Museum Management and Curatorship

ISSN: 0964-7775 (Print) 1872-9185 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rmmc20

Digital gatekeepers and website visitors of the

Acropolis Museum: revisiting gatekeeping theory
in the cultural domain

Konstantinos Kyprianos, Eirini Sifaki & Philemon Bantimaroudis

To cite this article: Konstantinos Kyprianos, Eirini Sifaki & Philemon Bantimaroudis (2019): Digital
gatekeepers and website visitors of the Acropolis Museum: revisiting gatekeeping theory in the
cultural domain, Museum Management and Curatorship, DOI: 10.1080/09647775.2019.1630851

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09647775.2019.1630851

Published online: 20 Jun 2019.

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MUSEUM MANAGEMENT AND CURATORSHIP
https://doi.org/10.1080/09647775.2019.1630851

Digital gatekeepers and website visitors of the Acropolis

Museum: revisiting gatekeeping theory in the cultural domain
Konstantinos Kyprianosa, Eirini Sifakib and Philemon Bantimaroudisc
a
Department of Archival, Library and Information Studies, University of West Attica Egaleo, Greece; bHellenic
Open University, Patra, Greece; cDepartment of Social and Political Sciences, Journalism Program, University
of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Gatekeeping theory has evolved in recent years to encompass new Received 5 February 2019
patterns and influences in a rapidly changing digital environment. Accepted 9 June 2019
The boundary between creating and disseminating digital content
KEYWORDS
is increasingly blurred, as organizations adapt both content and Gatekeeping; museums;
services to the shifting needs of their audiences. In the current cultural content; cultural
case study, viewing museums as content and cultural news news navigation patterns;
providers, we examine digital gatekeeping influences that lead wayfinding
online visitors to museum websites. Recognizing vast changes in
gatekeeping patterns, we revisit Shoemaker and Reese’s
hierarchical gatekeeping model, but in a cultural news context
where consumers have evolved as gatekeepers and gate checkers.
As we survey a multitude of data in this descriptive endeavor, we
trace various gatekeeping nodes that lead users toward museum
content.

Introduction
Museums have changed a great deal over the past 50 years. In response to increasing
market pressures, they have evolved from being guardians of various forms of cultural
heritage to become providers of entertainment, or better, edutainment. As museums
strive to meet visitors’ needs, they provide multiple types of experiences to different
groups and segments of consumers (Anderson 2004; Hooper-Greenhill 1992; Macdonald
and Alsford 1991; Weil 1990). According to Kotler and Kotler (2004), the notion of edutain-
ment has become a strategic choice that facilitates both educational as well as entertain-
ment provisions. Furthermore, museums have become mediated entities, which rely on
different types of media to create and distribute content to visitors and other cultural con-
sumers. They engage in gathering, processing and distributing information, while their
websites are recognized as sophisticated disseminators of cultural content. Scholars
have examined various aspects of museum communication (Kidd 2014). For example,
Zakakis, Bantimaroudis, and Zyglidopoulos (2015) assessed the capacity of the Acropolis
Museum in Athens to influence the content of Greek and international newspapers and
discovered that museums are significant gatekeepers not only of cultural but also of
news content.

CONTACT Philemon Bantimaroudis pbanti01@ucy.ac.cy Department of Social and Political Sciences, Journalism
Program, University of Cyprus, University Avenue, Nicosia, Cyprus
© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 K. KYPRIANOS ET AL.

