GATEKEEPING MEDIA ONLINE LOKAL PADA PEMBERITAAN PERNIKAHAN ADAT MANDAILING BOBBY-KAHIYANG

Abstract

Hetanews.com is one of the local online media in Pematangsiantar city, North Sumatra, which have high number of readers. Having a great opportunity become a media heir for local culture, Hetanews.com on the news of Mandailing traditional marriage of Bobby-Kahiyang which shows partiality on the issue of "Mandailing not Batak" while the issue is still a pros and cons in the community, because there is no clear cultural literature about that. This study uses a constructive paradigm with phenomenology method, because the object of this research is a contemporary phenomenon and wants to know subjective experience in Hetanews.com editorial room in producing news using Gatekeeping Theory, analysis influence of the Hierarchy Theory and Agenda Setting Theory. Mandailing traditional marriage of Bobby-Kahiyang news is chosen because this news is requirements of being national news and local news. Researcher used data collection techniques with in-depth interviews with media workers in editorial rooms and media owners. In the Gatekeeping process with the gates, the positions and responsibilities of each media worker are found Agenda Setting practice by this media. This is easier because the media control wheel is in the hands of sole ownership and media relations with external organizations that facilitate various interests in news columns. The results of this study is found that there are five influence factors of according to the influence of hierarchy theory in Gatekeeping process in the editorial room. The five factors are individual factors, factors of media routines, organizational factors, extra media factors, and social system factors. The five factors affected the news channel gates in the Hetanews.com editorial room. In the news flow process, the media practices the Agenda Setting, the practice can be found since the planning stage, editorial meetings, journalists' worksheets, even at the news upload stage. The opportunity to practice Agenda Setting is wide open when the gate that has the strongest influence is editor in chief, is not very independent and unable to carry out main tasks and functions, because the work activities are regulated directly by the media owner. The media owner has a close relationship with the Raja Panusunan organization which supports the issue of "Mandailing not Batak" so that the closeness is easily regulates the flow of entry and exit news in the Hetanews.com editorial room. The results of this study also found that media owner often intervened in the Hetanews.com editorial room, that it easily to managed the media workers for work according to the owner's control, which resulted in uploaded news are containing external interests.