11.2: Audience building vs. gatekeeping

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Magazine newsstand. (Unsplash free-to-use license; Thom Masat)

For the purpose of this text, the term "legacy media" refers to newspapers, magazines, film, radio, TV, and other mass media platforms that originated as analog media. The work of building audiences in the heyday of legacy media was significantly different from developing networks of engaged audience members in networked platforms. Mass audiences generally had fewer media options at their disposal, and so it was not uncommon for popular newspapers and magazines to have millions or even tens of millions of subscribers who would gladly pay for content they could not get elsewhere.

The rise of broadcast radio and television (in the early-to-mid 20th century in the United States) made constant streams of media available to consumers for free over the airwaves, provided they could afford a receiver, i.e. a radio or a television. Audiences for popular broadcast television shows in the mid-20th century were often in the tens of millions. Often these are ratings only reached by top shows on television and on streaming today.

Media writers with fairly captive audiences probably had more ability to dictate audience tastes than media writers today. Writers were also gatekeepers whose decisions about what to publish or broadcast made the difference between whether people would have access to content or not. Now, professional media writers, producers, etc. amplify content, but in networked spaces once information is made public it is quite easy for audience members to share information between themselves and to bypass media professionals altogether.

Definition: Gatekeeping

With legacy media, gatekeeping decided what information was presented to mass audiences on major media platforms. Information that was not selected to pass through the "gates," so to speak, was largely inaccessible to mass audiences in practice. An academic definition of gatekeeping according to Pamela Shoemaker and Tim Vos states that gatekeeping is the “process of culling and crafting countless bits of information into the limited number of messages that reach people everyday."

Gatekeeping on major media platforms still happens. Where media products need a great deal of promotion to be noticed such as with major motion picture releases, media companies often forego producing films that they do not believe have blockbuster potential. Depending on the medium, the costs of production, and the costs of promotion, gatekeeping is a prevalent but no longer ultra powerful role.

Audience members as media creators

In the days of analog media dominated by gatekeeping, most individuals who did not work in the media professions had no way of publishing content that could be consumed by mass audiences. 

However, some individuals could pay for advertising, find a media company willing to publish their book or article, write a letter to the editor of a print publication, or host an event for public relations purposes in the hopes that the news media might cover it. As you might expect, all of these possibilities were also subject to gatekeeping. 

The democratization of media in digital networks means almost anyone has the potential to reach a mass audience, to "go viral," at any time if they create content that is interesting enough to be shared widely. That said, going viral is not audience building. Viral content is not particularly engaging, predictable, or sustainable in the long term.

Individuals also have the potential to build audiences organically through engagement as discussed throughout this chapter. Think of a successful podcaster or musical talent who got their start on social media. Often, these producers publish content for years and grow their audience slowly at first and then in bursts as they improve their skills and learn what is compelling to their audience.

The interplay between creators and media companies

One goal of many who build networked audiences as digital media producers is to grow enough of a following that they can essentially market their audience to legacy media platforms. Legacy media companies often have much larger budgets for promoting new content to audiences. Legacy media also have the power to use their existing popular products to promote new content. This is why networks pay so much to air the Super Bowl or the Olympics. They use much of the commercial time during those broadcasts to promote their other content.

An example of an individual producer who built an audience and then brought that audience to a platform with gatekeeping power on promotion is Issa Rae. Her most popular early independent production was a YouTube web series called "Awkward Black Girl," which had stellar writing and strong comedic acting mixed with relatively low-cost production values.

In the future, it is likely that media organizations will continue to amplify the work of select independent producers but also that they will follow this audience building model of production themselves when possible.

Near the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, there are still mass audiences to be reached, and many of them are reached on legacy media platforms such as films, television, radio and their digital counterparts. However, the idea of tapping into audiences with messages created by a single sender meant for millions of receivers is losing ground to audience building in networked communication structures.