Gatekeeping Theory€ examines€the process by which the billions of messages that are available in today's media world get cut down and transformed into the hundreds of messages that reach a given person on a given day.

Este livro descreve o poderoso processo por meio do qual os eventos são cobertos pela mídia. Apresenta uma das primeiras teorias do jornalismo, a seleção do que deve ou não ser publicado.

This study offers a theoretical explanation for political broadcasting policy in the United States in the twentieth century. The study identifies four dimensions to a political broadcasting policy: political access (to whom access was granted), allotting access (how access was allotted), freedom of speech (how freedom of speech was addressed), and political airtime (what form access took). By comparing the influences of material, institutional, and cultural factors in Canada, the Netherlands, and the United States in the 1920s and 1930s, the study concludes that cultural factors--particularly an interaction of national and regional values, an emerging nonpartisan ethic, and attitudes about professionalism and voluntarism--provide the best explanation for political broadcasting during this critical juncture in media policy history. The study also concludes that once initial policy decisions were made, the historical mechanisms of path dependence, positive feedback, sequencing, long-term processes, and path inefficiency emerge as the best explanation for the changes and consistencies in political broadcasting policy from the 1940s through the 1990s. Hence the study challenges the realist and pluralist stories typically told about U.S. media policy.

This study offers a theoretical explanation for political broadcasting policy in the United States in the twentieth century. The study identifies four dimensions to a political broadcasting policy: political access (to whom access was granted), allotting access (how access was allotted), freedom of speech (how freedom of speech was addressed), and political airtime (what form access took). By comparing the influences of material, institutional, and cultural factors in Canada, the Netherlands, and the United States in the 1920s and 1930s, the study concludes that cultural factors--particularly an interaction of national and regional values, an emerging nonpartisan ethic, and attitudes about professionalism and voluntarism--provide the best explanation for political broadcasting during this critical juncture in media policy history. The study also concludes that once initial policy decisions were made, the historical mechanisms of path dependence, positive feedback, sequencing, long-term processes, and path inefficiency emerge as the best explanation for the changes and consistencies in political broadcasting policy from the 1940s through the 1990s. Hence the study challenges the realist and pluralist stories typically told about U.S. media policy.