46101491 role-of-editor-in-new-media

Role of Editor in New Media

Arpit Agarwal

Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management
IIT Bombay
April 2009

Certificate
This is to certify that the project entitled ―Role of Editor in New Media‖ is the bona-fide work
of Mr. Arpit Agarwal (Roll No. 07927804) of Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management,
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, and has been completed in the partial fulfilment of
the requirements for the degree of ―Master of Management‖ to him.
Project Supervisor

Prof. Shishir. K. Jha

...…………………….

Internal Examiner and Chairperson

Prof. (Ms.) Sharmila

...…………………….

Date:

ii

Table of Contents
Certificate............................................................................................................................................ ii
Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................... iii

1.

Abstract ............................................................................................................................... 1

2.

Role of Editor in media ...................................................................................................... 2
2.1

Functions of media .................................................................................................................. 2

2.2

How does mass media work? .................................................................................................. 3

2.3

Public Sphere .......................................................................................................................... 5

2.4

Universal Intake ...................................................................................................................... 6

2.5

Need for filtering ..................................................................................................................... 6

2.5.1
2.5.2

2.6

3.

Filtering for potential political relevance ...................................................................................... 7
Filtering for Accreditation ............................................................................................................. 8

Synthesis of public opinion ..................................................................................................... 8

Issues with traditional media: Opportunity for new media .............................................. 10
3.1.1

3.2

The traditional mass media model............................................................................................... 10

Changing nature of media ..................................................................................................... 11

3.2.1

Response of political institutions ................................................................................................ 13

3.3
3.4

Advantages of the mass media model ................................................................................... 15

3.5

Opportunity for New Media .................................................................................................. 16

3.6

Definition of New Media ...................................................................................................... 17

3.7

Characteristics of new media ................................................................................................ 19

3.8

How do new media work? ..................................................................................................... 21

3.9

4.

The role of journalism in a democracy .................................................................................. 13

Will new media replace traditional media? ........................................................................... 22

Gatekeeping and Agenda Setting in the New Media Era ................................................. 24
4.1

Gatekeeping........................................................................................................................... 24

4.1.1
4.1.2
4.1.3
4.1.4

4.2

History and Orientation ............................................................................................................... 24
Core Assumptions and Statements .............................................................................................. 25
Scope and Application ................................................................................................................ 25
Example ...................................................................................................................................... 26

Agenda-Setting Theory ......................................................................................................... 26

4.2.1
4.2.2
4.2.3
4.2.4
4.2.5

History and Orientation ............................................................................................................... 26
Core Assumptions and Statements .............................................................................................. 26
Scope and Application ................................................................................................................ 26
Conceptual Model ....................................................................................................................... 27
Example ...................................................................................................................................... 27

4.3

Need of Gatekeeping in a democratic society ....................................................................... 27

4.4

The breakdown of gatekeeping in changing media environment .......................................... 29

4.5

Gatekeeping in the new media .............................................................................................. 31

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4.6

Agenda setting for the mass media........................................................................................ 33

4.6.1

4.7

Agenda setting in media ........................................................................................................ 34

4.7.1
4.7.2

5.

Two-Step Flow ............................................................................................................................ 33
Two step flow in old media ......................................................................................................... 34
Two step flow in new media ....................................................................................................... 35

Digital Divide, Attention Scarcity and Media policy ....................................................... 37
5.1

Digital Divide ........................................................................................................................ 37

5.2

Digital Inequality................................................................................................................... 37

5.3

Digital Divide and Democracy .............................................................................................. 40

5.4

Attention Economy ............................................................................................................... 41

5.5

Attention in new media: Scarce or abundant? ....................................................................... 43

5.5.1

Policy implications of attention scarcity ..................................................................................... 46

5.6
5.7

Public policy in new media world ......................................................................................... 48

5.8

Public policy and digital divide ............................................................................................. 49

5.9

6.

The business of new media ................................................................................................... 46

New media industry and public policy .................................................................................. 50

The New Media Paradigm ................................................................................................ 51
6.1

Response of traditional media ............................................................................................... 51

6.1.1
6.1.2
6.1.3

6.2

Opportunity for businesses based on new media .................................................................. 55

6.2.1
6.2.2
6.2.3

6.3

Convergence ................................................................................................................................ 51
The question of credibility .......................................................................................................... 53
Community Involvement ............................................................................................................. 54
New business models .................................................................................................................. 55
Death of advertising .................................................................................................................... 56
Online PR .................................................................................................................................... 56

Opportunity for other businesses to use new media .............................................................. 56

7.

Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 58

8.

References ........................................................................................................................ 60
8.1

Bibliography .......................................................................................................................... 60

iv

Abstract

1. Abstract
The motivation of this work came from Wisdom of Crowds (Suroweicki, 2004), which
challenged traditional wisdom by arguing that it is possible for averaged aggregates of fairly
diverse people to better the estimates of an expert consistently. This led to a curiosity as to
what happens to an ―expert‖ in a sphere where it will be possible for technology to aggregate
thousands of diverse opinions?
Mass media presents one sphere where such aggregates have been seen to be very common in
the form of new media. As a field, good amount of literature and commentary is available on
the topic as well. This work seeks to examine the role of an expert in this field where
aggregates are easily formed and an entirely new form of media has emerged with the advent
of internet.
This work explains the role of editor as an expert in a new media scenario. Mass media
synthesizes opinions within a public sphere through filtering of multiple sources under the
condition of universal intake. There are multiple reasons within traditional media why new
media founds itself to be widely preferred. Some of these are commercial nature of traditional
media and inherent concentration of media businesses. New media make an option of
―dialogue‖ available to the users in multiple forms of media (―multimedia‖) linked together
by a new language called ―Hypertext‖. This coupled with the fact that it is now possible to
produce media at almost zero marginal cost by anyone with basic language skills, has led to a
widespread proliferation of new media.
The work examines the paradigm shift in the role of gatekeeping and agenda setting functions
of mass media under the new media paradigm and illustrates how new media is appearing to
be a stronger alternative to traditional media, despite lack of a clear authority of an editor
(―expert‖). It then examines two of the biggest issues ahead of new media adoption, namely
digital divide and attention scarcity and suggests how public policy should tackle these to
enable society to take the maximum advantage of the power of new media.
In the end, the work summarizes various possible paradigms that new media has built, not just
for media businesses, but also for other forms of new and old businesses.

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Role of Editor in media

2. Role of Editor in media
2.1 Functions of media
Sociologist Charles Wright directly applied functionalism to mass communication in his 1959
book Mass Communication: A Sociological Perspective. He noted the following "classic four
functions of the media" as the activities of communications specialists:
1. Surveillance of the environment
2. Correlation of the parts of society in responding to the environment, and
3. Transmission of the social heritage from one generation to the next
4. Entertainment.
For most communication scholars, these functions became synonymous with the aims or
goals of the media industries themselves. Surveillance of the environment refers to the
collection and distribution of information by the media. People know the fate of the
government appropriations bill because they saw it on the news. Correlation of parts of
society refers to the interpretive or analytical activities of the media. People know from the
newspaper that the bill‘s failure to pass means no raises for teachers this year. Transmission
of the social heritage refers to the ability of the media to communicate values, norms, and
styles across time and between groups. Finally, entertainment refers to the ability of the media
to amuse or entertain.
These are obvious aims of the media, but they may not necessarily be the functions served for
the people who consume those media. For example, a television network might air a violent
police drama with the aim of entertaining, but the actual function served for the audience
might be learning how to solve conflicts. In other words, the aim is not always the ultimate or
only function.
In their intention to survey the environment, the mass media devote significant resources to
the coverage and reporting of political campaigns. But if citizens ignore this coverage, the
intended function fails to occur—the environment has not been surveyed despite the efforts of
the media. But if citizens do consume the reports, then the intended function—surveillance of
the environment—does take place. For surveillance to occur, the transmission of news about
important events must be accompanied by audience activity that results in learning about and

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understanding those events. Hence it becomes important to inform all citizens in some way
about the available source of information.
This need for informing citizens about the availability of a particular channel of media implies
that certain citizen‘s choice of channel would not just be based on its own merit but also on
the amount of visibility it carries in the public sphere. This fact, as we will see below has
ramifications on the quality of public sphere that gets created, gravitating towards the mass
media, against the basic tenets of media being an easily accessible medium. This is one of the
reasons why new media is preferred by some people. More on this discussion is in later part
of this chapter.