Cultural gatekeepers in the digital era

If museums have indeed evolved as significant gatekeepers, it is helpful to examine their
gatekeeping capacity through the lens of media theory, although we acknowledge that
there are significant differences between news media and museums. Since the 1940s,
media theorists have recognized the role of gatekeepers in selecting, filtering, organizing,
promoting and disseminating media content that in turn shapes the knowledge, attitudes,
perceptions and behaviors of various segments of the population. As information consu-
mers gain access to certain types of information, all of these outcomes have been recog-
nized in connection with gatekeepers’ empowered positioning in various nodes of
networked societies.
The mid-twentieth century saw the seminal work of Lewin (1947), David Manning White
(1950) and Breed (1955), amongst others, in scrutinizing the roles of media gatekeepers.
More recent gatekeeping studies were rooted firmly in the media sociology tradition,
assessing multiple levels of gatekeeping influences in a hierarchical form (Shoemaker
and Reese 1996, 2014). This interdisciplinary endeavor led to significant progress that
advanced the entire field of media studies, combining scholarly developments on both
sides of the Atlantic (Reese 2009, 2015).
However, in the twenty-first century, cataclysmic developments in our rapidly changing
networked world have forced scholars to rethink gatekeeping processes. Scholars observe
that our mediated, networked reality is subject to non-linear, non-hierarchical, hybrid pro-
cesses of mediated, online interactions among information consumers and broadly
defined media content. Drawing from a variety of perspectives, many scholars have
made significant observations about an emerging, digital media ecology that renders
some of the old gatekeeping paradigms obsolete or, at least, significantly modified (Wil-
liams and Delli Carpini 2004; Singer 2005; Robinson 2006; Vos and Heinderyckx 2015;
Schwalbe, Silcock, and Candello 2015; Bakker 2014). Reese (2016) acknowledges that
‘the units and levels of analysis in journalism theorizing have been destabilized and
restructured’ (2). Significant changes in gatekeeping practices have been observed. For
example, Williams and Delli Carpini (2004) argued that the
new media environment creates a multiplicity of gates through which information passes to
the public both in terms of the sheer number of sources of information (i.e., Internet, cable
television, radio), the speed with which information is transmitted, and the types of genres
the public uses for political information (i.e., movies, music, docudramas, talk shows)
(p. 1213).

Singer (2005) observed then what is now the norm: a scholarly and professional inability
to distinguish between professional journalists and lay people who promote information
online. In fact, because virtually anyone can produce, promote and disseminate infor-
mation on the internet, the role of professional journalists shifts from ‘story selection
and toward news judgement’ (179). Barzilai-Nahon (2008) defends the idea of ‘network-
gatekeeping’ and argues that the primary focus of researchers should be on the user.
Receivers of information have assumed gatekeeping roles while interacting with estab-
lished gatekeepers.
Bro and Wallberg (2015) discuss the notion of the ‘terminal’ gatekeeper, indicating that
lay people outside the newsroom assume gatekeeping roles. They argue that
 MUSEUM MANAGEMENT AND CURATORSHIP 3

this development naturally challenges the role of news reporters as gatekeepers, since new
technological platforms now have enabled people outside the newsroom to become both
producers, publishers and distributers of news themselves, and, according to some research-
ers, it has also challenged the importance of the traditional news media altogether (p. 98).

Pearson and Kosicki (2017) offer a useful suggestion for reconceptualizing journalistic
gatekeeping as wayfinding. They argue that gatekeeping scholars should study the user
rather than mass media processes. They contend that those changes have significant
implications for the practice and study of journalism. Their way-finding framework may
be a more relevant model to the current case study, as new patterns of user behavior
are interlinked with media processes, such as the rise of aggregators and gate watchers.
‘Users do not arrive at the homepage of a news source and then select a news story,
instead they are linked to a specific story’ (9). Consumers select articles from a range of
different sources, driving media organizations to compete for users on a story-by-story
basis. A wayfinding approach suggests that most of the time, news audiences wander
around, browsing through the internet to find something that catches their attention
(15). The two models exist in a parallel fashion and interact with one another, even
though they may have contradictory aims.
Recent research on social media (Holtz and Havens 2009; Wright and Hinson 2009)
highlights the positive impact of digital media platforms on organizational communication
Moreno et al. (2015, 243). list specific positive advancements such as bypassing traditional
gatekeepers (Sallot, Porter, and Acosta-Alzuru 2004), ‘repairing’ the reputation and pre-
venting potential boycotts in crisis situations, achieving higher organizational credibility,
creating instantly available avenues through which messages are disseminated and
reach particular audiences, and even empowering practitioners by improving their pro-
ductivity. Emerging technologies, advances in social media, and new communication plat-
forms represent powerful tools for enhancing public participation, driving gatekeeping
processes toward new directions.
In the current study, we treat museum content as ‘cultural news’ and we adopt the per-
spective of the user. We argue that various types of content are subject to gatekeeping
influences while users and consumers have assumed gatekeeping roles. For example,
Bennett (2004) recognizes information and communication technologies as an overarch-
ing filter that influences individual judgements as well as organizational and professional
routines. One of the most outstanding changes in the field of media studies pertains to the
blurring boundaries between professional journalists, other information professionals,
organizations and ordinary individuals who have an unprecedented capacity to create,
promote, disseminate and consume content simultaneously. As Schwalbe, Silcock, and
Candello (2015) point out, ‘users can be their own gatekeepers’ (468). Both professional
journalists as well as lay ‘journalists’ (or lay persons) take advantage of digital media plat-
forms, which empower them in their effort to reach out to new individuals or public seg-
ments across the globe. Indeed, ‘digital technology has enabled the government,
politicians, public relations firms, terrorist groups, and sports and entertainment organiz-
ations to distribute visuals and other material directly to the public as well as to media
outlets’ (Schwalbe, Silcock, and Candello 2015, 468).
These widely acknowledged, phenomenal transformations have been approached
through a variety of perspectives. Reese (2016) offers a brief overview of emerging
mediated realities. He recognizes the influence of Castells (1996) on the work of many
4 K. KYPRIANOS ET AL.

