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news, and in peacetime and at war with foreign governments. These determinants
include, but not limited to, the numerous elements in the hierarchy of influences
hypotheses proposed by Shoemaker and Reese (1996), although they have not been tested
all together. Consequently, the traditional news judgment criteria are one important block
of values for individual journalists and news editors, so are individual orientations and
organizational factors that can influence their newsroom behaviors. Also should be
considered are press access to any individuals or countries.
Moreover, his conception of conflict can be applied equally to journalism,
particularly in light of the notions of Gandy’s (1982) information subsidy and Dimmick’s
(1974) uncertain theories. The key conflict faced by the food gatekeeper is the relative
prices between or among different materials planned for foods. The relative price, in
Gandy’s idea, is decided by relative amount of time, energy and resource spent by news
organizations and their journalists in acquiring needed information that could be
transformed into news stories, and by the credibility of potential news sources. The
relative prices of certain sources is high if they are not credible or are less efficient to
obtain their opinions; by contrast, it is low if they are proven credible and their
viewpoints are easy to get.
The Integrative Gate-keeping Model
In building this conceptual model (see Figure 1), elements from a number of
theories or concepts are adopted: hierarchy of influences, the initial and extended
Westley-MacLean model, information subsidy, and Sigal’s types of channels.
Convention