Gatekeeping what is it? In my personal opinion gatekeeping is a term used a lot but many do not understand what it actually means or has their own different meaning. I was excited to take a deep dive and learn more about what gatekeeping is.
First thing first was what does Gatekeeping actually mean. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines gate keeping as “ one who tends to take guard” or a “ person who controls access”. I decided to get some more definitions from other websites. Communication Theory.org defines gatekeeping as “ [a gatekeeper] as a person who decides what information should move to a group or individual and what information should not… The gatekeeper is having its own influence like social, cultural, ethical and political.” The Cut. com describes gatekeeping as “ When an individual or group controls access to goods and services but particularly to information and people with power”. Based on the information given by these three websites I have decided that my own personal definition of gatekeeping is when someone or something decides ( or decides) not to share information they want to make public; this could be anything from their personal life to big government information.”
I think what makes gatekeeping so fascinating and unknown to what it really means is due to the fact it can be so broad. Before doing this research I had only really heard of gatekeeping on a more lighthearted note. Being a twenty something “girly girl” college student I am a big follower of beauty bloggers and social media influencers. In the influencer world a gatekeeper is someone who gets criticism for not sharing the products they use or where they go for meals, etc because they do not want people who follow them to use the products so they do not sell out. If an influencer is accused of gatekeeping online they usually face a lot of criticism for not being real and upfront with their followers and ultimately usually lose the following they gained online. At the end of the day an influencer is supposed to help followers find products, not hide it from them.
Now that gatekeeping at the end of the day is not really that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things but gatekeeping can get way more serious. Throughout taking Media Law and Literacy I have realized that many big corporations are not telling the whole truth about what they know about us which is really scary to think about. Many online websites like Facebook ( or Meta as a whole), Google, and Amazon ( mostly for Amazon Alexa) get our information after we go on their websites and store it and discover everything about us. This is honestly very scary to think about as they never shout it from the rooftops that they know our information, in fact if it was not for investigators finding out they do store information the world would have probably have ever known.
Gatekeeping is a basic principle that can be light hearted or have a deep meaning. At the end of the day we have probably all been a “gatekeeper” at one point in our lives!
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