scholars who scrutinize various aspects of networked societies – the networked public
sphere, networked journalism, and networked institutions. Naturally, ‘the blurring of
lines between professional and citizen, and between one organization and another’ (3)
are indicative of a radically different world where clearly delineated relationships
among levels of analysis cannot be easily discerned. The work of Chadwick (2017) on
hybrid media highlights the chaotic fluidity that characterizes the new media ecosystems.
Hybrid media offer a sense of empowerment to new political, social and cultural actors
while disempowering some of the established mainstream institutions. Various grassroots
groups, activists and other peripheral entities benefit from this new fluidity and openness.
In the current project, we add our voice to the multiple offerings in this realm of digital
gatekeeping. Cossiavelou and Bantimaroudis (2009) recognized the seminal value of the
Shoemaker/Reese model and its explication potential in modern hybrid as well as net-
worked media ecologies. While extending this traditional model, beyond its original hier-
archically structured levels of analysis, – from individual to ideological influences, – they
recognized at least three significant shifts: the roles of active users, the non-hierarchical
fluidity of hybrid media ecosystems and the sharing of content which is not just news.
They argued that the Shoemaker/Reese is not completely obsolete. In fact, certain hierar-
chies of influences are still in place. Individual influences and professional routines still
influence the production and dissemination of digital content. Organizational and ideo-
logical attributes are still traceable in media content. However, at the same time, scholars
acknowledge non-hierarchical, gate-checking and wayfinding influences. Adopting a hol-
istic approach to gatekeeping might lead to future conceptualizations with enhanced
explanatory capacities (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Proposal for a revised gatekeeping model. Source: Adapted from Cossiavelou et al. (2011).
 MUSEUM MANAGEMENT AND CURATORSHIP 5

The proposed modifications did not pertain exclusively to journalistic content in the tra-
ditional sense of news production – professional reporters, columnists and editors produ-
cing news content in the context of mainstream media. On the contrary, the proposed
approach encompasses ‘information’ or ‘content’ produced by individuals, groups and
various organizations, including museums.

