Written by Maria Francesca Ficarra
“We need gatekeepers again – new, more diverse ones. Editors, experts. Taste isn’t a democracy, nor should it be populist. It comes from experience and exposure… Just because you eat doesn’t make you a restaurant critic.”
This extract from a Substack post written by Emily Sandberg sparked a lot of debate and echoed the opinion of many on the internet. It was posted in a moment when nostalgia for gatekeepers was gaining more and more traction, hand in hand with an opposite movement that encouraged sharing. However, none of these factions seem to provide a clear definition of who gatekeepers are and their role remains therefore unclear.
A dive into the history of the concept of gatekeeping
Gatekeeping refers broadly to the process of controlling information as it moves through a gate or filter and is associated with exercising different types of power.
Information gatekeeping describes the process of individuals filtering information and controlling its flow. It is manifested by identifying or making recommendations about relevant information for users and can help users better process and benefit from the high volume of variant information, thereby mitigating the side effects of information overload on social media.
The term gatekeeping in social channels was first coined by Kurt Lewin, when he explained how food’s journey from farms to dining tables is influenced by the decisions made by gatekeepers like the farmers, the store managers, and the shoppers like housewives. This concept was initially applied to settings such as journalism and mass communication where food was replaced with information and the way gatekeepers operate (i.e., mechanisms) kept on evolving.
Nahon and Hemsley defined network gatekeepers as “people, collectives, companies, or governments that, as a result of their location in a network, can promote or suppress the movement of information from one part of a network to another ”
Over time, the term almost lost its connection to institutional power, although traditional gatekeeping is always present. It has been brought back in style to signify someone that intentionally withholds information or knowledge – no matter how the information is microniche or of dubious value, becoming more “democratic”.
Say less
Online we are surrounded, submerged, by content. Everyone seems to share everything in a desperate quest for relatability and is almost pressured to do so due to what the journalist Ann Friedman defines as “socially enforced oversharing”.
Many content creators initially rejected gatekeeping as a guarantee of transparency and authenticity in the wake of de-influencing, but it was merely a new package for advertising. However, despite being initially painted in a negative light (“hot girls don’t gatekeep”), the consensus around gatekeepers has shifted and one could say they have become almost aspirational.
The perception started to change when the discussion about gatekeeping started to focus on how it positively affected the preservation of communities and cultures against appropriation and the decontextualization of practices.
Ulterior voices in support of gatekeeping emerged in the context of the fights against gentrification and overtourism, phenomena that have been fostered and encouraged by social media and negatively affect local communities. For examples many cities (e.g. Venice) and even countries (e.g. Japan and Bali) are studying policies and taxes to limit the flux of tourists. Another emblematic case is the neighborhood of Notting Hill where residents, tired of hordes of tourists crowding their porches to take a picture in front of the colorful houses, are choosing to repaint the exterior of their houses black in hopes to be left in peace.
This information overload has led many to ask for a filter, someone who can select and curate information: gatekeepers, i.e. people who are seen as reliable and knowledgeable enough to filter down information limiting all the available choices and the consequent feeling of being overwhelmed .
Do we really need gatekeepers?
So are gatekeepers cool now? Well not exactly.
Reading some of the articles that demand the return of these figures, it becomes evident that what is more generally required is simply people with “taste”.
This request often carries an elitist connotation (to go back to the initial quote “Taste isn’t a democracy”) especially when it comes to culture related areas such as literature, art, history, etc., that were traditionally precluded to most people in the past.
Taste, or better, good taste, is the result of experience and exposure, can be interpreted as many things – a sentiment of the time, an expression of the self, a critical judgment that discerns aesthetic qualities – and has an intrinsic subjective component.
Personally, I’d argue that while many of the arguments in favor of gatekeeping are valid, taking concrete action is extremely difficult. In fact, while on one side we are faced with the risk of significantly limiting access to information, on the other there’s no assurance that more competent creators will gain enough traction and reach mainstream audiences.
Critical analysis isn’t dead, but it’s easy to notice how it captures less attention compared to other kinds of online content and – plot twist – our access to it is regulated by the algorithm, which can be considered an actual gatekeeper. It is designed to select content that may keep us engaged based on our previous interactions, limiting the visibility of alternative pieces of information. We already experience curated online spaces that should conform to what we enjoy and yet we are denied access to higher quality in the information we consume. Finding “good content” becomes harder and requires a willing effort that not everybody wants to make nor has the resources to make.
In light of this fact it’s easy to see that, while taste and originality are not out of style, we live in online bubbles where everything is the same. Worse, we continue to feed this cycle: you watched a piece of content? Here are thousands that look the same and say the same thing! As we are fed “tasteless” content over and over so that not only critical content doesn’t show up easily, but it also receives a cold welcome, it disrupts the optimal flow of engagement.
We experience gatekeeping everyday, and yet we are often blind to its mechanisms, unable to see that the issue it’s not the stranger that doesn’t share his/her perfume but the pervasive mechanism of social media that can invisibly (but effectively) orient our behavior creating a divide between “those that know” and the rest.