2.2 How does mass media work?
The news media can be broadly represented in the form of a system of collecting and
transmitting information with the functions as elicited above. Within the boundary conditions
of these functions, media in present day world behaves as:
1. A business
2. A system for public information, and
3. A way for people (businesses, political parties and individuals) to reach to their
audience
Broadly, the system of media can be represented by a three stage system of input, processing
and output of information in a broad public sphere:

Figure 1: A schematic representation of media business
Mass Media, as a business, is not always involved in creation (production) of all information.
It is also not involved in the transmitting all the information. The key role of a media is to

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provide the filtering function for the society so that the society knows what it truly needs and
what it should, but in a way it can consume.
There are a number of issues in the above paragraph that need to be taken care of:
1. Media (business), usually, is involved in creation of this information, thus acting as a
source. For example, most TV new channels have their own production team and an
array of journalists on permanent role who are constantly scouting for information
worth being noticed by the society. In many cases, however, media is not involved in
directly creating this information and gets a feed from another entity, like a news
agency.
2. Media is usually involved, to some extent, in transmitting and distributing the
information. Even print newspapers exert control on the distribution channel. TV
channels, on the other hand, are even responsible for managing the entire distribution
of the content to a consumer. They do so by managing relationships with the cable
networks which take their content to the consumers.
3. If the above two functions are purely optional, the core role of any media authority
turns out then to be the filtering it provides. It is in this function that most value of
media is created and media (business) is made or broken. Examining the
editing/filtering function of the media is the key objective of this work. More details
on the need for filtering are discussed in the section below.
4. The role of information is such that unless someone knows the nature of it, she cannot
determine the value and use of this piece of information. It is here that the power of
media is truly felt. It is the media that determines and, to some extent, pre-empts what
a society truly needs.
5. Media is also responsible for determining what a society should get to hear about or
not. For example, it is within the power of media that a minor philanthropic act by a
common man gets noticed and disturbing pictures of heinous crime scenes never reach
mass audience. If media gives society elements to food for thought, this control over
what media chooses to pass or reject becomes a big power in the hands of media.
6. The society is often unable to deal with the amount of information. With the advent of
knowledge economy and competition in the news business, users are constantly being
bombarded with nearly infinite sources of information. Users are often at loss of the
choice of the sources information they should follow or reject. A discussion on
―Attention Economy‖ follows in Chapter 5.
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7. As the technology advances, a number of new methods of consumption of information
have emerged which have changed the relation of many users to the sources of
information. For example, RSS feed is a technology that allows user to collect
information from millions of sources on to her desktop. Other services exist that
enable user to receive the information directly on her handheld/mobile. This has
further complicated the role of media in the present day world. New media has been
significantly comprehended thanks to these tools. A discussion on this is in Chapter 4.

2.3 Public Sphere
―Public Sphere‖ is used in reference to the set of practices that members of a society uses to
communicate about matters they understand to be of public concern and that potentially
require collective action or recognition. It defines a particular set of social practices that are
necessary for the functioning of any complex social system that includes elements of
governing human beings. Media, as a system, is one of the many ways in which a public
sphere functions. In this perspective, media can be held responsible for creation of a public
sphere which is in interest with the long term benefits of the society (Benkler, 2004).
All discussions in this work are assumed to be held within the above definition of public
sphere.
He continues further to say that the issue with the present form of public sphere is that
customers at the ends of these systems would treat the communications that filled the public
sphere as finished goods. These were treated not as moves in a conversation but as a
completed statements, whose addressees were understood to be passive, readers, listeners and
viewers.
The formation the entire new media movement is in the direction of making a participative
public sphere. Benkler says that the internet allows individuals to abandon the ideas of the
public sphere as primarily constructer of finished statements uttered by a small set of actors
socially understood to be ―the media‖ (whether state owned or commercial) and separated
from society, and to move towards a set of social practices that individuals as participating in
a debate. Statements in a public sphere can now be seen as invitations for a conversation, not
as finished goods (Benkler, 2004).

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2.4 Universal Intake
A public sphere which stands for universal intake is a system of government committed to the
idea that, in principle, the concerns of all those governed by that system are equally respected
as potential proper subject for political action and that all those governed have a say in what
government should require a public sphere that can capture the observations of all
constituents. These include at least their observations of all constituents, about the state of the
world as they perceive and understand it, and their opinions of the relative desirability of
alternative courses of action with regard to their perceptions or those of theirs (Benkler,
2004).
It is important not to confuse ―Universal Intake‖ with more comprehensive ideas, such as
―every idea should be heard‖. If everyone speaks, no one would listen and the purpose of
forming a public sphere would be defeated. Hence, there is a need for a limited number of
sources of information. It is, indeed, the role of filtering and accreditation to whittle down
what the universal intake function drags in and make it into a manageable set of political
discussion topics and interventions (Benkler, 2004).

2.5 Need for filtering
Benkler has taken a strongly political view of the role of public sphere. He believes that there
is only one objective of filtering – to create a political view of the information from across the
society (Benkler, 2004).
In a broad context, the major reason why we have an organized media is because this lends a
way to filter all the available information in the world in a form that can be read and
consumed in wholesome manner, in a context of creation of public sphere.
The filtering function, in a broad sense, is the raison d‘être of the media. It gains its
significance in all the dimensions of filtering:
1. Reduction in magnitude of sources information by compiling from different sources
2. Consciously putting a context around the information which is in general benefit of
the society in the long term
3. Create trust in the society by doing necessary journalistic research and establishing of
facts through its own sources
According to Benkler, there are two major objectives of filtering (Benkler, 2004):
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1. Filtering for potential political relevance
2. Filtering for accreditation.
Below is a detailed description of these needs of filtering.
2.5.1 Filtering for potential political relevance
Benkler takes a markedly political view of the filtering. According to him ―Not everything
that someone considers to be proper concern for collective action, is perceived as such by
most other participants in the political debate. An overly restrictive filtering system is likely
to impoverish a public sphere and rob it of its capability to develop legitimate public
opinion‖1 (Benkler, 2004).
In a broader, non-political sense, filtering provides for the reduction in size of the content that
the readers/users assimilate. It, therefore, performs two functions:
1. It reduces the choice of the news that a user has in one particular channel. Since the
number of channels is also finite, there is a limit to the how much information is used
for creation of a public sphere.
2. It assures consumers that all the ―important‖ bits of information have been covered in
the fixed size of the channel, thereby giving value to the ―attention‖ of the user.
These two functions make traditional media a non-objective method of collection and
dissemination of information. Since the traditional media sees high concentration of audience,
this power of deciding what is relevant and what is not, plays a major role in deciding what
the society thinks and talks about (Benkler, 2004).
Given that most of these businesses are drive by commercial intentions, there is a tendency to
represent the lowest common denominator of news. This is not necessarily a useful
phenomenon as many issues and opinions are completely unheard, just because only a small
minority supports them. The greatest advantage of new media is the capacity to represent all
issues of worth for the formation of a public sphere.

1

The Wealth of Networks, Yochai Benkler (2004). Page 183

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2.5.2 Filtering for Accreditation
Much of the function of journalistic professional norms is to create and preserve the
credibility of the professional press as a source of accreditation for the public at large. Parties
give credibility to persons, academia provides it to researchers; civil servants can be a source
of accreditation and so can be some large corporations and NGOs.
NGOs, very often intended precisely to pre-organize opinion that does not easily pass the
relevant public sphere‘s filters of relevance and accreditation and provide it with a voice that
will. Political discourse is very different from academic discourse, because the objective of
each system is different. In academic discourse, the fact that a large number of people hold a
particular opinion (―The universe was created in seven days‖) does not render that opinion
credible enough to warrant serious academic discussion.
While accreditation is important for formation of a public sphere based on valid facts, in
traditional media it finds itself highly correlated with the channel having biggest financial
strength or readership/viewership. What this does is that the public sphere gets loaded in
favour of financial muscle. Media businesses addressing the largest audience are often
capable of overriding otherwise strong journalistic evidence coming from a smaller player.
Filters, both for relevance and accreditation, provide a critical point of control over debate,
and hence are extremely important design elements. They are often the most important control
points and power centres of the media. We will see in the next chapter how they affect the
formation of public sphere.

2.6 Synthesis of public opinion
Benkler defined synthesis as ―the communications system that offers the platform for the
public sphere must also enable the synthesis of clusters of individual opinion that are
sufficiently close and articulated to form something more than private opinions held by some
number of individuals‖2 (Benkler, 2004).
Synthesis function of media is the capability of media to present their arguments in a way that
it becomes easier for the consumer to assimilate them. It is the synthesis function that takes
care of presentation of the content in a way that user finds it most convenient to access it. It

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could be in a print form, a blog form, form of an e-book or simply snippets suitable for
consumption through mobile phones.
Synthesis function is involved also in advancing the arguments presented by other sources
such that a debate ensues on the topic under consideration. Synthesis function goes a step
ahead from filtering and builds a series of arguments-counter arguments that enrich the
discussion in the public sphere.
Benkler clarifies ―what counts as ―public opinion‖ seeks to peaceably clear competing
positions as to how we ought to act as a polity. The core role of the political public sphere is
to provide a platform for converting privately developed observations, intuitions, and
opinions into public opinions that can be brought to bear in the political system toward
determining collective action‖3 (Benkler, 2004).

