Culturally gatekeeping the black comic strip
Although the traditional gatekeeping landscape is quickly changing, newspaper editors are, in the case of the Black comic strip, in the unique position of serving as both traditional and cultural gatekeepers. When making decisions about what news gets into the paper, newspaper editors oversee “the overall process through which social reality transmitted by the news media is constructed” (Shoemaker et al. 2001: 233). At the same time, on the comics page, they “make decisions about what images to project” (Anderson and Taylor 2006: 274). Also, just as the traditional roles of gatekeeper and the gated are ambiguously interchangeable on the web, the cultural gatekeeping that produces Black comic strips can be conceptualized in several ways, which this chapter will more fully explicate.
First, the cartoonists themselves are cultural gatekeepers in the sense that they project images within the comics that affect racial perceptions and associations. These comics are then subject to institutional forces at the newspaper that serve as a second level of gatekeeping, a more traditional form. Finally, at the third level, it is not only the images projected in the microlevel comics that influence racial perceptions, but also how much Black and White appears on the comparatively macro-level comics page itself.
Because the disadvantage or subjugation of a given social group “is created and maintained … through cultural beliefs and stereotypes that provide narrower, more distorted, or more harmful images” about one group than another (Milke 2002: 840), clearer conceptualizations of these levels of gatekeeping that produce the Black comic strip will allow for more methodologically rigorous research on the Black comic strip.
Although the concept of gatekeeping has been applied to many fields (e.g. Bass 1969; Schultze and Boland 2000; Sturges 2001), the term “gatekeeper” was first used to describe the process through which, when passing though channels of communication, some news items make it to the public while others do not (White 1950). For both communications researchers and professional journalists, the concept of gatekeeping has been the dominant conceptualization because, in traditional media such as print, radio and television, the amount of space devoted to news is finite, making it “necessary to have established mechanisms which police these gates and select events to be reported according to specific criteria of newsworthiness” (Bruns 2003: 1). In this way, only that information considered to be suitable to a medium’s audience by a small number of “gatekeepers” (Lewin 1947; 1951) would reach it.
Defined by Shoemaker (1991) as “the process by which the billions of messages that are available in the world get cut down and transformed into the hundreds of messages that reach a given person on a given day” (p. 1), gatekeeping in communication and journalism has most often considered editors, journalists and newspaper editorial staffs to be gatekeepers. Additionally, gatekeepers in print and broadcast media must not only select what content passes through to the audience, but also in what way that content is presented within the confines of a given medium and based on generally agreed-upon rules such as the inverted pyramid style of writing. With this in mind, Shoemaker et al. (2001) redefined the concept as “the overall process through which social reality transmitted by the news media is constructed, and is not just a series of ‘in’ and ‘out’ decisions” (p. 233).
Barzilai-Nahon (2008) identifies three waves of gatekeeping theories in communication research (see Barizali-Nahon, 2008, for a thorough review). The first wave focused on individual factors that influence gatekeeping, such as personality characteristics and normative and moral values of gatekeepers (e.g. Gans 1979). The second concentrated on organizational and procedural influences on gatekeeping (e.g. Bass 1969), and the third wave is interested in institutional, cultural and social influences on gatekeepers and the gatekeeping process. She then lists some key questions that have been asked about gatekeeping in the current literature and in that of the past decade, including how editors make decisions (Hardin 2005), how their roles change on the Web (Singer 2001; 2006), and whether the new media sets the news agenda differently from the traditional media (Porter and Sallot 2003).
To this point, no research on Black comic strips has considered the dual role of newspaper editors as traditional and cultural gatekeepers, or conceptualized the comics page as a societal metaphor that results from several levels of gatekeeping. Additionally, no discussion of gatekeeping would be complete without an analysis of the new forms of information control resulting from the technological affordances of online newspapers, as well as social networks and collaborative web portals.
Barzilai-Nahon (2008) points out three reasons why these new conceptualizations of gatekeeping are needed in communications research, particularly concerning the Black comic strip. The first is evident in the ambiguous nature of gatekeeping on the web compared to the straightforward, unidirectional model of the traditional media. This study embraces that ambiguity and offers a number of clarifiers. The second is that gatekeeping has become increasingly disciplinary, with definitions and conceptualizations that are inapplicable outside of a particular field of study or research agenda. This study will account for this ambiguity by positing a muli-leveled model of gatekeeping in traditional, cultural and network contexts. The third reason that Barzilai-Nahon (2008) argues for a new conceptualization of gatekeeping is because most past research has focused on gatekeepers, not the gated. Because this study will not consider the two mutually exclusive or even distinct conceptual roles, it answers BarzilaiNahon’s (2008) call for “additional theoretical refinement and clarification of network gatekeeping, and specifically understanding the spectrum of dynamics of gated activities and characteristics” (p. 30). How the gated respond to the Black comic strip, and the gatekeeping decisions that produce it, will allow for a clearer understanding of the social implications of Black comics.
