Shifting the Gate – Generative AI’s Impact on Media Gatekeeping

Zwingmann, Nina; Hoffmeister, Eva Isabel; Engert, Simon und Hess, Thomas (2025): Shifting the Gate – Generative AI’s Impact on Media Gatekeeping. ICIS 2025: International Conference on Information Systems, Nashville, USA, 14. - 17. Dezember 2025. ICIS2025-1592 Atlanta: AIS.

Abstract

Gatekeeping has long structured the flow of information in society, traditionally controlled by media institutions. With the rise of the internet and platform infrastructures, gatekeeping shifted toward distribution and algorithmic intermediation. Today, generative artificial intelligence (AI) marks a further evolution and profoundly broadens the scope of gatekeeping. Through a multiple-case study of European publishers, this paper investigates how generative AI reshapes media gatekeeping along the media value chain (MVC). We identify four gatekeeping mechanisms—infrastructural, editorial, conversational, and personalization gatekeeping—that are triggered by publisher-facing and user-facing AI applications. Our findings show that generative AI extends gatekeeping both upstream and downstream, modularizes media workflows, and reconfigures the roles of intermediaries and publishers. We reconceptualize gatekeeping as a multi-layered, systemic process embedded in platform infrastructures, offering theoretical, practical, and societal insights into the future of media and information control.

• Dokumententyp: Konferenzbeitrag (Paper)
• Keywords: Generative AI ; gatekeeping ; digital platforms ; media industry
• Fakultät: Betriebswirtschaft > Institut für Digitales Management und Neue Medien > Digitale Medienunternehmen
• Themengebiete: 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 330 Wirtschaft
• Ort: Atlanta
• Sprache: Englisch