Gatekeepers and the Acropolis Museum

The current study on digital gatekeepers is indicative of how users search for content
online while individuals, organizations and institutions negotiate new gatekeeping roles
in hybrid media environments. Museum websites have advanced as sophisticated
content providers, appealing to the needs and preferences of distinct segments of cultural
consumers. Although museum websites manage content of a segmented nature, provid-
ing information about museum experiences, we argue that cultural content can be
approached through the classic criteria that define newsworthiness, such as timeliness,
proximity, novelty and conflict. Even in mainstream news media outlets, the distinction
between news and entertainment has been blurred. In this case study, cultural content
can be treated as a form of news, although we recognize the specialized, segmented
nature of content that museums provide to interested individuals.
The Acropolis Museum, an emerging cultural organization, captures the history of the
Athenian Acropolis, widely recognized as a symbol of democracy, and a popular destina-
tion for millions of visitors every year. Along with its salient symbolism, the museum has
emerged as one of the most prominent gatekeepers of Greek culture and civilization
(Zakakis, Bantimaroudis, and Zyglidopoulos 2015). As the museum provides cultural
content through various outlets, both Greek and international newspapers react to its
content provisions, thus defining the museum as a mediated cultural institution.
From its opening in 2009, the museum received significant media attention, because of
the highly publicized and contested issue of the Parthenon Marbles (Valentza 2011). The
governments of Greece and the United Kingdom found themselves at odds with one
another as Greece requested the return of the Parthenon sculptures to Athens. Lord
Elgin removed the sculptures from the temple between 1801 and 1805, and they
remain on display in the British Museum. Since the early 1980s, this has become both a
political issue and a news item (Filippopoulou 2011; Hitchens 1998; Merryman 2006;
Greenfield 1995). International media brought it to the forefront of the public’s attention
and thereby cultural artifacts and museum exhibitions became an interesting example of
how a museum can be associated with politics and the news (Valentza 2011).
As culture and politics converge, a museum exhibition becomes news in the classic
sense of the word. A discussion about marbles, art and history now extends to the
realm of modern European affairs, politics, nationalism and conflict, and thus distinctions
between news and cultural content are rendered meaningless. A museum website, in this
context, is a ‘news’ provider. Visitors seek content of a contested nature. Reporters, colum-
nists, politicians and ordinary visitors attempt to research and interpret classical symbols
that interact with modern European experiences.
Choosing a museum for our study allows us to navigate in a shifting media domain
where the distinction between news and information is difficult to delineate. Most
recent studies are more concerned with content than focusing on news in the classic
6 K. KYPRIANOS ET AL.

sense of the term. We recognize that museums have evolved radically, becoming signifi-
cant information providers. The relationship that they therefore hold with different gate-
keepers is on one hand denotative of their information/content dynamics and on the
other indicative of the emerging gatekeeping roles in the new digital ecosystem.

Methodology
The study examines the role of websites that function as cultural gatekeepers, guiding
users toward the Acropolis website. We aim to find out how users discover the Acropolis
Museum website. What types of gatekeepers lead them to the website?
This is an adapted gatekeeping question that can provide interesting insights about gate-
keeping influences. Understandably, our approach is different from the classic hierarchical
gatekeeping structures. We do not look from the outside to the inside of a newsroom,
where editors of mainstream institutions make editorial decisions that influence content
consumption. We acknowledge the multiplicity of gates that Williams and Delli Carpini
(2004) describe in their work, and look from the inside to the outside of the organization.
How do users and other gatekeepers seek organizational content? How do they discover
the organization and its online content? Answering these questions ultimately determines
strategic decisions that define content selections and organizational promotion.
RQ: What are the primary digital gatekeepers that online visitors of the museum’s website
utilize to seek information and cultural content?

Based on available data, the content was assembled during a three-month period, from April
to June 2016. Initially, we gathered data from the site Webmeup,1 collecting evidence about
other websites that maintain links with the museum website. This initial exploration yielded
a great deal of primary data (approximately 55,000 websites). To manage this volume of
information, we decided to limit our search within the domain of each backlink page.
This action focused our search, yielding 987 domains that seem to be connected with the
website of the Acropolis Museum. Furthermore, we located the exact number of visitors
who discovered the website through these domains. To assess the exact number of visitors
derived from each backlink domain, we utilized additional services, as the Webmeup service
does not provide the exact usage of the backlinks. To ensure reliable measures, we used the
following services: Monitor Backlinks2, Rank Signals3, SimilarWeb4 and Linkody.5
In terms of available services, there are many options available, but most of the tools
and services provide a similar functionality. Therefore, we decided to select five widely
known services to retrieve backlinks regarding the Acropolis Museum Website. Our analy-
sis shows, that the WebMeUp service is one of the most reliable services in dealing with
backlink retrieval (Figure 2).
The SimilarWeb service provides additional information regarding organic searches
from Google, social networks’ backlinks and direct usage of websites. In other words,
users type directly the URL of the website they want to visit in the web browser’s
address bar. Such results cannot be extracted from any other service. Therefore, the
remaining four services were used to extract complementary information, finding back-
links that could not be traced through the WebMeUp service. In addition, from a total
of 987 backlinks, 395 were unique, while the remaining 592 were traced through more
than one service. If we used just the WebMeUp service, we would have retrieved most
 MUSEUM MANAGEMENT AND CURATORSHIP 7