Traditional gatekeepers and their audiences
The concept of gatekeeping has been traditionally considered a unidirectional relationship, with gatekeepers and the gated playing sender and receiver roles (Barzilai-Nahon 2005). While the gated, or receivers, are often considered newspaper readers, the gatekeepers, or senders, are most often conceived of as editors and editorial staffs. Because editors believed that their readers lacked the journalistic training to gatekeep their own content (Gladney 1996), the gatekeeper was seen as responsible for both producing and disseminating information to the gated. Additionally, even with a shift toward online news, the gated may only produce content “under the control and authorization of the gatekeeper” (Barzilai-Nahon 2005), and the ability of the gated to circumvent the traditional gatekeeping process is considered minimal, as in the case of the Black comic strip in traditional media.
Contrastingly, in print journalism, several analyses (e.g. Atwood 1970; Gladney 1996) of editors and reading audiences have shown that journalists and readers often have contradictory notions of how gatekeeping, including that of comic strips, should be defined and practiced. Some editors often underestimate the number of people reading the paper and overestimate interest in soft and fluff news (McNulty 1988; Gladney 1996), while others view readers condescendingly, perceiving reader interest as divergent from professional standards of quality journalism (Atwood 1970). Given this relationship, and despite their ontological differences and often divergent perceptions and opinions in traditional print journalism, editors and readers are psychologically similar in online news (Sundar and Nass 2001). No research has addressed the sociological implications of this psychological similarity for the Black comic strip.
Even with more politically partisan news outlets, newspaper and comic strip readers or television viewers can switch papers or channels, but are still subjected to the same traditional gatekeeping processes. However, Kelley and DeMoulin (2002) concluded that traditional news sources would be abandoned in favor of the internet as people became more comfortable with its capabilities. Research from the Pew Research Center (“Newspapers face a challenge calculus” 2009) has supported this outlook by showing that as readership of daily print publications decreases, readers are getting their national and international news from online sources. Journalists and editors who combat this phenomenon by giving the public “what it wants” (Bogart 1989), or what they think it is inclined to consume based on market research, are accused of ignoring a journalistic code based on objectivity, accuracy and balance. Also, because what readers want may not be what they need in order to be informed and participatory citizens of a democracy, reader preferences often conflict with traditional journalistic norms and values.
Much research has addressed what exactly readers expect from journalists and editors (McNulty 1988; Gladney 1996; Grotta et al. 1975). While some researchers have targeted young readers and attempted to determine readership from content characteristics, others have probed reader preferences for layout, design, and balance of hard and soft news (Gladney 1996). Still others have inferred reader perceptions and preferences from circulation and market size differences. For example, Carter and Clarke (1963) compared reader interest in what they called “disruptive” and “integrative” news in daily and weekly newspapers, and Grotta et al. (1975) found that, more so than readers in a large market, readers of small circulation newspapers value local news coverage over national or international news. Griswold and Moore (1989) scrutinized how variables such as size and closeness of community affected reader perceptions of news, and Viall (1992) suggested that the diversity or homogeneity of a newspaper’s market affects reader perceptions of journalistic values. After asking journalists, editors and academics to name high and low quality newspapers, Stone, Stone, and Trotter (1981) found that a newspaper’s circulation was more often a product of the size of the market than the quality of the paper. Finally, with the advent of television, online and citizen journalism, many studies (e.g. Carroll 1989) have looked at the influence of market size on perceptions of journalistic values in these new media. What has yet to be considered with the relationship between gatekeepers and readers are their attitudes toward their dual role as traditional and cultural gatekeepers, which role they believe is more important and, most consequently, their awareness of the difference.
Less is known about editor and journalist perceptions of their reading audiences. Friedland (1996) and Jankowski and van Selm (2000) observed differences between how audiences consumed information in a traditional medium and engaged journalists in an online news environment. Among others, Martin, O’Keefe and Nayman (1972) compared the findings of a public opinion poll to editors’ perceptions of public opinion on the same issues; Bogart (1989) compared reader interest with what editors considered important; and McNulty (2008) found readers, not editors, to be more discreet and conservative about what should get into the paper and onto the comics page. Atkin, Burgoon, and Burgoon (1983) surveyed both editors and readers and discovered that editors assumed their readers to be indifferent to a number of journalistic standards, underrated reader interest in state, national, government, political and international news, and overrated reader appetite for sports, entertainment, cultural and fashion news. Gladney (1996), despite the aforementioned evidence to the contrary, found that both editors and readers consistently ranked standards like integrity, impartiality, and editorial independence as important, while influence and reputation were consistently considered unimportant. Nevertheless, many standards were not agreed upon, supporting past research (e.g. Atwood 1970) which suggests that overall, editors have a condescending view of their audiences.
