Change in Communication Ways

Gatekeeper Role of Journalism

The infrastructure of journalism has been changed with the development of social media and technology. Earlier, audience had little control and there was no alternative available to broadcast the message. With new technologies, audience had facilitated as independent journalists and they can produce their own version of reality through blogs, social sites etc. Now, traditional journalists are working with emerging media network, which creates more informative journalism (Kolodzy, 2006). This participatory journalism is increasing that is causing a change in mainstream news and public disclosures. Now, the journalists are not gatekeeper, while they are gate watchers. Although traditional journalists retain the role of gatekeeper, but participative journalism with the collaboration of public and journalists is redefining the role of journalists as gate watchers (Biagi, 2010). The use of new technologies is creating citizen journalism, which is quite beneficial to get the real information due to their direct intervention in producing news.