Image by Tobias ToMar Maier – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0.

The defining feature of a Gatekeeper is not selectivity but endowment. Selection is based on taste and necessary restriction, for instance one chooses to watch one film over another because watching both simultaneously, or all possible films, is impossible; one ends up choosing the item one gravitates towards more in the moment. Endowing is a different form of exchange based on an unequal relationship. In the former example of selection one exchanges attention for visibility. However in endowment one trades a work for an intangible, seemingly magical transformation of the status of that work. This applies especially when no other element is featured in the exchange, for instance, a work for payment. Who has in fact provided the service within such a process of endowment?