Whereas news aggregate sites and journalistic blogs rely on the “involvement of a loyal audience with a lot of enthusiasm and expertise,” the in-depth, investigative and thought-provoking reporting of print newspapers and magazines has not gained a following in the “rapid, superficial, appropriative, and individualistic” web community (Palatella 2010: 31). One reason has been the diminishing of journalistic standards online where, according to Palatella (2010), “quantity beats quality, being first beats being the best…speed is confused with timeliness, and the value of timeliness is debased by speed” (p. 26). The Black comic strip is unique in that, unlike news stories which may be fundamentally altered by the different media through which they are viewed, it changes neither when appearing in newspapers nor when forwarded through online networks.
Alternatively, cultural gatekeepers must not only make decisions about what images to project to the public, but also respond to audience criticism about them (Milke 2002). Their responses to this criticism and attitudes toward those who criticize provide insight into the ways in which images of race are perpetuated by the media. Milke (2002) interviewed ten editors of national girls’ magazines about the images of femininity being portrayed in their magazines and the criticism that the images fail to adequately represent reality. She found that most of those interviewed, even the highest-ranking editors, dismissed the complaints as misguided and downplayed their influence as cultural gatekeepers, attributing the images of femininity in the magazines to artistic processes, cultural forces or advertising needs (Milke 2002). Also, even when they did acknowledge the validity of the criticisms, the editors cited institutional and organizational limitations to consequential change. No research has considered cultural gatekeeping in the context of the Black comic strip.
Even when the social conditions surrounding a given group change and evolve, such as a percentage increase in a population, a scarcity of images in the media “may frame the gender or racial order as natural” (Collins 1991; Milke 2002: 840). The comics page, therefore, is a subtle means through which the resulting social ideals can be reinforced and perpetuated, with or without the knowledge or intent of gatekeepers at any of the three levels. Milke (2002) posits that, regarding femininity and the female body, simplistic and objectifying images of women and girls in the media are a systematic form of “cultural oppression” that results in a “distorted, narrow image of female beauty” (Milke 2002: 841). The consistent portrayal of women and girls in “narrow, trivializing, or distorted ways” leads to their “symbolic annihilation” in the media (Gerbner 1993; Tuchman 1978a; Milke 2002: 840) and may cause the belief, even among the group itself, that it is irrelevant or inferior (Ballaster et al. 1999; Davis 1997; Collins 1991) while more and more positively-portrayed groups are seen as normal and culturally rewarded (Kellner 1995).
From a macro perspective, the symbolic annihilation of a particular group through the media is a subtle process that often goes unnoticed by the symbolically annihilated. Comic strips are only a part of this process but, when considered at a micro level, they can become overt and explicit methods of annihilation, which can occur at three levels. This chapter will be among the first to investigate cultural gatekeeping at these three levels—the cartoonist, the comic strip and the newspaper—and to consider the color on the comics page as a metaphorical reflection of the social—and racial—world.
Levels of gatekeeping of the black comic strip
Level 1: Cartoonists as Gatekeepers: Cartoonists and comic strip artists serve as cultural gatekeepers by projecting images within comics that affect racial perceptions and associations. Just as journalists and editors must choose which individual stories and items of news from a mass of information to include in a given publication, cartoonists and comic strip artists, sometimes unknowingly, choose both what images to project and in what light to project them. However, unlike editors and especially journalists, who are often making gatekeeping decisions under harsh deadlines, cartoonists and Black comic strip artists must carefully and thoughtfully organize the visual and verbal elements of a comic to evoke their desired response in audiences of varying education and familiarity levels.
Level 2: Editors as Gatekeepers: Once completed, the comic strips are subject to organizational and institutional forces at the newspaper that serve as a second and more traditional level of gatekeeping. As mentioned, gatekeeping decisions at this level are made with less consideration for sociological implications.
Level 3: Product of Gatekeeping: Finally, at the third level, it is not only the images that appear in the individual comics that influence racial perceptions, but also the frequency with which they appear on the comics page over time. Just as the media may influence to varying degrees what audiences consider newsworthy (McCombs 1982; McCombs and Shaw 1972; Rogers and Dearing 1988), a systematic dearth of Black comic strips on the comics page “casts the group as irrelevant or inferior and provides a difficult fit between who they believe they are and who they are portrayed as being” (Milke 2002: 840). At the same time, the groups who dominate the comics page and are portrayed more and more positively throughout the media landscape are provided a “privileged fit” into cultural frames of what is normal, acceptable, and rewarded (Milke 2002: 840). A systematic and longitudinal analysis of these levels of gatekeeping is needed to determine the extent to which this is the case with the Black comic strip.
