Journalists as Boundary Spanners rather than Gatekeepers

In the 1970s and 80s, the role of the “gatekeeper” was common in discussions of technical transfer. The gatekeeper acted as a point of contact and a consolidator of external sources of information for the team or department. Typically, the type of information the gatekeeper dealt with was technical information for research or product development, and typically the flow of information was focused on that coming into the organization. 

With the advent of globalization and the Internet, the gatekeeper became less necessary, as technical information from everywhere was (at least in theory) available to everyone. In the 1990s to the present day, then, the recognition of complexity in business relationships and in information management have moved us from the role of gatekeeper to one of “boundary spanner.”

Boundary spanners tend to 

1. read more, 
2. maintain longer-term relationships with experts, 
3. draw on a wider pool of expertise than others, and 
4. are able to derive more value from external sources of information. 

As a system thinker, the boundary spanner understands the specific interests and needs of the varied systems involved in a project.
The boundary spanner needs another essential ingredient beyond a large network: s/he must sustain credibility among a large number of peers.
This credibility is based on the quality of information delivered; interpersonal relationship-building skills; and a track record of responsiveness and reciprocity.

Diane Sonnenwald of the University of North Carolina has created a system of boundary spanning roles based on her work with design teams. She sees five discrete boundary types: 

1. organization, 
2. task, 
3. discipline, 
4. personal, and 
5. multiple, 

with several roles responding to each type. Her premise is that project teams can consider these roles and identify team members who will fulfill each of them in the course of the project. She suggests that communications will be enhanced through this method, and the team will be more effective as a result.

SOURCE: Boundary-Spanning and Boundary Spanners, By Dori Digenti,
http://ddigenti.wordpress.com/papers/boundary-spanning/