Gatekeeping Mechanism in Steemit
Gatekeeping is a slightly new term added to our lives. The term gatekeeping first used by social psychologist Kurt Lewin. However his first definition was about a family and a mom who decides about the nutritional habits of her family. In this case Mom is the gatekeeper. Also he instituted first theory about Gatekeeping. Obviously in these days we can only relate gatekeeping action with mainstream media and some other types of media.
What is Gatekeeping ?
The main purpose of Gatekeeping is to control the flow of information. Gatekeeper decides which content should move forward and which should not. If the material created has a social value and accepted by in social norms , Gatekeeper allows them to enter to the system. However we should achknowledge the fact that Gatekeepers can control the public knowledge and they have power to decide which material is suitable for the current mood of the society.
If we consider the current Gateekepers , we can say that they are mostly institutions. However there are also skilled and influencal individuals that can play the role as a Gatekeeper. We all saw the drop in the Bitcoin after JP Morgan's statement.
If we consider the current state of media We need to admit that Gatekeeping is inevitable. However in some circumstances gatekeeping is an huge oppurtunity for Public Relations. We need to acknowledge the fact that Gatekeeping is a powerfull status because these people decides what to discard and what to serve. However this gatekeeping process is mostly a routine in these days and they follow some certain rules.
White's Conceptual Gatekeeping Model
This is a simple and understandable model created by David Manning White and this is an acceptable model for gatekeeping however I think it would be appropriate to add some external forces in to gate mechanisms because when we consider the current state of the conventional media it would be more accurate.
Gatekeeping Mechanism in Steemit
When I first learned about steemit 16 months ago I was fascinated about this stakeholder thing. However I never got a chance to integrate myself with the community I was just a watcher. Recently I have more time to think about Steemit and comparing it to other conventional social media platforms. Because in conventional social media platform gatekeeping methods still vague and there isn't any preconception of what to do. In steemit I really like the fact that every invidual stakeholder can play his role in the duty of gatekeeping. Well Obviously if you own a lot of SP you play more active role as a Gatekeeper. However we need to accept the fact that we are all Gatekeepers .
Who are these Gatekeepers ?
Well I don't find appropriate the throw some names here therefore I'm going to explain this with some steemit terms.
Curation Guilds
Mostly these people are gatekeepers and they work to create healtier community , because of the current allocation of the SP they are helping new users and others to create more fair and healthy community. However they hold the power and they can choose which content will go for Trending section. For our current situation I find this mechanic quite impactful and beneficial however when Steemit reaches a lot of users and create an actual database with huge numbers . These guilds will lose efficiency. We can say that Curation Guilds are the selection mechanism of White's Gatekeeping theory
Steem Cleaners
If you are trying to abuse system , you are definelty going to face with this formation. This type of groups only interested in one Steem Cleaners mostly fight with Spam , Plagiarism and other stuff that is trying to abuse the system and considered as an obstacle to form a healthy social media platform. So we can say that Steem Cleaners are the discard mechanicsm mentioned in the Gatekeeping Theory
Individual Stakeholders
As I said everybody got a right to be Gatekeeper in Steemit's system however investors and the people with more SP play an active and influencal role in this subject. This is one of the best reasons to use your Steem to Powerup. Because in other social media platforms we don't have any power if we aren't a social phenomenon and some influencal internet persona. Steemit offers us to have an oppurtunity in this subject and play a role in Gatekeeping process.
Why this system is going to be Healthier ?
I really beleive this system is going to work fine in the future . Imagine Steemit reaching millions of users it is going to attract a lot of individual investors. This will provide a better and decentralized gatekeeping system unlike the other platforms. Lets consider the biggest media companies in the world. There are like 10 huge media companies that has power to do gatekeeping and maybe even some framing. Even in this form of Steemit we got a lot of whales playing role in this matter. It is definelty more than 10 and it is going to be much more higher in the future years of Steemit's. Because this is an owned media like --Google and it has to be living and breathing document. I really beleive that in future Hardforks and with the increase of userbase we can easily have a healthier platform.
Sources
I will always keep my gates open for you steemimator
Lol piotr ! I'm trying to be serious here please..
