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First published online February 22, 2016

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Editorial gatekeeping in citizen journalism

Andrew M Lindner [email protected]View all authors and affiliations

Volume 19, Issue 8

https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444816631506

Abstract
Appendices
References
Biographies

Abstract

Editorial staff play an essential role as gatekeepers within professional journalism. Citizen journalism has the potential to depart from routine journalistic practices and allow for more democratic posting of unmoderated content. Nonetheless, many citizen journalism web sites do have an editorial staff and no existing research has explored the contributions of editors to citizen journalism web sites. I theorize that the editorial staff on citizen journalism sites serve as legitimating organizational structures within the larger organizational field and, as citizen gatekeepers, who enforce journalistic routines. Using a content analysis of a sample (n = 326) drawn from the largest sampling frame of English-language citizen journalism web sites based in the United States to date (n = 1958), I examine the characteristics of citizen journalism web sites with an editorial model as well as how the presence of an editorial staff is associated with the practice of journalistic routines common in professional journalism.

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Appendices

Appendix 1. Cross-tabulations of independent variables.

	For-profit		Pro-journalist		Political		Community		n
	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
For-profit
Yes			49.6%	28.7%	33.0%	39.5%	38.8%	36.2%	202
No			50.4%	71.3%	67.0%	60.5%	61.2%	63.8%	124
Pro-journalist
Yes	56.9%	35.1%			28.6%	51.5%	44.8%	40.5%	150
No	43.1%	64.9%			71.4%	48.5%	55.2%	59.5%	176
Political
Yes	31.9%	38.3%	24.1%	45.7%			19.6%	61.7%	118
No	68.1%	61.7%	75.9%	54.3%			80.4%	38.3%	208
Community
Yes	62.3%	58.7%	61.7%	57.4%	32.5%	76.1%			198
No	37.7%	40.3%	38.3%	42.6%	67.5%	23.9%			128
Founding year (mean)	2006.48	2006.06	2006.63	2005.87	2004.88	2006.87	2006.77	2005.22
City size (mean)	77.557	66.231	81.482	62.161	67.173	71.255	60.679	134.392

All percentages are column percentages.

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Biographies

Andrew M Lindner is an assistant professor at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY, and Trends Editor of Contexts. He teaches courses on mass media, political sociology, and research methods. His primary research interests are in the role of the state, the market, and civil society in structuring journalism.

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