Gawker, Mr. Cook wrote, “will take a ‘Daily Show’ approach to covering the ever-intensifying culture wars, documenting, satirizing and reporting on the ways that political disputes are refracted in every aspect of our popular culture.”

The broader changes to Gawker Media follow a controversy over the summer after Gawker.com published an article about a married male executive who was apparently seeking a liaison with a male escort.

Faced with widespread criticism, including threats to withdraw advertising, the site removed the article. Two of the company’s senior editors — Tommy Craggs, the executive editor of Gawker Media, and Max Read, the editor of Gawker.com — resigned in protest. They were succeeded by Mr. Cook and Mr. Pareene. Mr. Denton said publicly that the site would be “nicer” in the future and less tabloid in its sensibilities.

The company will now focus on its seven core sites, which include the technology site Gizmodo and the sports site Deadspin. About a dozen smaller sites will be shuttered, Mr. Cook said in his memo, including Valleywag, which covered Silicon Valley.

Some of the areas of coverage that those sites focused on will now be addressed by the remaining seven sites. Jezebel, he said, will now “become the primary voice for celebrity and pop culture coverage in the network.” Gizmodo, which recently hired a new editor, Katie Drummond, from Bloomberg, will take over the coverage of science fiction, fantasy and futurism that was previously handled by the site io9.

Seven people will lose their jobs in the revamping, although six jobs will be created. Plans to license Gawker’s content management system, Kinja, will be shelved.

Gawker.com, the first site founded by Mr. Denton, had been seen as the quintessential Manhattan media and gossip publication of the Internet age — a destination for ambitious, young writers eager to cover the industry and the powerful figures who populate it.