“GATEKEEPING,” AS A TERM APPLIED to media, entered the vernacular in the aftermath of World War II. After witnessing great cultures enthusiastically submit to fascism, American social scientists began to scour their own society for weaknesses. How did public opinion work in this country? What fascist tendencies were lurking on the crabgrass frontier? A rash of academic studies attempted to discern how information traveled to the common man, probing for points that demagogues might exploit. In the era—just before Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite came to represent journalistic
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