The Gatekeepers

Gate Keeping in the media is a major issue. There are a lot of people who decide what gets aired and what does not get aired. Those gatekeepers include station managers, station executives, and advertisers. All of these people in different ways decide what gets aired and what will not. The station managers and executives will determine what gets coverage depending on the station's ownership and their views. The will also decide depending what gets aired depending on the FCC's regulations on what could get them in trouble. The executives also want to make sure that the advertisers stay happy and that they will not get mad and pull their advertisements if the content is offensive to their product or to the company who provides the product.

The gatekeepers of the future are not going to be that much different from the gatekeepers now. Advertisers and webmasters will still have a huge effect on what still gets posted. It just depends on how much money these websites/blogs want to make. If they want to sell advertising and make a lot of money then the advertisers will want to make sure that there advertisements are not posted all over websites or pages that are going to get them in trouble or make there product look bad. However, if a blog/website is not looking to make any money or sell any advertising than a site could post whatever they want.

Television, radio networks and music labels will also be gatekeepers for blogs and other Internet sites by demanding their content to be taken off of websites due to copyright infringement. They will want to make sure that they are paid handsomely for the use of their content and will act as gate keepers to make sure that there content does not get used improperly.