Abstract
This study investigates people’s attitudes towards news media’s role as gatekeepers during the coronavirus pandemic. Specifically, this concerns news media’s quality control and the selection of the most important news about the pandemic, as well as the provision of useful information and knowledge about the virus and its implications. Challenging research that has questioned the very idea of journalistic gatekeeping in hybrid media systems, we set out to explore people’s attitudes towards news media’s gatekeeper functions during a crisis, when the need for reliable and relevant information is extraordinarily high and the information environment is flooded with disinformation. In this situation, news media gatekeepers could serve as safekeepers that protect the population. Based on a national survey in Norway (N = 1024), a country characterized by high levels of trust in social institutions, including the national press, the study finds that people were generally supportive of news media’s gatekeeper functions amid the pandemic. However, there were noteworthy demographic differences. Older people, women, and those who were more highly educated showed more positive attitudes towards news media’s gatekeeping. Moreover, we found lower support for news media’s gatekeeping in the group who trusted alternative, right-wing news media.
Highlights
Around the world, the coronavirus pandemic has forcefully reminded us of the value of trustworthy news and information providers
This study has addressed journalism’s role during this critical moment by exploring people’s attitudes towards news media as gatekeepers—
By exploring how people assessed journalistic gatekeeper functions related to editorial oversight, our research offers news insight into the audience’s view on journalistic gatekeeping in times of crisis
Summary
The coronavirus pandemic has forcefully reminded us of the value of trustworthy news and information providers. The pandemic has served as an opportunity to spread fear and conspiracy theories online with the aim of destabilizing social and political order (e.g., Boberg et al 2020). This information crisis, labelled an infodemic by the World Health Organization (Zarocostas 2020), has arguably renewed the legitimacy of legacy news media’s gatekeeping role, i.e., the editorial process that determines which news is selected for publication. The journalist gatekeeper could be seen as a safekeeper in the information environment and the COVID-19 crisis as an opportunity to prove the worth of the gatekeeper as a safekeeper
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