Abstract
Digitization creates an ontological challenge to broadcast-era metaphors (gate, channel, flow), not least to understandings of who news gatekeepers are, where gates lie, the presumed audience, community or culture gatekeeping is done for, and what it means to gatekeep. Analysing how jihadist speeches by bin Laden, Al-Zawahiri and others are translated and remediated from their original websites, languages and contexts by various intermediaries and by western mainstream news, including the BBC, illuminates an apparently simple, settled gatekeeping model that produces systematic patterns of translation, selection and omission. Western news creates an obstacle to understanding why such texts may be appealing to some audiences by ignoring intermediaries such as terrorism-monitoring sites, Arabic media, and jihadist websites’ own self-monitoring services, delimiting a ‘mainstream’ understanding. A focus on multilingual, multiplatform gatekeeping demonstrates how loci and forms of power and authority are changing in the ‘connective turn’, to which media practitioners and scholars must adapt.
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.