based questionnaire that measured the
    influence of individual and routine gatekeeping forces. A convenient sample size of N =
    42 was used to gather information about how students perceived a news story's level of
    newsworthiness. Results of this study indicated that particular routine forces of news
    media actions and influences of newsworthiness were more significant than other forces
    and significant relationships exist among certain individual and routine forces. This
    study also looked at how news media job titles can determine the level of importance and influence of gatekeeping forces on news stories before reaching the final destination
    of publishing. Results indicated that significant differences exist in routine gatekeeping
    forces when compared to university student job title.

publication date

  • August 2009