In this Age of Catastrophic Distraction, a Voice is rising from the people advocating ACCOUNTABILITY. Old practice, new format. Bloggers are the Fifth Estate. What does that mean?
Fifth Estate
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Fifth Estate (disambiguation)
The term "Fifth Estate" has no fixed meaning, but is used to describe any class or group in society other than the
clergy (First Estate), the nobility (Second Estate), the commoners (Third Estate), and the press (Fourth Estate).[1]
It has been used to describe civil society (including trade unions) and the poor or theproletariat. It can also be used
to describe media outlets (including the blogosphere) that see themselves in opposition to mainstream media (the
official Press). The term is entirely different in origin and meaning from "Fifth Column", which is used to describe
subversive or insurgent elements in a society.
Nimmo and Combs assert that political pundits constitute a Fifth Estate.[2] Media researcher Stephen D. Cooper
argues that bloggers are the Fifth Estate.[3]William Dutton has argued that the Fifth Estate is not simply the
blogging community, nor an extension of the media, but 'networked individuals' enabled by the Internet in ways that
Blogs as a Fifth Estate[edit]
Making reference to Montesquieu’s concept of "three estates of the realm" (executive, legislative and judicial) and
to a more recently developed model of "four estates", which encompasses the media, Nayef Al-Rodhan introduces
the weblogs (blogs) as a "fifth estate of the realm". Blogs have potential and real influence on contemporary
policy-making, especially in the context of elections, reporting from conflict zones, and raising dissent over
corporate or congressional policies. Based on these observations, Al-Rodhan suggests moving beyond traditional
thinking that limits the “estates of the realm” to governmental action and proposes a broader perspective in which
civilians or anyone with access to a computer and the Internet can contribute to the global political change and
security.[5]
Of all the blogs on the Internet, continues Al-Rodhan, only a few have a real power to influence the policy-making
process, specifically political and current affairs blogs with large and involved audiences. These blogs can help
organize the public to take a stance on an issue, be used in political campaigns, help cultivate grassroots
movements, and assist in fundraising. Furthermore, blogs have several unique features that give them potential
influence in policymaking: a lack of editorial supervision, low barriers to entry, difficulty for governments to censor
or control content, and the ease of responding to events in real time. Blogs can affect policy-making by providing
insider information, facilitating communication between experts, promoting grassroots efforts, discrediting political
figures, and setting policy agendas. Blogs as "the fifth estate" are also influencing global security. They can
contribute to terrorist plots by facilitating cross-border communication and by connecting people whose ideas are
outside of the mainstream, by propagating hateful or violent messages, or by encouragingorganized crime. Therefore,
Al-Rodhan concludes, governments must increase surveillance of blogs and develop legal, administrative, and
technological tools to dissuade bloggers from posting potentially harmful information, such as calls to incite terrorism.
On a more positive note, blogs have also the potential to prevent governments from adopting hasty and misjudged
References[edit]
- ^ Random House Dictionary
- ^ Dan D. Nimmo and James E. Combs (1992). The Political Pundits. Praeger/Greenwood. p. 20. ISBN 0-275-93545-0.
- ^ Stephen D Cooper (2006). Watching the Watchdog: Bloggers as the Fifth Estate. Marquette Books. ISBN 0-922993-47-5.
- ^ Dutton, W. H. (2009), ‘The Fifth Estate Emerging through the Network of Networks’, Prometheus, Vol. 27, No. 1, March: pp. 1-15.
- ^ "Geneva Centre for Security Policy - GCSP / Emerging Security Challenges / Globalisation / Publications / BookFaculty Publications / Books and Edited Volumes / The Emergence of Blogs as a Fifth Estate and Their Security Implications". Gcsp.ch. Retrieved 2012-11-17.
- ^ Al-Rodhan, Nayef R.F., The Emergence of Blogs as a Fifth Estate and Their Security Implications, Geneva, Slatkine, 2007.
