Post-publication gatekeeping practices: Exploring conversational and visual gatekeeping on Finnish newspapers’ Instagram accounts

Abstract

News media share gatekeeping power with social media platforms and audiences in the digital news environment. This means news media is no longer the sole gatekeeper when gatekeeping is viewed post-publication, that is after news content has been published and entered circulation. In this study, we approach interacting and commenting on social media as post-publication gatekeeping practices. This means gatekeeping materialises as and in social interaction, as conversational gatekeeping. We engaged in a quantitative and qualitative analysis of Instagram posts and comments on Finnish newspapers’ Instagram accounts during a period of one year (April 2019–March 2020) to explore how conversational gatekeeping emerges in the increasingly visual and multimodal social media environment. We contribute to the emerging stream of post-publication gatekeeping research by showing how multimodal Instagram content initiated four different styles of performing conversational gatekeeping: affirmative, critical, corrective, and invitational styles. Our typology helps to understand the social interactional relationship between news media and their audiences in general, as well as the micro-level practices of post-publication gatekeeping in particular.