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Issues with traditional media: Opportunity for new media

3. Issues with traditional media: Opportunity for new
media
3.1.1 The traditional mass media model
The mass media model described in Chapter 1 has several issues which emanate mostly from
the commercial imperatives of the media as a business. The most successful form of
commercial media is an ad-supported media where the broadcaster inserts ads in the stream
and monetizes that. However, the trouble with this kind of a model is that there is a morethan-necessary focus on creating numbers and the success of a media channel is measured
from the number of users/viewers it can command. This leads the broadcasters to move away
from producing content that is genuinely useful for the creation of a public sphere, giving in
to the ―lowest common denominator‖. As Benkler says, ―the advertising supported media
needs to attract large audiences, leading programming away from the genuinely politically
important, challenging, and engaging, and toward the titillating or the soothing an emphasis
on entertainment over news and analysis‖4 (Benkler, 2004).
Having large numbers in a media channel is not a very big problem, per se. But since numbers
become crucial for commercial success of all media channels, very few of them are able to
sustain. This means that there is only a limited amount of diversity possible. Even with these,
their intake is seen to be is too limited. This puts a significant limit on the viewpoints
explored by mass media, leaving many significant perspectives unexplored and
underrepresented because they are so far away from the cadres of professional journalists or
cannot afford to get significant attention.
Commercial nature of mass media implies that it is heavily dependent on providing attention
to the highest bidder, without any great regard to the whether it is of primary concern for the
public sphere or not. Because they represent a huge audience, mass media channels are able to
sway the public opinion in any arbitrary direction they choose to take. These directions could
be motivated by strictly commercial or political interests. In a democracy, media power is
therefore considered to be significant for success or failure of a particular political party.

4


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Above is the traditional critique of the mass media model. Over past few years, several other
trends have appeared in mass media model, particularly since 1980s.

3.2 Changing nature of media
Over the period of last two decades there is seen to be a very significant shift in the choices
mass media has made. There is a significant decline seen in the importance of political
coverage, and a significant reduction in the number of correspondents covering the different
world regions in US Media. There is seen to be clear choice made by traditional media houses
to save cost by reducing the number of foreign editions.
What is even more intriguing is that the difference between broadsheet and tabloid papers has
been narrowed. As competition intensifies, the quality broadsheets co-opt a more
sensationalist veneer to the news product. ―The crisis is due to the competition for advertising
and more expensive newsprint, leading to a lack of interest in both foreign and investigative
journalism‖5 (Tumber, 1993).
With the advent of 24-hour news channels, there is an increasing trend towards making
journalism more of a process than a product. There is a stress on the creation of interesting
content sustainably, at a cheaper cost. Expose of Watergate scandal in US, and Bofors scandal
in India, is seen to the height of investigative journalism. These incidents brought a significant
attention to the power of media that resulted in changing the governments in both countries.
Tumber says that over a period of time, there has been a clear shift towards the journalism of
assertion from journalism of verification, also called ―gossip journalism‖. Initially the start of
is the allegation, and them a speculation until the counter-allegation is then issues. ―The
demand to keep up with this, to and fro, leaves journalists with less time to sort out what is
true and significant‖6 (Tumber, 1993). There is a growing proliferation of media scandals
across the global landscape.
The problem is not with media alone, several structural and macropolitical trends have
weakened political systems making them more vulnerable to turmoil. There is a breakdown of

5

,

6

Democracy in the information age: Role of the fourth estate in cyberspace. Howard Tumber. Information
Communication and Society (2001). Page 96 and 98.

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ideology in political parties, leaving the public more attuned to the reliability of parties and
personalities of candidates than to their professed positions on issues.
With the advent of personalities in politics, as is seen by clear projection of Prime ministerial
candidates in general elections, a culture of promotionalism has taken over many areas of
public life. With this, scandals have become big for tabloid newspapers. Almost daily in
tabloids of Mumbai, one can see expose of one or the other local scandal.
Overall, the trend is to move ahead of purely debate-investigative mode to a more
promotional and sensationalized version of news coverage by mass media. Most of the
journalists feel their careers can be made or break by exposing one or other scandal as that
would bring readership/viewership to the mass media.
What could be even more disturbing is the trend presently being seen in the India television
media – that of blurring boundaries between media and entertainment. Several Hindi news
channels, like India TV, focus on getting flimsy stories as news. They even go to an extent of
creation of news items that have no connection with reality, just to sensationalize the coverage
as that brings them more TRPs. Most other Hindi news channels have followed suit to follow
the India TV model. Their news coverage can be seen as far from truth and in most cases,
frivolous. What is even more disturbing is that even media houses whose English channels
(like NDTV 24x7 and CNN-IBN) are seen to be flag-bearers of serious news content, indulge
in the similar kind of news content on their Hindi channels.
Another major disadvantage of the concentrated mass media model is what is called as ―the
Berlusconi effect.‖ The Italian Prime Minister was seen as using his control over the media
channels to virtually storm his way to power as no concrete resistance could be mounted by
his opposition, in absence of support of mass media channels. This incident points to a threat
of mass media overriding the public debate by setting the public agenda as per its own wishes.
Benkler says that this alone does not outline the whole problem with mass media model. It is
actually broader and more subtle. The concern is about the degree of concentration in massmedia markets, which manifests itself in two particular ways. ―The first is a lack of
competition in a market, to a degree sufficient to allow a firm to exercise power over its
pricing. This is the antitrust sense. The second, very different concern might be called
―mindshare.‖ That is, media is ―concentrated‖ when a small number of media firms play a

12


large role as the channel from and to a substantial majority of readers, viewers, and listeners
in a given politically relevant social unit‖7 (Benkler, 2004).
3.2.1 Response of political institutions
It is now possible for institutions and agencies to reach out to their viewers/target audience
directly through non-traditional media like internet and mobile. Also, there has been a clear
recognition of manipulative tendencies in mass media towards a public message of
importance.
With increasing recognition of the fact that traditional media may not be able to carry the
information from government to public in the manner the government wants, there is a clear
trend towards usage of alternate news channels in the US and the UK. The trend is to bypass
the news organization filters. Tony Blair attempted to spread his messages through regular
internet broadcasts since early 2000. There was even an online consultation paper on British
Government‘s Freedom to Information white paper which laid the foundation of a mechanism
by which government can use the internet for delivery of information messages.
The elections 2008 in US were seen as the first with full-fledged exploitation of usage of
internet and other non-traditional media. Both, Obama and McCain had their own internet
strategies with focus on releasing key information online and putting all their discussion
details up there. What this enabled was a direct dissemination of information from the
candidates directly to the public, something which was heavily dependent on TV channels
earlier. The power of online media is so strong, that it is believed that the election debate
videos were viewed by more people online than on TV.

3.3 The role of journalism in a democracy
As listed above, the traditional media is facing a ―crisis‖ on two fronts: the first is an
increasing trend of concentration and its consequent increased commercial pressures and the
second is the development of new electronic communications. There is a growing
disillusionment existing not only among the general public, but also within the journalistic
professionals, about the economic structures that support journalism. There is a decline in

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journalism that maps the decline in public life. It is seen that journalism is a major contributor
to the malaise in the public life.
The failure of the profession is leading to calls for new forms of reporting requiring a change
in the profession necessary for journalism once again to be a primary force in the
revitalization of public life. The public journalism movement believe that journalism is
suffering a fundamental loss of authority and regaining the authority must be journalism‘s
first step towards revitalizing itself. There is an increasing threat the professional idea of
objectivity in journalism – a view that there has to be a balance that provides an element of
conflict.
The public discourse is not meant to be consumed only by journalists and other professionals,
but for the general public. There is a growing need to be focussed on involving citizens in the
formation of the public discourse. For example, the electorate needs to be invited to expand
the scope of political coverage beyond politicians. Such public journalism would invite
community at large, reporters and readers alike. The idea of good/public journalism is
theorized to enhance a newspaper‘s standing in the marketplace by attracting more and better
readers. Although controversial as most commentators do not believe that such a platform
would be able to keep its objectivity, this does provide a motivation for working towards a
healthy public sphere (Glasser, 1998).
There is a lack of understanding of the relationship of journalism to the news technologies
that are emerging in the information society. There is a lot of speculation on the role of
journalists in the unmediated landscape. The position of journalism as a unified profession is
no longer seen as tenable (Bardoel, 1996). The new media formats would lead to two types of
journalism. First, orientating journalism where background commentary and explanation are
given to the general public and, second, instrumental journalism that provides functional and
specialized information to interested customers.
There is an increasing realization of the fact that the days of a journalist‘s role of a gatekeeper
in a society is over. The new role that journalism will don is that of a ―trusted guide‖. The
journalists need to broaden their definition of public service to include other areas alongside
investigative journalism and the coverage of breaking news. Being a servant on the internet
means engaging in what we‘re beginning to be called as ―service journalism‖.