Figure 2. Percentage of backlinks found from different services.

of the backlinks regarding the Acropolis museum website. The loss of information would
have been rather small (approximately 2.5%) (Table 1).
Our findings show that WebMeUp is a useful service that provides researchers with
most of the evidence needed to conduct such empirical explorations. The information
gathered from each backlink was the source URL, the domain name, the number of visi-
tors, the category of distribution, the keywords that were used, the anchor URL (i.e., the
specific link that directs the users from the backlink to the site of Acropolis Museum),
the country of origin, the date when the specific link was last used and the date when
it was created. Based on this evidence, it seems that, during the specific timeframe,
only 632 of the active links were used. After the primary data were collected, we examined
the various domains and backlinks through which visitors arrived at the museum website.
Typological categories were created describing each domain, while descriptive statistics
were employed to interpret the data.

Findings
Our descriptive analysis of online visitors who seek cultural content is quite revealing of
the most significant digital gatekeepers that determine navigation patterns, guiding

Table 1. Volume of backlinks derived from each service.

Service Unique backlinks from each service Total backlinks Percentage
RankSignals 4 539 1
WebMeUp 380 964 39
Linkody 3 179 2
Monitor Backlinks 3 106 3
SimilarWeb 5 6 83
8 K. KYPRIANOS ET AL.

users toward the website of the Acropolis Museum. Online visitors of the museum arrive at
its website from multiple gates. Only a few of the digital gatekeepers display a ‘thematic
proximity’ with the museum in the sense that they manage similar content and thereby
appeal to similar segments of the public. Other digital pillars deserve scrutiny, in terms
of their gatekeeping impact (Table 2).
Our data indicate that 7.52% of online visitors arrive directly at the Acropolis website
without any mediating guidance or direction through other websites. Apparently, users
know exactly what they are looking for because they are familiar with the organization
and its content provisions. The Google platform is the premier gatekeeper, directing
45.91% of online visitor traffic toward the Acropolis website. This finding is hardly surpris-
ing as different sources document the ubiquitous, global, gatekeeping roles of Google and
its advanced content management capabilities worldwide. Revised gatekeeping models
cannot ignore the global gatekeeping role of Google. It has emerged as a premier gate-
keeper of the world, while its initiatives in the cultural domain have provoked vivid discus-
sions among cultural stakeholders and transformations in the production and distribution
of cultural goods. Research suggests that Google Books has given creators the opportunity
to circumvent the traditional gatekeepers of publishing (Waldfogel and Reimers 2015, 58).
Τhe Acropolis Museum was one of the first to participate in the Google Art Project in order
to facilitate access to its permanent collections by offering a digital platform for personal-
ized viewing, high-definition images and navigation of information for discussion and edu-
cational purposes. (https://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/en/deltio-typou/652309263/
acropolis-museum-participates-google-art-project). The number of museums and gal-
leries participating in the Google Art Project from both sides of the Atlantic is increasing
every year, which raises considerable issues in terms of content volume and user exposure.
Museums are, perhaps unavoidably, entangled in these projects, since they are advocating
a worthy cause, but, according to some scholars, at times there may be hidden financial
considerations (Papakonstantinou and de Hert 2012, 315) (Table 3).
The other 46.57% of online museum visitors are divided among gatekeepers that
belong to the following categories of websites: blogs, education, business/industry,
travel/tourism, conferences, libraries/museums, law/government, institutions/organiz-
ations, arts/entertainment, news media, social media and other entities. Apart from

Table 2. Descriptive evidence about digital gatekeepers and wayfinders.