Implications
These levels of gatekeeping have implications not only in traditional and cultural contexts, but also as instances of network gatekeeping. However, they do not account for new forms of gatekeeping that result from the interchangeability of gatekeeping roles as Black comics are shared on and forwarded through social networks and collaborative web portals. Because anyone can produce, reproduce and disseminate a product on the web at a low cost and from virtually anywhere, the concept of a gate through which only some material passes becomes less relevant (Hargittai 2000). Network gatekeeping theory (Barzilai-Nahon 2005) posits that while online networks increase opportunities for the gated to produce and disseminate their own information without the approval of a traditional gatekeeper, web users “are still largely dependent on the gatekeeper’s design and policy to reach users due to the fact that attention of Internet users is concentrated on a very small number of information providers” (Barzilai-Nahon 2008: 248). Barzilai-Nahon (2005) defines a network gatekeeper as an “entity (people, organizations, or governments) that has the discretion to exercise gatekeeping through a gatekeeping mechanism in networks and can choose the extent to which to exercise it” (p. 248). These network gatekeepers can prevent information from coming into or leaving a network and control the extant information within that network.
When web users with no traditional journalistic training have no political power, there is little opportunity to create and disseminate meaningful information and circumvent traditional gatekeepers. As online power and influence increase, so do the opportunities to produce content (Barzilai-Nahon 2007). Because identifying information is often nonexistent on social networks and collaborative web portals, network gatekeeping allows for far more diversity than the unidirectional and hierarchical theories of traditional media. How this increased diversity affects the levels of gatekeeping that produce Black comic strips is an intriguing avenue for future research. For the purposes of Black comic strips, the interchangeability of gatekeeper and gated roles on the web can greatly enhance the diversity of discourse in social networks and collaborative web portals. Also, because geographical and biographical markers rarely accompany network gatekeepers on the web, the homogeneity of traditional gatekeeping could also be more diversified. However, anonymity is not diversity. While a more diverse group of network gatekeepers may be more influential in sharing Black comic strips, determining if this diversity of network gatekeeping requires anonymity is an additional avenue for future inquiry.
The concept of network gatekeeping differs from the traditional relationship between gatekeepers and audiences in several other ways. The differences are categorized by Barzilai-Nahon (2005) according to gatekeeping process, focus on gatekeepers: focus on gatekeeping mechanism, relationship, information, alternatives, power, number of gatekeepers and types of gatekeepers. While the process of traditional gatekeeping is mostly selection by those in the media (Gladney 1996), network gatekeeping theory posits that in addition to selection, online gatekeeping includes channeling, shaping, integration, localization, manipulation, shaping and deletion as well. Also, although most research on traditional gatekeeping focuses on an individual journalist or the editorial staff of a newspaper as the gatekeeper, a number of other considerations, such as network service providers, governments and organizations, can also perform many of the same gatekeeping tasks traditionally left to members of the media and editors of the comics page.
Additionally, as mentioned before, while the relationship between gatekeepers and audiences can be condescending and hegemonic in traditional media (Gladney 1996), the frequent interactions between gatekeepers and the gated, and the ability for both to produce content, make this relationship inapplicable to Black comic strips. Finally, while traditional gatekeeping theories are locked into conceptualizing gatekeepers (e.g. editors, journalists, newspapers) as senders and the gated (e.g. newspaper readers) as receivers, the two roles are interchangeable in online networks where “the roles of sender and receiver are repeatedly exchanged” (BarzilaiNahon 2005: 248).
Network gatekeeping accounts for the condescending relationship between traditional gatekeepers and audiences (e.g. Atwood, 1970) by theorizing that, because the relationship is seen, at least generally, as unidirectional, newspaper and comic strip readers have no voice or power. Contrastingly, within online networks, the ability of users to create their own information has increased their “bargaining power” and caused gatekeepers to “avoid conditions which encourage the gated to overcome gates that have been posted in networks” (Barzilai-Nahon 2005: 249).
Also, the compatibility of network gatekeeping with other communications theories such as agenda setting and framing may also have implications for the gatekeeping of Black comic strips. Prior research has found little correlation between the decisions and activities of gatekeepers of differing levels of activity, suggesting that each group uses distinct news cues and heuristics in their decision-making at each level. Future research should more fully explicate and experimentally confirm the differences among gatekeeping decisions made at the three levels posited in this chapter.
Ultimately, the web poses paradigmatic challenges not only to news production and consumption, but also traditional and cultural notions of gatekeeping. This chapter has offered a new conceptualization of the levels of gatekeeping through which the Black comic strip is produced and, through the several avenues for future research that it outlines, it has served as a framework for future research on this heretofore understudied but societally impactful topic.
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