14


There is a talk of a revolution in journalism in which the public are telling their own stories on
the Internet (Yelvington, 2009). This ―People‘s Journalism‖, as Yelvington coins it,
communicates through email, Usenet discussion forums and personal web pages. He cites an
example of Slashdot where all the contents come from participants who discuss and criticize
references to news elsewhere on the web. The Sun Herald, a weekly in Florida, has built
Sunline as a place where all its readers can engage with one another providing a community
resource. In essence, they become participants and not just consumers. Contrary to popular
fears, Yelvington also believes that such individual empowerment does not imply end of
organization of the state.
In this light it is interesting to observe how the profession of journalism has undergone sea
change. Journalists now need to see themselves as the facilitators of responsible public
discussion not the guardians of public knowledge. Journalists are seen as the people who help
us make the connections between pieces of information that we are too busy to make for
ourselves (Aufderheide, 1998). Whether they do so by hyperlink or snail mail doesn‘t matter
as long as the basic task is sustained.
According to the ―journalistic theory of democracy‖, the journalist has three roles: one, to
inform citizens. The more informed the citizens are, the more actively they will participate in
political process. Three, the more they participate, the more democratic the country is apt to
be.
Gans argues that the basic assumption of this theory is that if journalists do their regular job,
the citizens will be informed or will inform themselves. It is still not clear if informed citizens
will be obliged to participate any better in the process of democracy. There is a case of several
people being very politically active, but still not at all informed at the level one would expect.
Another assumption is that all participation in a political process necessarily enriches the
process of democracy. Gans argues that it in these assumptions that originates the need for
journalism even in the presence of widespread new media. Or, in other words, it is here that
new media will play the most important role.

3.4 Advantages of the mass media model
According to Benkler, there are three primary defences or advantages have also been seen in
these media (Benkler, 2004):

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1. Their independence from government, party, or upper-class largesse, particularly
against the background of the state-owned media in authoritarian
2. The professionalism and large newsrooms that commercial mass media can afford to
support to perform the watchdog function in complex societies.
3. Their near-universal visibility and independence enable them to identify important
issues percolating in society

3.5 Opportunity for New Media
The greatest shift with the advent of internet and a connected world, is the emergence of
computer becoming a device to simulate new forums for social activities. This has given rise
to much of the phenomenal expansion on the Internet of so-called ―Communities of Interest‖.
As a result of phenomenal increase in the capabilities of both, computers and telecom
networks, there is a threat to the mass dominant model of the media: one-to-many model. The
Internet has increasingly been defined by what the users themselves put on it, do with it and
express to each other through it. The Internet is arguably the first mass media form in history
to become the product of its audience. This is a new paradigm.
There is a great transition from evolution of a reader from passive consumer to an active
collaborator. This appears to be a revolutionary concept with consumers sharing their
experiences through their own creative imaginations in a collaborative manner. This is almost
a re-discovery of primary form of entertainment of children where each would assume the
role of a first person acting-out of dramatic stories. Although the social inhibitions force us to
keep our latent dramatic potential under wraps, the desire to explore our creative side is
fundamental to human nature.
The key to unlocking this dramatic participation tendency is referred to as the ―anonymity
factor‖. This release people of their inhibitions which normally keep them constrained, and
allows them to rediscover their innate ability to share in the creation of dramatic situations.
What is even more enriching is that the nature of entertainment experience itself as it evolved
from a locked-off, fully authored and predetermined experience, to one that is generated in
real-time, through the collaboration of the participating individuals. Such an experience is
dynamic, real-time and supremely engaging.

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According to Benkler, the structure of mass media as a mode of communications imposes a
certain set of basic characteristics on the kind of public conversation it makes possible
(Benkler, 2004):
1. It is always communication from a small number of people, organized into an even
smaller number of distinct outlets, to an audience several orders of magnitude larger,
unlimited in principle in its membership except by the production capacity of the
media itself
2. The vast difference between the number of speakers and the number of listeners, and
the finished-goods style of mass-media products, imposes significant constraints on
the extent to which these media can be open to feedback
3. The immense and very loosely defined audience of mass media affects the filtering
and synthesis functions of the mass media as a platform for the public sphere.
With the new media, it is possible for alleviate all the three of these limitations. Let us first
define new media.

3.6 Definition of New Media
The new digital age arrive with a set of big communication challenges for traditional
mainstream media: new relations with audience (Interactivity), new languages (Multimedia)
and a new grammar (Hypertext). But this media revolution not only changes the
communication landscape for the usual players, most importantly, it opens up the mass
communication system for a wide range of new players, including individuals.
Benkler believe that new media represents a basic shift in the way media functions in our
society: ―The first element is the shift from a hub-and-spoke architecture with unidirectional
links to the end points in the mass media, to distributed architecture with multidirectional
connections among all nodes in the networked information environment‖8 (Benkler, 2004)
This implies that what we are now stepping into is a time where network is the media. There
is not just a unidirectional flow of information from certain ―experts‖ to others who are not
considered to be such experts, but rather giving a chance for everyone in the society a role in
creation, dissemination and consumption of information. What changes fundamentally is to

8


17

give the power of certain ―experts‖ (media businesses, news editors or journalists) to
everyone who can connect to the network of resources, creating a rich, interactive and
interconnected structure of a giant information processing engine that never existed in past.
This results in a fundamental change about the roles of speakers and listeners and the whole
act of speaking/writing about a certain issue. For one, the cost of creating your own content
on a blog is nearly zero. This means that anyone with access to internet can become a
publisher and, by virtue, an editor. Journalists and columnists have to now give space to their
readers for contribution in a discussion. They also have the power to use hypertext to link to
several other resources where the reader can refer directly in search for more information.
The biggest change is experienced by the listeners/readers. With the advent of new media
technologies, it is possible for them to be participating in the process of creation and not just
act as passive receivers of content. Newspapers are increasingly seeing competition from
blogs. Anyone with an online free account on a popular blogging website can now publish his
views. These views could range from plain reporting or reproduction of news to deeply
analytical topics with authentic and ―ahead-of-the-curve‖ content. Practically anyone can
become a publisher and will have a space to interact with others on the topics they way. Not
just this, increasingly, more citizens are involved in creation of news content that is near realtime, wider in reach and covers a bigger variety of issues than mainstream media can carry.
For example, the first pictures of Mumbai Terror attack on 26th November 2008 were broken
by a hobby photographer Vinukumar Ranganathan on micro-blogging website Twitter. For
next 60 hours, he and his friends on Twitter were the fastest and the most reliable source of
information on the incident that shook entire world. Several mainstream journalists also
followed their updates and, later, gave them due credit too. Never before in Indian history
have citizen groups been so empowered that they create news ahead of the mainstream media,
so much that mainstream media find them as the most reliable source of information.
The best part of their coverage was that having realized the value of information they were
churning, they were not only sourcing content from their own sources, but also worked very
effectively towards quelling rumours and avoiding misinformation, in a truly responsible
manner.
Another example around the same incident was about a blogger whose single post on the state
of affairs elicited a huge viral movement and thousands of people came around Taj Mahal
18

Hotel on 29th November 2008 to peacefully protest against the terror attack and security crisis
in India.