Digital gatekeepers Number of visitors Percentage
Education 5826.00 3.97
Business/Industry 5436.00 3.70
Travel/Tourism 16,662.00 11.34
Conferences 540.00 0.37
News/Media 8754.00 5.96
Libraries/Museums 369.00 0.26
Blogs 12,481.00 8.49
Facebook/ Social Media 3081.00 2.09
Institutions/Organizations 1259.00 0.85
Law/Government 481.00 0.32
Other 10,095.00 6.86
Arts/Entertainment 3477.00 2.36
Acropolis Website 11,070.00 7.52
Google 67,529.00 45.91
Total 147,060.00 100
 MUSEUM MANAGEMENT AND CURATORSHIP 9

Table 3. A typology of gatekeepers.

A Hierarchy of digital gatekeepers Volume of visitation (%)
Individual gatekeepers
Blogs 8.49
Organizations
Education 3.97
Business/Industry 3.70
Travel/Tourism 11.34
Conferences 0.37
Libraries/Museums 0.26
Institutions/Organizations 0.85
Law/Government 0.32
Other 6.86
Arts/Entertainment 2.36
News media 5.96
Facebook/Social Media 2.09
Website of the Acropolis Museum 7.52
Google 45.91

those who discover the museum website through Google and those who visit the site
directly, various organizations assume a gatekeeping function. For example, online visitors
arrive at the Acropolis website through mass media and social media platforms, account-
ing for 5.96% and 2.09% of visitors, respectively. The rest of the categories of digital plat-
forms are thematically related to the Acropolis content. For example, travel/tourism
websites that cater to the needs of international and domestic travelers are significant
gatekeepers, providing information on museums, including the Acropolis Museum, and
guiding online visitors to the Acropolis website. 11.34% of the website’s traffic is linked
to digital platforms that deal with travelers and visitors. Another significant category of
digital gatekeepers pertains to education portals and platforms (3.97%) catering to the
needs of students and educators. Museums have a special appeal to student groups,
who visit them in the context of educational activities. Therefore, the fact that educational
portals guide visitors toward the website of the Acropolis is hardly surprising. 3.70% of
online visitors visit the website through business/industry portals. Although it is difficult
to speculate on the motivations and needs of those segments, the volume of online visi-
tors is not negligible. Although arts and entertainment oriented platforms display a the-
matic connection with the Acropolis Museum, our data indicate that only 2.36% of
visitors are guided toward the Acropolis website through the mediating functions of
such organizations. Other digital platforms – such as conferences (0.37%), libraries/
museums (0.26%), law/government (0.32%) and institutions (0.85%) – display a secondary
gatekeeping guidance toward the Acropolis website but still merit our attention.

Conclusion
At the advent of the twenty-first century, the rapid proliferation of digital media technol-
ogies has empowered individuals, groups and other segments of the public in advancing
their agendas. In the previous century, analogue mainstream media and powerful insti-
tutions controlled the gates of information, encouraging social cohesion and mass consen-
sus around a limited number of issues. Communication professionals were primarily
affiliated with mainstream organizations, functioning within established social and ideo-
logical parameters. Today, digital media platforms have empowered individuals and
10 K. KYPRIANOS ET AL.

