ABSTRACT
Gatekeeping is a core concept of journalism research, with a longstanding and vivid research tradition. The concept gradually evolves with changes of media systems, providing gatekeeping scholars with the challenge to capture how changing media environments alter gatekeeping processes in journalism. Scholars stress that for political journalism, the audience is less important than other journalistic subcultures, due to its adherence to high-quality standards in the name of the public good and a collective sense of belonging to an elite circle. Scholars argue that audience inclusion weakens the insider culture of political journalism, as the gradual modifications of editorial gatekeeping practices are shifting political news production away from the "insular relationships between journalists and politicians" by restricting the power of classical organizational factors such as journalistic co-orientation. The interplay of strategic political communication and journalism practices is primarily researched in the context of election campaigns, in times of political crises and wars.