3.7 Characteristics of new media
The blurring limits between journalism and blogging, between data and knowledge, between
news agencies and semantic search engines, between readers and writers and between old and
new media, reveals the need for a set of intellectual tools that contribute to understand by
rethinking the changing nature of media and communication in the digital age (Orihuela,
2003).
He then goes on to explain 10 paradigms of new communication platforms that he thinks
would change the media as we know it:
1. From audience to User: This is the biggest and most visible shift in the new
communication scenario - the unidirectional way of media consumption is replaced by
the concept of active user seeking for content, exploring and navigating info-spaces.
Users also become content producers. He devises a new name ―Thin Media‖ for users
who wish to engage in a more active by low profile media activity.
2. From media to content: The focus shifts from industrial production constraints to
content authority. Brands which represent more value and authority are followed by
more people. There is an essential de-coupling of the process of communication from
its underlying technical process, enabling people who are well-versed with media and
its process to create content too.
3. From Monomedia to Multimedia: With the advent of interconnected networks and
processing power, the distinctions of language (audio, visual, text) are blurring.
Increasingly we see all the three media being used at the same time to effectively
communicate with the listener. But these are normally skills intensive issues, hence
there is a huge market for video templates and blog designs.
4. From Periodicity to Real-time: When participants of media creation increase by two
to three order of magnitudes, there is a possibility of creation of content on all the
possible topics, from all possible places in the world, at all points in time. To add to
the blogging revolution, there is the micro-blogging revolution which has swept the
whole world off its feet. Millions of people around the world, including 13,000 from
India. Some of the most respected people like Obama, Oprah and Bill Gates are also
regulars on Twitter.
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Because they are real-time, it is possible to draw a story from blogs which are
written about a topic (or tag, as they are called in the language of new media). A
number of recent issues of common interest, like Mumbai terror strike were closely
followed by bloggers, thereby creating a well-documented chronicle of the story. Such
a flexibility was absent in old media scenario
5. From Scarcity to Abundance: As one of the side-effects of all readers becoming
writers, there is an increasing proliferation of online information without clear
attribution of source authority and heterogeneity of content quality. There is often so
much content on the subject that time becomes the only limited resource.
6. From editor-mediated to non-mediated: The media editors are not the only
gatekeepers in deciding what should be the agenda of the public sphere. Worldwide
publishing without editors, but with a close peer group review daily process and in
most cases open to comments from readers. This builds the credibility and trust among
the readers.
7. From Distribution to access: The broadcasting paradigm of new media means that
the communication now becomes a many-to-many mode. The only issue then is to
increase access to more people.
8. From one-way to interactivity: Interactive nature of new media implies that the
audience could now be engaged in a conversation and the readers can contribute to the
process of news creation itself. There are three levels of interactivity: First, where the
user chooses the format of information display, second, where the user produces input
for a system, and third, where the user communicates with other users of the system,
creating a community of users.
9. From linear to hypertext: Hypertext linkages provide backward and forward
linkages to the content being displayed on a website. It almost provides a temporal
dimension to media content. By hyperlinks, blogs allow their users to look up to other
sources of the same information. Also they are useful to give a way ahead of user to
look for more information or go deeper in a thought.
10. From Data to Knowledge: The crucial role of human knowledge is to identify,
comment, link and discuss the data available online, turning it into valuable and usable
knowledge. In this sense, the emergence of a semantic web looks very promising as it
would now be able to model to debate in a much more organized manner.

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3.8 How do new media work?
One special form of new media that is widely understood is blogging. Blogging has existed
ever since the first emergence of public internet. Hence, it has often been seen as the most
mature form of new media. There are several different forms of blogs that exist on the internet
today – practically covering all interest areas – and running under different business models,
ranging from a pure hobby to an ad supported full-time business.
Benkler describes the network of blogs as a collection of millions of news sources. He says
―the networked public sphere allows hundreds of millions of people to publish whatever and
whenever they please without disintegrating into an unusable cacophony, as the firstgeneration critics argued, and it filters and focuses attention without re-creating the highly
concentrated model of the mass media that concerned the second-generation critique‖9
(Benkler, 2004).

Figure 2: A schematic representation of media business.
Source: The Wealth of Networks (Benkler, 2004)

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21


The network of blogs is highly regarded by him as the one offering some semblance of
understanding the new media.
In the figure above, there is:
1. A strongly connected core: This forms the basis of most information processing
needs of a blogging network. It forms the core of the blogging world which essentially
does the mainstream editor‘s job. All information is usually passed regulations that
they can simply get a computer and that would open up multiple things with you.
2. An “In” Function: This the group of bloggers with feet on ground experience. These
people make sure that enough information is channelled into the system each day.
3. An “Out” Function: The outwards looking function represents the people who
absorb information.
4. A lot of Tendrils: Some blogs work their way out of the blogging circle by not
belonging to any one platform. These are irregular visitors/writers who get sold on
idea of a particular blog but do not care much about continuing to express their
opinions.
5. A lot of tubes: They open up alternate channels of information to flow from input to
output.
6. Disconnected Components: These are the participants of the blogging world who are
not a part of the network
Benkler goes ahead to say that each issue and school of thought has a similar system of
interconnected blogs. The above model is thus replicated into thousands of such model to
represent the new media on the internet (Benkler, 2004).

3.9 Will new media replace traditional media?
If new media offers such revolutionary advantages, is it possible for new media to completely
replace traditional form of media? Perhaps, not in near future. Success of a media is driven by
society. With respect to the world of traditional media, new media offers many non-linear
characteristics. Whether useful or not, these intricacies are not completely understood by the
society. Despite having the potential of being capable of being the primary mode of formation
of the public sphere, until it is fully understood, it would be difficult to say if new media is
sufficient to carry the primary function of creation of a public sphere.

22

The beauty of new media is in being a network of ideas – ideas which cater to all tastes. It
allows communities to produce participatory journalism, grassroots reporting, annotative
reporting, commentary and fact-checking, which the mainstream media feed upon, developing
them as s pool of tips, sources and story ideas. What people often fail to understand the idea
of new media is much different from the traditional media, as here the internet itself acts as an
editing mechanism.
Another reason why traditional media cannot be completely replaced is because bloggers do
not have to adhere to the ―established principles of fairness, accuracy and truth‖. While its
strength is definitely in bringing out a breadth of topics of the world, it is definitely not a
replacement of the depth of analysis provided by a professional journalist. The best
perspective is to view them as complementary to each other. Widespread blogging has made
the news media to be more accessible and interactive. At the same time, blogging itself has
taken a serious note with many people earning their livelihood through this media alone.

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Gatekeeping and Agenda Setting in the New Media Era

4. Gatekeeping and Agenda Setting in the New
Media Era
Continuing with the discussion at the end of chapter 2 on the possibility of new media
replacing the traditional media, we examine some critical function of mass media in this
chapter and evaluate the critical roles played by the mass media in formation of a public
sphere. Some of the most important roles played by the mass media are:
1. Gatekeeping: Controlling the flow of information in and out of the public sphere
2. Agenda Setting: Setting the tone of the discussion that takes place between
individuals in a society
The following two sections build these concepts. The sections following them explain how
the new media has changed the way society applies gatekeeping and agenda setting.

4.1 Gatekeeping
Gatekeeping refers to the control over the flow of information in and out of a public sphere.
Traditionally, mass media is responsible of regulation of information in and out of the public
sphere, that is, collective consciousness of the society.
4.1.1 History and Orientation
Kurt Lewin was apparently the first one to use the term "gatekeeping," which he used to
describe a wife or mother as the person who decides which foods end up on the family‘s
dinner table (Lewin, 1947). The gatekeeper is the person who decides what shall pass through
each gate section, of which, in any process, there are several. Although he applied it originally
to the food chain, he then added that the gating process can include a news item winding
through communication channels in a group. This is the point from which most gatekeeper
studies in communication are launched. Lewin‘s comments were then picked up and turned it
solidly toward journalism in 1950 (White, 1964). Then the role of gatekeepers was seen as
taking a a different direction. They found the audience learns how much importance to attach
to a news item from the emphasis the media place on it. McCombs and Shaw pointed out that
the gatekeeping concept is related to the newer concept, agenda-setting (McCombs M. ,
1997). The gatekeeper concept is now 50 years old and has slipped into the language of many
disciplines, including gatekeeping in organizations.

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4.1.2 Core Assumptions and Statements
The gatekeeper decides which information will go forward, and which will not. In other
words a gatekeeper in a social system decides which of a certain commodity – materials,
goods, and information – may enter the system. Important to realize is that gatekeepers are
able to control the public‘s knowledge of the actual events by letting some stories pass
through the system but keeping others out. Gatekeepers can also be seen as institutions or
organizations. In a political system there are gatekeepers, individuals or institutions which
control access to positions of power and regulate the flow of information and political
influence. Gatekeepers exist in many jobs, and their choices hold the potential to colour
mental pictures that are subsequently created in peoples‘ understanding of what is happening
in the world around them. Media gatekeeping showed that decision making is based on
principles of news values, organizational routines, input structure and common sense.
Gatekeeping is vital in communication planning and almost al communication planning roles
include some aspect of gatekeeping.
The gatekeeper‘s choices are a complex web of influences, preferences, motives and common
values. Gatekeeping is inevitable and in some circumstances it can be useful. Gatekeeping can
also be dangerous, since it can lead to an abuse of power by deciding what information to
discard and what to let pass. Nevertheless, gatekeeping is often a routine, guided by some set
of standard questions.