peripheral groups to challenge social structures, power balances and prominent insti-
tutions. Hybrid media ecosystems have provided space for virtual communities that
advance discussions, ideas and relationships that were previously overlooked or under-
mined by power structures and their ideological alliances. The capacity of new players
to promote personal or group agendas on social media is evident as extremist views
(e.g., Islamic fundamentalism) and various conspiracy theory groups (e.g., flat earth move-
ment, anti-vaccination movement) have contributed toward the collapsing of mainstream
information gates.
In the current descriptive study, we used data from computer servers to trace the move-
ment of online visitors through different digital gates and toward the website of the Acro-
polis Museum. The mobility of online visitors toward certain categories of content – in this
case cultural content – is indicative of a hybrid, heterogenous, digital media environment
where consumers of information navigate through different types of platforms, both main-
stream and alternative. Because of the multiplicity of digital gates, consumers can arrive at
information through alternate routes. Οur data suggest that segmented gatekeeping
routes can be detected by following visitors’ navigation paths through different digital
platforms. Almost half of the online traffic that arrives at the Acropolis website is
handled through Google. Furthermore, a significant number of online visitors do not
rely on any kind of gatekeepers or other forms of digital mediation. These two categories
of users represent half of the traffic received by the Acropolis Museum. Though beyond
the scope of this project, the role of Google advertising merits scholarly attention in
terms of guiding consumers toward different information provisions.
The other half of online traffic is divided among smaller groups of visitors guided
toward the Acropolis website through thematic platforms with diverging agendas.
Based on this evidence, we argue that new gatekeeping models should acknowledge
non-hierarchical as well as hierarchical gatekeeping influences, demonstrating how
users have evolved as gatekeepers and gate checkers. In this case, Google stands at the
top of new gatekeeping influences, providing hierarchies of relevant information to inter-
ested searchers. Because of its versatile capacity to adapt to searchers’ requests by recog-
nizing their location, long term interests, prior visits as well as ethnic, linguistic and
consumption habits, Google has emerged as a premier agenda setter and gatekeeper
(Figure 3).
Thematic gatekeepers guide different segments of consumers toward content that
satisfies specialized needs and gratifications. In this case, the museum’s website, travel
and tourism organizations, individual blogs, education, business and industry websites
as well as various types of media – both mainstream and social media – assume significant
gatekeeping roles. Although we draw from a large volume of online traffic toward the
Acropolis website, we resist the temptation to identify influences only hierarchically. We
argue that this glimpse of online navigation is only indicative of the most important
nodes. In this hybrid media ecosystem, there are clearly individual influences, new rou-
tines, and prevalent ideologies affected by a global techno-culture of users and consu-
mers. Although some of the old hierarchies described in the sociological analysis of
Shoemaker and Reese (1996) are still observable in the new digital world order, numerous
players guide users’ selection in non-hierarchical ways. These gatekeeping influences can
be random, unguided and seasonal. In museum markets, for example, the element of sea-
sonality is quite significant, as visitors search intensely for cultural information during the
 MUSEUM MANAGEMENT AND CURATORSHIP 11

Figure 3. Cultural gatekeeping and museum websites. Source: Adapted from Cossiavelou et al. (2011).

summer months (Bantimaroudis 2017). To outline new gatekeeping patterns, we benefit

from models designed during the analogue era. Their sociological structure, a derivative
of a hierarchical world, where elites and power structures attempted to establish trickle-
down effects is still of value, at least partially. However, in adapting these old models, scho-
lars need to account for the chaotic fluidity of hybrid digital formations that assume
gatekeeping roles.
Knowing the navigation paths that visitors use to arrive at the museum’s website pre-
sents practical lessons for theorists and practitioners alike. Managers and curators can take
advantage of this knowledge by providing important cues to relevant digital domains,
attracting additional website attention. For instance, synergies with individual and organ-
izational stakeholders who assume gatekeeping roles can prove advantageous for modern
museums. Therefore, museums and cultural institutions should come up with digital strat-
egies considering the roles of individual/lay gatekeepers. Blog writers, social media users
sharing their personal stories and various critics who are active on digital platforms display
a significant gatekeeping capacity. At the organizational level, institutions who tradition-
ally display close ties with cultural institutions such as libraries, museums and arts/enter-
tainment outlets, display secondary influences in terms of their gatekeeping roles. This is
indicative of the shifting boundaries among mainstream and alternative players as tech-
nology and industry are overturning traditional power relations.
Although our observations do not account for ideological influences, we do not mini-
mize the impact of these values. Ideology remains the dominant macro-scale pillar of gate-
keeping structures. Navigation paths and online visits constitute behavioral records of
information processing and consumption, and these indices remain subject to ideological
12 K. KYPRIANOS ET AL.

