The Roots of a Sociology of News: Remembering Mr. Gates and Social Control in the Newsroom

We examine two “classic” research studies from the 1950s: David Manning White's analysis of the “gatekeeper” news editor and Warren Breed's explanation of social control in the newsroom. Although posing a potentially radical question—“What makes news?”—these efforts were largely absorbed into and reinforced the limited media effects paradigm of the time. Drawing from interviews with the authors, we trace the origin, impact, and intellectual context of these forerunners of media sociology.

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