Figure 3: Schematic representation of a gatekeeping function.
Source: The ‗Gatekeeper‘: A case study in the selection of news (White, 1964)
4.1.3 Scope and Application
This theory is related to the mass media and organizations. In the mass media the focus is on
the organizational structure of newsrooms and events. Gatekeeping is also an important in
organizations, since employees and management are using ways of influence.

25


4.1.4 Example
A wire service editor decides alone what news audiences will receive from another continent.
The idea is that if the gatekeeper‘s selections are biased, the readers‘ understanding will
therefore be a little biased.

4.2 Agenda-Setting Theory
4.2.1 History and Orientation
The growth of agenda setting from a parsimonious hypothesis about the transfer of issue
salience from the media‘s agenda to the public‘s agenda in presidential election settings is
easily summarised to one that now encompasses several broad traditions across geography,
culture, and disciplines (McCombs M. , 1997). Agenda setting was born in a mass
communication climate dominated by the prevailing sentiment that the mass media had
limited effects and that people were more prone to selectively pay attention to content based
on their preferences (Klapper, 1960). The debunking of the minimal role of media and
selective perception was one of the most significant accomplishments of the early theorizing
of agenda setting, which re-established the significance of the mass media in shaping public
opinion at the cognitive level.
4.2.2 Core Assumptions and Statements
Core: Agenda-setting is the creation of public awareness and concern of salient issues by the
news media. Two basis assumptions underlie most research on agenda-setting: (1) the press
and the media do not reflect reality; they filter and shape it; (2) media concentration on a few
issues and subjects leads the public to perceive those issues as more important than other
issues. One of the most critical aspects in the concept of an agenda-setting role of mass
communication is the time frame for this phenomenon. In addition, different media have
different agenda-setting potential. Agenda-setting theory seems quite appropriate to help us
understand the pervasive role of the media (for example on political communication systems).
4.2.3 Scope and Application
Just as McCombs and Shaw expanded their focus, other researchers have extended
investigations of agenda setting to issues including history, advertising, foreign, and medical
news.

26


4.2.4 Conceptual Model

Figure 4: Agenda-setting.
Source: Communication models for mass communications (McQuail & Windahl, 1993)
4.2.5 Example
McCombs and Shaw focused on the two elements: awareness and information. Investigating
the agenda-setting function of the mass media in the 1968 presidential campaign, they
attempted to assess the relationship between what voters in one community said were
important issues and the actual content of media messages used during the campaign.
McCombs and Shaw concluded that the mass media exerted a significant influence on what
voters considered to be the major issues of the campaign.

4.3 Need of Gatekeeping in a democratic society
According to the social responsibility theory was formulated by Theodore Peterson (1956)
(Peterson, 1956) sought to reconcile the growing centralization of ownership and decreasing
competition in the printed press, the rise of an inherently centralized and expensive electronic
media, and social science research and real-world events that raised concerns regarding the
stability of democratic systems and the civic capacity of democratic citizens (Williams &
Carpini, 2004).

27

Continuing further, they said ―this new theory introduced (or reinforced) three significant
conceptual distinctions:
1. The news media was separated from entertainment media, with the former viewed as
most directly responsible for fulfilling the media‘s civic functions.
2. Within the news media, fact would be distinguished from opinion and news reporting
would strive to be accurate, objective, and balanced.
3. The public was distinguished from media elites and policy experts, with the former
viewed as generally passive, easily manipulated consumers of information and the
latter as information gatekeepers who represented the public‘s interest in the
construction of political and social reality.‖10
In essence, the social responsibility theory conceded the inevitability of both a centralized,
privately owned media and of a less-than-engaged public and transferred much of the civic
responsibility of the latter to a new class of information elites. The "truth" about the social and
political world was no longer (if indeed it had ever been) constructed out of enlightened
public discourse but instead emerged from a more managed and limited exchange among
experts in the news media. Citizens were redefined as unsophisticated consumers of
information, and the public was redefined as an audience.
The ability to maintain these distinctions and institutionalize professional journalists as
political gatekeepers was aided from the 1950s through the early 1980s by the relative lack of
competition that had led to the development of the social responsibility theory in the first
place. For example, during this period, television viewers had the choice of watching one to
five channels, most or all of which broadcast news at the same time. Readers of prestige news
magazines and newspapers and viewers of public affairs broadcasting were a self-selected
segment of the population, a more elite social, economic, and political strata of citizens. This
elite audience signalled the serious nature of the content, distinguishing it from "popular"
media. What developed were distinctions between the politically important and the politically
insignificant based not on analyses of the actual political content and aesthetic worth of media

10

Monica and Bill All the Time and Everywhere: The Collapse of Gatekeeping and Agenda Setting in the New
Media Environment. Bruce A Williams; Michael X Delli Carpini. The American Behavioral Scientist (May
2004). Page 1214.

28


programming but rather on the organization of producing institutions and the make-up of the
audience.
It has been found that consistent with social responsibility theories of the press, the political
agenda has been shaped by the symbiotic relationship that has developed between mainstream
political actors and major news outlets (Bennett, 1988). In this relationship, the mainstream
news media acted as a monolithic gatekeeper while a limited set of political elites vied with
each other to shape this agenda and how it was framed. Within this system, the public was
often reduced to a passive consumer whose own attention to and interpretation of events was
constrained by this limited information environment.

4.4 The breakdown of gatekeeping in changing media
environment
The following events have been responsible for the changing media environment of the world
over past two decades:
1. The expansion of cable and satellite television,
2. The growth of the Internet and World Wide Web,
3. The horizontal and vertical integration of the media through conglomerates, and
4. The general availability of VCRs and remote television controls
The new media environment is distinctive in several ways (Abramson, 1988):
1. The increased volume of information that is available
2. The increased speed with which information can be gathered, retrieved, and
transmitted,
3. The increased control given to consumers of the media,
4. The fragmentation of media audiences and the resulting greater ability to target media
messages to particular audiences,
5. The greater decentralization of certain aspects of the media, and
6. The greater interactive capacity between consumers and producers of media messages
All told, these changes constitute a reshaping of the media environment that easily rivals those
leading to the creation of the social responsibility theory and the structural development of the
media as gatekeeper.

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The aforementioned changes have made it difficult to maintain the always artificial distinction
between public affairs and "mere" entertainment, thereby making the social responsibility
theory invalid. In addition there has been a convergence of sort between the two for of media.
The distinction between fact and opinion or analysis is much less clearly identified by simple
rules such as where it appears, who is saying it, or how it is labelled. Public affairs time slots
have become overwhelmed by the range of options open to citizens: Traditional news can be
gotten any time of the day through cable or the World Wide Web or equally ignored at any
time of the day. Even the informal standard operating procedures, routines, and beats that
determined newsworthiness have come under serious rethinking both from within and outside
the journalistic profession. As audiences themselves absorb these changes and the erosion of
formerly commonsense distinctions, they too begin to move freely between genres, eroding
the gatekeeping ability of any single group of elites (e.g., ‗serious‘ journalists or political
leaders) (Rosen, 1999).
The mainstream press in its gatekeeping role operates along a single axis of influence
determined by the interaction between political elites and journalists. The new media
environment disrupts the single axis system in three ways:
1. The expansion of politically relevant media and the blurring of genres lead to a
struggle within the media itself for the role of authoritative gatekeeper.
2. The expansion of media outlets and the obliterating of the normal news cycle have
created new opportunities for nonmainstream political actors to influence the setting
and framing of the political agenda (Kurtz, 1998).
3. This changed media environment has created new opportunities and pitfalls for the
public to enter and interpret the political world.
It was noted during Gulf War that 24-hour cable news outlets not only gathered news as
rapidly as possible but also broadcast it as rapidly as possible, effectively eliminating the role
of editors in the news production process. This left viewers themselves to try to sort out what
was "really" happening as the war progressed (Katz J. , 1997).
In short, the new media environment creates a multiplicity of gates through which information
passes to the public both in terms of the sheer number of sources of information (i.e., Internet,
cable television, radio), the speed with which information is transmitted, and the types of
genres the public uses for political information (i.e., movies, music, docudramas, talk shows).
30


These changes create what is called a multiaxiality that "transforms any stability of categories
into the fluidities of power" (Fiske, 1996). So, in this new media environment, myriad gates
through which information passes create multiple axes of power to influence public opinion.
At one level, the collapse of gatekeeping represents a direct attack on the elites (journalists,
policy experts, public officials and, academics.) who have served as the arbiters of social and
political meaning under the social responsibility theory. To some extent, this responsibility is
returning to the public, like they did in old 19th century models of media, as they play a more
active role in constructing social and political meaning out of the mix of mediated narratives
with which they are presented. But in other ways, the media remains elite dominated, creating
new venues through which traditional political elites attempt to shape the political agenda in
new ways.
Clinton-Lewinsky scandal is taken as one example to illustrate the tension and the pressing
need for a new theory of press (Williams & Carpini, 2004).