dispositions even in socially fragmented domains. Furthermore, our data indicate that tra-
ditional mainstream media influence visitors’ decisions. As a matter of fact, mainstream
media seem to be more significant than social media in terms of their impact on online
visitor mobility. There is still plenty of evidence of prevailing influences of old gatekeepers
and their hierarchical structures. However, the roles of emerging, hybrid gatekeepers are
also quite noticeable.
From a theoretical point of view, our goal in assessing gatekeeping habits in cultural
markets is a modest one. We do not aim to replace or modify old models that have
proved their value for decades, but to initiate a dialogue on how we should think about
new gatekeeping practices in hybrid digital settings. Furthermore, we examine gatekeep-
ing not in the strict sense of news production and dissemination. Our observations identify
content – news included – that users seek and consume in particular contexts, satisfying
needs identified within that segment. Thinking along these lines presents theoretical
advantages and adds to scholarly explanatory ability as gatekeepers shift people’s atten-
tion in new directions. We do not confine gatekeeping theory to the news field, but view
gatekeeping as information management structures while various types of content can be
treated as ‘news’. Finally, to be useful, new gatekeeping models should encompass both
hierarchical and non-hierarchical influences in accounting for hybrid fluidities and non-
mainstream content outputs.
What are the implications of the current case study for news gatekeeping, in the strict
sense of the term? Even in classic journalism studies, researchers need to consider the
navigation paths of news consumers while treating ‘visitors’ of news websites as gate-
keepers or gate checkers. In fact, we would argue that visitors of museum websites
are not very different from visitors of news websites – online newspapers, magazines
and news portals. Both groups are active seekers of content that appeal to personal
interests. But which digital actors guide their selections? Which institutional websites,
google ads and mainstream media influence their navigation paths? Some of them
know exactly what they are looking for and perhaps do not need such guidance. Their
segmented ideological outlook might lead them toward certain news sources to validate
their pre-existing beliefs. But who guides the online selections of less determined and
ideologically defined seekers of content? Which organizations, independent writers
and social media advocates affect their appetites? These questions, pertinent to the
news domain, are equally relevant for the cultural domain, and thus, this study can be
of interest to both types of inquiries.
Complementing the current evidence, additional empirical evidence is needed not only
to assess the role of technology as the independent variable, but carefully identify gate-
keeper distinctions at different levels of analyses. Because of the nature of our data, we
are hesitant to generalize these results to other contexts, but initiating this dialogue can
benefit different domains of information producers and consumers who compete for
people’s attention while establishing a gatekeeping presence in our chaotic, mediated
world.

Notes
1. WebMeUp Backlink Tool! (2018). http://www.webmeup.com
2. Monitor Backlinks. (2018). https://monitorbacklinks.com/home
 MUSEUM MANAGEMENT AND CURATORSHIP 13

3. Uncover SEO backlinks & traffic sources of your competitors. (2018). https://www.ranksignals.
com
4. Similarweb.com - Digital World Market Intelligence Platform. (2018). https://www.similarweb.
com
5. Backlink Tracker by Linkody - The most accurate backlink monitoring tool. (2018). https://www.
linkody.com

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors
Konstantinos Kyprianos holds a Ph. D. from the Department of Archives, Library Science and Museol-
ogy at the Ionian University (Greece). Currently, he is an adjunct lecturer in the Dept of Archival,
Libraries and Information Studies at the University of West Attica (Greece). His research interests
include: semantic web, digital heritage, communication and knowledge management.
Eirini Sifaki is adjunct lecturer in cultural communication at the Hellenic Open University. She holds a
Ph.D in information and communication sciences from the University Paris 3 – Sorbonne Nouvelle.
She is the coeditor of two books: City and Cinema: Theoretical and Methodological Approaches,
Athens: Nissos (in Greek) and World Film Locations Athens, London: Intellect. Her research interests
and her publications include issues on cultural sociology, film studies and cultural communication.
Philemon Bantimaroudis is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social and Political Sciences
at the University of Cyprus. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin, USA (1999). His
primary research interests are focused on media theory with secondary applications in culture and
politics.

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