Media Agenda-Setting and Gatekeeping: The Twitter Takeover of Traditional Mass Media Practices Through the Use of Networked Journalism

With a growing number of people moving away from traditional sources of information providers, towards new online sources, it has become evident that the agenda setting and gatekeeping functions of the past have been altered. Due to such alteration, it can be said that the profession of information dissemination has all but evaporated into a cesspool of opinion that has been framed to uphold the viewpoints of a particular ideology. While most studies to date have been effective in highlighting the alteration of agenda-setting and gatekeeping, this paper attempts to focus on the shift in such practices, away from traditional mass media institutions, to a new form of media through the practices of networked journalism. In order to demonstrate the following, this paper uses the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election as a case study. Tweets from traditional mass media institutions, new media institutions (such as thought opinion leaders), and the public are collected and examined in relation to information dissemination, via topic coverage. An analysis of these tweets confirms such shift in agenda-setting and gatekeeping, where the powers of information dissemination move away from traditional mass media institutions, towards a model of information that is dependent upon the public and its engagement of such information. This study is part of a larger body of research on the twenty-first century phenomenon of publicly sourced information dissemination in the networked society. In focusing on the shift that is occurring within society, this study will contribute to future publications on a similar topic