4.5 Gatekeeping in the new media
A mechanism has already begun to play a role of the aggregate gatekeepers of all information
(and not just new media) on the internet (Hargittai E. , 2001). These are the information
intermediaries, which through various business models help the user locate the right
information. Although they are not free of their own commercial interests, yet they have
enabled a typical user to comprehend the web in a much more lucid way.
Such business models are that of portals like Yahoo! and search engines like Google.
Hargittai says, ―Due to the ease with which users could add content to the Web, thanks to the
rise in the number of users, and as a result of an increasing number of organizations
embracing the Web as a communication tool, the amount of content available online has risen
exponentially‖11 (Hargittai E. , 2001). By 2003 this number of websites had grown to more
than thirty-five million. Not surprisingly, services that help users find their way to content of
interest are crucial to the Web‘s ability to be a useful tool for people. As the amount of Web
content skyrocketed, search engines became increasingly important in sifting through online
material. The first search engines appeared in the mid-1990s and several of them came out of

11

The Changing Online Landscape: From Free-for-All To Commercial Gatekeeping. Eszter Hargittai. A chapter
in Community Practice in the Network Society: Local Actions/Global Interaction (2003).

31


research universities. In many cases, academic research settings sponsored their creation and
their one goal was to help people better navigate Web content.
Initially, these sites functioned in one of two ways. Some provided the option of openly
searching the Web‘s content (e.g. WebCrawler and Lycos) while others organized information
into Web directories and people could access content by clicking on categorized links (e.g.
Yahoo). The former relied on computer programs whereas the latter were manually compiled.
At this point the one goal seemed to be to feature interesting and high quality content. In time,
the ventures left academic settings and became profit-seeking commercial enterprises.
Another source of popular portal sites was the default home pages that came up during the use
of the most popular browsing software applications, Netscape Navigator and Internet
Explorer. At first, those sites offered little more than software upgrades, but soon they grew
into much more than a place to download an application. The public support was never
sufficient for media businesses. This left the burden of financing these online ventures to
other potential sources including individual subscription fees or funding by private
foundations. Most online services were funded through advertisements or by venture
capitalists. In order to legitimate funding, Web sites had to attract and keep visitors and
encourage them to stay and revisit frequently.
To achieve this, search engines and portal sites expanded their repertoire of services beyond
simply pointing people to content elsewhere on the Web. Instead, they changed their business
models to the goal of keeping users on their sites as long as possible. By contracting with
large content providers they offered sports information, entertainment news, current events
and many other services all under one roof. By 1999, search engines and portal sites
dominated the list of most popular Web sites garnering traffic from millions of unique visitors
each month, clearly indicating their arrival in the internet era. It was also determined that 85%
of users never go beyond the first search page of information.
This tendency of most users led to exploitation of commercial interests by search engines. It is
in favour of certain search engines to feature a particular website above others in their search
results. This has resulted in an entire industry around Search Engine Optimization which
helps websites being ranked higher than the others. In light of such an issue, non-profit
organizations would often find it difficult to be rated high enough to catch user attention.
Given the current state of online content organization and presentation, users must be
educated about the myriad of commercial incentives that influence search result listings and
32


directory placements. They have to be conscious of the fact that the most prominent results
are not necessarily the most – or the only – possible sources online in response to their query.
Users also have to learn how to do more refined searches and how to turn to a more diverse
set of resources online in order to avoid the sidetracks that result from commercial interests.

4.6 Agenda setting for the mass media
From its earliest beginnings, agenda setting has systematically sought to document the effects
of mass media on public opinion. Its basis exists in the simple fact that, for most issues, the
public lacks the ability to witness accounts firsthand and as such, must depend on the media
for a second- hand reality (Lippman, 1922). This second-hand reality is firmly based in a
pseudo-environment that is created by media attention to specific issues that may or may not
have a basis in real-world dynamics. By virtue of creating a shared, national pseudoenvironment, mass media fulfil the important function of building a public consensus on the
important issues of the day (McCombs M. , 1997).
Since its first appearance in 1972, agenda setting has now matured as a theory to include:
1. A second-level agenda setting component (attribute agenda setting),
2. A psychological component to explain individual-level agenda setting effects (need
for orientation),
3. An emphasis on how the media‘s agenda is shaped, and an explanation for the shared
news agenda among different media (intermedia agenda setting).
Both agenda setting and the competing theory of the two-step flow are significant when
discussing the relationship between mainstream media and political blog networks, as well as
the relationships that exist among blogs in the networked political blogosphere.
4.6.1 Two-Step Flow
The two-step flow theory injected interpersonal communications into how information
diffuses from mass media to the general public. The usefulness of this mass communication
theory to the political blogosphere is captured by the hyperlink, which is a symbolic
representation of an interpersonal connection between two blogs. The initial conceptualization
of the model was based on traditional media and face-to-face communications, occurring
before the revolution of online communications.

33


The audience as a mass is conceptualized into a vision of a society connected by a few more
knowledgeable people, who were dubbed the ―opinion leaders.‖ These opinion leaders were
responsible for shaping the opinions of those more susceptible to influence, called the
―followers.‖ This mediation of mass media messages by the opinion leader would be called
the ―two-step flow of communication‖ and this theory would form the basis of the law of
minimal consequences that relegated mass media effects to an inconsequential level (Klapper,
1960).
Although not much evidence is available in this favour, it can be noted that the opinion
leaders were identified by self designation than through an external selection process. From
its earliest beginnings, agenda setting has systematically sought to document the effects of
mass media on public opinion. Its basis exists in the simple fact that, for most issues, the
public lacks the ability to witness accounts firsthand and as such, must depend on the media
for a second- hand reality (Lippman, 1922).
While the opinion leaders had no role to play in the generation of content earlier, they are now
playing an effective role that rivals the media business – that of an influential blogger. The
political bloggers that write for these sites can be viewed as opinion leaders. But, what are the
characteristics of opinion leaders? Opinion leaders are identified based on three attributes
(Katz E. , 1957):
1. The personification of values (who one is),
2. Competence (what one knows), and
3. Strategic social location (whom one knows).
Opinion leaders are able to broker information both within and between groups by virtue of
their social capital, which allows them to fill the gaps in information and connection between
people, bridging what Burt calls ‗structural holes‘ (Burt, 1999). There is also a strong positive
relationship between opinion leadership and civic participation.

4.7 Agenda setting in media
4.7.1 Two step flow in old media
The agenda setting in traditional media has been largely unidirectional with the mass media
being at the top of the pyramid which conveys the issue and perspectives to an opinion leader.

34


The opinion leader, in turn, communicates it to the readers to make them aware of these
issues. The flow of information is much more predictable and straightforward.
As explained in the Figure 5 below, the agenda setting in traditional media world originates
from the mass media to the opinion leaders. These leaders then disseminate information to the
followers who are passive audience.

Figure 5: Agenda setting in traditional media.
Source: How does Agenda Setting happen in Blogosphere (Meraz, 2007)
4.7.2 Two step flow in new media
The new media changes the flow of information as described above in the agenda setting
mechanism of traditional media. Now that the ideas and issues can originate from multiple
sources, the interaction becomes bidirectional, interactive and complex. The salient features
of this model over the model above are:
1. No single owner of content and perspectives
2. Interactivity between the readers and content creator
35


3. Abundance of content
These are the unique scenarios under which new media works. Surprisingly the issue have
been seen to be set both from blogs to the mainstream media and vice versa (Meraz, 2007).

Figure 6: Agenda Setting in new media.
Source: How does Agenda Setting happen in Blogosphere (Meraz, 2007)
As explained in the Figure 6 above, the agenda setting in new world could originate from any
of the sources: followers, mass media or opinion leaders. The agenda setting takes no
particular predictable path and the entire agenda is set based on whatever the entire aggregate
of these players feel needs to be discussed. The interaction between various sources is bidirectional and complex. There is no great need for opinion leaders to disseminate
information but they still play an important role in handling the complexity of this
information.