Interesting post, and I agree with your analysis.
The main purpose (IMO) of curation groups right now is to help keep steem power being distributed to more users, and to build the real gate keeping mechanism of the future, your third one, individual stake holders. You are right that as the number of users goes up, curation groups effectiveness goes down. They are just a temporary stopgap to enable the real unique decentralized gate keeping mechanism which steemit will employ in the future.
Absoloutely , and I think steemit will achieve this when more people and investors join the platform
Either one of those two will bring the other IMO. So its only a matter of which ever one comes first. :)
Hey man I'm using science tag for social studies too hope it is appropriate because there is no other suitable tag for it lol !
Data driven discussion falls under the umbrella of science, social sciences fall under the umbrella of science, science can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. There is plenty of things that are not science, but I don't think what you are doing is by any means inappropriate.
Please give me some help. Is there a place (URL) where I can go to learn the answer to the following question: By what process is the curator function affect the distribution of steam power so as to cause it to be more widely diffused among users? Thanks in advance.
Curation (aka voting) is what determines the reward associated with each post. Most new steem goes to authors and as such curation decides just how many authors receive the newly minted (like mined) steem. I know this isn't a direct link but it's the easiest explanation.
Curation affects where the steem is distributed to, and as such is important for decentralization of the coin as it continues to grow.
Thanks. Can you tell me where to go (URL) to learn the amount of STEEM mined (new coins) every day, and stat's on what proportions of that amount tend to get paid out on average daily? I am planning to develop an estimate of the amount of new STEEM that is likely to be going out onto the crypto market for sale weekly/monthly as a result of the never-ending new coin creation process. I know that will not be the only source of sale offerings; but I just want to get a sense of how much 'sale pressure' might be coming for that source alone. The long-term price curve (i.e. since 2016) points to relentless dominance of selling pressure over buying pressure.
Everything you asked about is described in the steem white paper:
https://steem.io/SteemWhitePaper.pdf
Much less then comes to bitcoin every day.
You need to take the initial artificial price pump out of your equation, the run of steem up to $4 was not realistic. Nor was it representative of the sites value at the time. You also cant look at things in terms of BTC relationship since btc was worth much less during that initial pump as well.
My remark about the long term price curve implies exactly what you advise me to do -- disregard the price pump. That I have done already. . I am still hoping to find the answer to my question. Can you help me find where to go to get the answer to this: how much STEEM is mined (new coins) every day, and what proportions of that amount tend to get paid out to authors and curators on average daily?
I just told you to read the white paper and linked to it. The numbers are in the document. Sheesh.
Sorry I missed your reference to the existence of the information in the White paper. I hope you're having a good day and will have a restful sleep tonight. Cheers! And NO Sheesh to you -- friendship instead, as life is so short, my dear.
Problem with current system is that I don't want waste my vote on disliking something stupid.
Absoloutely the voting power consumes too fast and it is not really good for gatekeeping mechacnism and it encourages people to vote people they know
very interesting. Although bots like @steemcleaners often do more harm than good.
Why you think so?
because they target and harm minnows, while whales are 100% free to say whatever they want. Why does a bot have the right to choose what is right to say and what isnt.
Yes, absolutely! Steemit is going to be an interesting place when we get out of beta. Lots of people will interact and we will see power shift and spread around a lot. it should be a fun wild ride going forward. The ride will start when the communities feature is implemented. That's when interaction levels will just sky rocket. I wrote a post yesterday about how the communities feature will change the way everyone uses Steemit in a major way.
Nice post in best information.
Good post! Thanks for share
Thanks for a nice exposition on what I feel is a crucial factor in the future evolution of STEEMIT, as it approaches its potential to outstrip Facebook in membership (in my opinion). I am slowly plowing through and classifying a very large number of posts from the “Trending” menu, and my intuition from studying them is that specific sub- communities need to be more strongly nurtured by the Top Whales. Different communities would evolve their particular sets of values, principles, procedure guides and standards of evaluation -- in other words, their own particular forms of gatekeeping that could be maintained by designated “coordinators”.
Thanks for shining some light on this :)
Loads of information. Thanks. Love it. @steeminator3000 Followed