Blog #9

 Gatekeeping is a somewhat recent internet phenomenon. Gatekeeping is the act of limiting access to certain knowledge. An example of gatekeeping would be when Kylie Jenner refused to tell her followers what her favorite drink was because she was worried it would sell out. Any instance of keeping information secret can now be referred to as gatekeeping.

    

    Gatekeeping's most severe effect is on those suffering from mental health conditions. People diagnosed with certain conditions have gone to tell undiagnosed people that their struggles don't exist because they aren't diagnosed with anything. This completely invalidates their problems just because they may not be as bad as someone else's.   This is absolutely not ok.  

 Gatekeeping is used as a term to shame. If someone claims you are gatekeeping something, they are trying to goad you into sharing information with them. Lasy year this term spiraled out of control. There were entire corners of the internet who's sole focus was to expose gatekeepers and "gatebreak" information. Gatebreaking is when someone who has access to knowledge that someone else is gatekeeping decides to publish that knowledge so that everyone has access to it. In most cases, gatebreaking is not a bad thing. It allows people who may not be a part of certain niche subcultures to understand why people enjoy something. 

    An example of gatekeeping and gatebreaking would be this. Say you wanted to watch the latest Marvel movie. If you ask me if you should watch it and I respond "You wouldn't get it, you need to read all of these comics to really understand it." That is gatekeeping. Gatebreaking would be if I explained what happened in all those comics to you so that you could better understand that movie.

    Overall, the implications of "exposing gatekeepers" are negative. People have the right to privatize information. If someone tries to gatebreak your social security number that is obviously a huge threat. Some information is just better kept private.

    Recently, gatekeeping mostly applies to drivel on social media. However, it used to be a term applied mostly to news outlets. If a news outlet was gatekeeping a story they would likely just discuss other stories while burying ones that may go against their agenda.

    Last year, a large amount of people started gatekeeping journalism. This is just genuine censorship. People were claiming that to be a journalist, one had to go through college and be hired at a news company. All other journalism was considered by them to be illegitamite. Essentially, these people were trying to destroy citizen journalism. Citizen journalism is a huge branch of information that absolutely can not afford to be discounted.

    The moral of the story is to stop everything surrounding gatekeeping. Stop trying to "expose gatekeepers." Stop gatekeeping information that should be public. Stop gatebreaking information that should be private. Stop discouraging any form of journalism. This entire issue could be solved if people just told the truth about information that everyone should have access to. Obviously there are a couple things such as social security numbers, banking info, ad mothers' maiden names that should stay private. But for the most part, people should just tell people things they want to know.

    The use of the word gatekeeping on social media is a bit of a contortion of the actual word and the actual problems in journalism that it entails. In journalism, the theory of gatekeeping refers to when news outlets hide stories under other, potentially less important, stories. An example of this is when certain news networks were not covering the Hunter Biden laptop incident because it happened six months before the election and it may have changed the course of it. This is an example of actie tampering with the polls by news networks. Gatekeeping theory proves to be a legitimate, huge problem in the world of journalism and media in general.