36

Digital Divide, Attention Scarcity and Media policy

5. Digital Divide, Attention Scarcity and Media policy
Although internet brings with it a promise of equality, commercial interests of most access
media on and off it have led to a slew of imperfections. Digital Divide and Attention Scarcity
are two of these imperfections that do not let new media take the revolutionary form that
Benkler promises. This chapter describes the prevalent digital divide among within different
sections of a society and between nations. It then links digital divide through another
commercial structures (Portals, Search Engines) around the internet to illustrate how attention
scarcity is also responsible to increase the digital divide. In the end a discussion on the
possible media policy alternatives would wrap up the chapter.

5.1 Digital Divide
With the rise of the Internet‘s importance in all spheres of life there has been an increasing
concern regarding the patterns of its diffusion across the population. Reports have
documented the presence of an Internet ―digital divide‖, i.e. inequalities in access to and use
of the medium, with lower levels of connectivity among women, racial and ethnic minorities,
people with lower incomes, rural residents and less educated people. Some have cautioned
that the differential spread of the Internet will lead to increasing inequalities benefiting those
who are already in advantageous positions and denying access to better resources to the
underprivileged. This is called the ―Matthew Effect‖ according to which ―unto everyone who
hath shall be given‖ whereby initial advantages translate into increasing returns over time
(Merton, 1973).
Mass media seem to reinforce knowledge gaps across the population. With respect to the
Web, the Matthew effect predicts that those having more experience with technologies and
more exposure to various communication media will benefit more from the Web by using it in
a more sophisticated manner and for more types of information retrieval.

5.2 Digital Inequality
As more people start using the Web for communication and information retrieval, it becomes
less useful to merely look at binary classifications of who is online when discussing questions
of inequality in relation to the Internet. Rather, we need to start looking at differences in how
those who are online access and use the medium. It is suggested that the term ―digital
inequality‖ better encompasses the various dimensions along which differences will exist
even after access to the medium is nearly universal (DiMaggio, 2001).
37


Some scholars have suggested ways in which we need to distinguish between different types
of Internet use. Divides can be distinguished at three levels:
1. The global divide which encompasses differences among industrialized and lesser
developed nations,
2. The social divide which points to inequalities among the population within one nation,
and
3. A democratic divide which refers to the differences among those who do and do not
use digital technologies to engage and participate in public life.
Further, there are four components of full social access:
1. Financial access which indicates whether users (individuals or whole communities)
can afford connectivity,
2. Cognitive access which considers whether people are trained to use the medium, and
find and evaluate the type of information for which they are looking
3. Production of content access which looks at whether there is enough material available
that suits users‘ needs; and
4. Political access which takes into account whether users have access to the institutions
that regulate the technologies they are using.
There are factors (skill) beyond mere connectivity that need to be considered when discussing
the potential implications of the Internet for inequality. In addition to relying on basic
measures of access to a medium, we need to consider the following more nuanced measures
of use (Hargittai E. , 2003):
1. Technical means (quality of the equipment): People who have access to top quality
computers with good and reliable Internet connections at home or at work are much
more likely to exhibit high levels of sophistication than those without access to such
technical resources.
2. Autonomy of use (location of access, freedom to use the medium for one‘s preferred
activities): Although theoretically many people have access to the Internet at a public
library, access remains easiest for those who are connected through home or work
computers.
3. Social support networks (availability of others one can turn to for assistance with use,
size of networks to encourage use): Although theoretically many people have access to
38


the Internet at a public library, access remains easiest for those who are connected
through home or work computers. There is an emphasis on the importance of social
support networks in the spread of new technologies. Those with exposure to
innovations in their surroundings are more likely to adopt new technologies such as
personal computers. The availability of friends and family who are also Internet users
provides support for problems encountered while using the medium and is also a
source of new knowledge via advice and recommendations.
4. Experience (number of years using the technology, types of use patterns): Experience
is a relevant dimension to consider because it tells us whether people are investing
time in a technology to become familiar enough with it for convenient and efficient
use.
These four factors together contribute to one‘s level of skill. Skill is defined as the ability to
efficiently and effectively use the new technology. When considering the potential
implications of the Internet for social inequality, we must focus on people‘s ability to use the
technology effectively and efficiently (in other words, skill). But how is it possible that skill is
a relevant factor when it comes to Internet use given that material posted online – all billions
of pages worth – is equally available to all users via the correct Web address? Once the
correct Web address is entered, the data are accessed and the information is readily available.
But how does a user find the particular Web site?
A large portion of these billions of Web pages is available on the Web for public use. Any
individual or organization with the know-how to create a site can contribute content to the
public Web. The technicalities of making such content as available to users as the most
popular Web sites are more or less the same. However, information abundance still leaves the
problem of attention scarcity.
Attention scarcity leads individual creators of content to rely on online gatekeepers to channel
their material toward users and leads users to rely on such services to find their way to content
on the Web. Web services, like Portal and Search Engines, that categorize online information
can be considered gatekeepers on the World Wide Web. As discussed in the previous chapter,
this gatekeeping capability of an internet user is not without influence of commercial interest.
Although the users are becoming smarter to avoid these, mot users still cannot differentiate
between a very well ‗search engine optimized‖ website and a site that genuinely provides
useful content.
39


There is, thus, a strong need to understand and regulate the commercial nature of new media
technologies in favour of creation of more inclusive policy environment. This makes a strong
case of new media policy by the governments of the world. It is in their interest as more
access to new media has generally led to better participatory democracy.

5.3 Digital Divide and Democracy
Digital divide debate started from the premise that the differential access to new media will
weaken the citizens‘ capacity to participate in the democratic process. There is a a strong case
of a communication entitlement for the deprived sections of the society. This entitlement
should then be drawn from the ultimate end of the public policy. One of these ends is
proposed by economist and philosopher Amartya Sen (Couldry, 2007).
Sen argues that economic goals and the value of market functioning must be subordinated to a
more fundamental value-the achievement of good for humanity. In determining what is good
for humanity, we must abstract from the many choices between rival goods that each person
must be free to make for herself. While some goods are absolute-such as food and housingothers are matters of individual choice, so a good life is measured not by such goods‘ actual
distribution, but by whether people have the "capability," through their choices from among
such goods, to "achieve functionings that he or she has reason to value." Sen‘s concept of
"functionings" provides stability amid the diversity of possible goods by pointing to
underlying dimensions of human achievement that might generally be valued. These range
from bodily health to self-respect to making choices about the development of one‘s life tocrucially, for the link to democracy-participation in the "life of the community," to use Sen‘s
phrase. These functionings, Sen argues, are "constitutive elements of human well-being"
(Amartya Sen, 1995).
Hence, we can argue that, in a typical modern society, some basic level of access to
communicative resources is part of these key functionings. As increasing volumes of
information and participative resources move online, the ability not merely to access but to
use and contribute to these resources effectively becomes crucial to participation in the life of
the community. That is, correcting for the digital divide does more than extend markets and
bring wider participation in the digital economy. By meeting citizens‘ communicative
entitlements, it contributes to a life that we have reason to value.

40


The concept of communicative entitlement to capture the basic level of access to
communicative resources needed for each of us to have any possibility of participating in the
decisions that affect us: if national citizens need their communicative entitlements fulfilled, so
too do potential global citizens. But the digital divide debate teaches us the difficulty of
specifying what level of communicative entitlement is sufficient to enhance people‘s
capacities to enable them to act as effective participants in the decisions that affect them.
Fortunately, the new media environment itself is a great stimulus for bold thinking about how
the political process might be reconfigured. New media offer an experimental zone for new
versions of the political on all scales, and I have offered some preliminary thoughts in this
direction.
The solution to the problem of digital divide involves more than fixing the communications
infrastructure; it involves governments recognizing as a vital part of the political process the
engagements that citizens make through their use of the communications resources available
to them. If governments fail to make that recognition, there is a risk that the horizon of
democratic politics-and its contribution (as Amartya Sen might put it) to a life that we can
value-will recede. And then, nothing could be done about it.

5.4 Attention Economy
Attentions scarcity due to regenerative capacity of the internet got its first attention only about
a decade back (Goldhaber, 1997). He says information, especially on the net, is not only
abundant, but overflowing. But more subtly, he argues ―there is something else that moves
through the Net, flowing in the opposite direction from information, namely attention. So
seeking attention could be the very incentive we are looking for (that can make an economy
run).‖12
He says further, ―Attention, at least the kind we care about, is an intrinsically scarce resource‖
(Goldhaber, 1997) . It is on the basis of getting attention that the entire new economy works.
It is argued that although socialization of material goods may be possible, but socialization of
attention and, hence, prominence if utterly impossible. He says that Prominence is an
essentially distinguishing quality. In contrast to material wealth, prominence cannot become a
mass phenomenon. And yet: never has there been so much prominence as today; never has

12

The Attention Economy and the Net, Michael Goldhaber, First Monday (April 1997), Page 2

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