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December 18, 2007
The media are often seen as central to democratic processes: a 'fourth estate ' independent of government and other powerful institutions. Today, however, the Internet and Web are creating a new space for networking people, information and other resources. Does this network of networks have the potential to become an equally important 'fifth estate' which could support greater accountability in politics and the media. Is this plausible? How does this develop the idea of a public sphere? How is the fifth estate different from the fourth estate?
I have come as far as seeing that the Internet is a new kind of space and one that is different from that of the traditional mass media, even when they (News Corp, ABC, Fairfax) step into this space to support their traditional activities. But what kind of space is this new space? In his inaugral lecture as Director of the Oxford Internet Institute William H Dutton develops the idea of the internet as fifth estate. That's a novel idea as it builds on the capacity of advocacy and in its implicit ability to frame political issues.
If society is governed by the predicts: judiciary, executive and parliament, then as Edmund Burke, observed by pointing to the press gallery in British Parliament and exclaiming "and this is the Fourth Estate". Ever since, the term 'Fourth Estate' has represented the media's role as a watchdog of the bureucracy and government by exposing corruption and unfair dealings with complete transparency. Is this what Dutton has in mind when he refers to the fitth estate?
He says:
Some have argued that the Internet is essentially a new medium similar to the traditional media. This has led to a view of the Internet as an adjunct of an evolving Fourth Estate. Others see elements of the Internet – such as the citizen journalist or the blogger – as composing a kind of Fifth Estate. However, both conceptions are tied to an overly limited notion of new digital media as being just a complementary form of news publishing. The Internet is far more than a blogosphere or online digital add-on to the mass media.
Rightly said. Just think of Flickr or Facebook, downloading music or video, or the way people use the Internet to make new friends and, thereby, reconfigure their social networks. This is no passing blogging fad.
Dutton says that internet-enabled, networked individuals often break from existing organizational and institutional networks that are themselves being transformed in Internet space. A good example is internet-enabled, networked individuals breaking away from the walled universities. Dutton adds:
The ability the Internet affords individuals to network within and beyond various institutional arenas in ways that can enhance and reinforce the ‘communicative power’ of ‘networked individuals’ is key. The interplay of change within and between such individual and institutional ‘networks of networks’ lies at the heart of what I am arguing is a distinctive and significant new Fifth Estate.
By enabling a huge range of people across the globe to reconfigure their access to information, people, services and technologies, the Internet and related ICTs have the potential to reshape the communicative power of individuals and groups in numerous ways. But how does this become a fifth estate?
Dutton's argument for this is that people are using the internet for information, have found ways to trust that information through experience (eg. Wikipedia), and that the Internet is crucially enabling individuals to network in new ways that reconfigure and enhance their communicative power. He mentions the media, politics, government online, the workplace and the business firm (eg., Internet-enabled networks that come together to solve a problem) education and research. From this Dutton infers that:
the Internet is becoming not only a new source of information, but also a platform for networking individuals in new Internet-enabled groups that can challenge the influence of other, more established, bases of institutional authority. Moreover, it is robust. As discussed, it can flourish despite a digital divide in access. And it can be a significant force even though only a minority of users are actively producing material for the Internet, as opposed to simply using it.
Duttn acknowledges that the role of the Internet – and of networked individuals – is not uniformly positive, since the open gates of the Internet, which allow in those aspects of the outside world of benefit to the user, also allow those causing harm by intent or accident, including spammers, fraudsters, pornographers, bullies, terrorists, and more.
Dutton's conceptualization of the Fifth Estate turns away from Edmund Burke to Manuel Castells to develop the fifth estate as creating a space of flows, in contrast to a space of places. When you ‘go to’ the Internet, you enter this new space of flows that connects with people and places. This is dramatically different from a physical place, such as this hall. Both are important. Both serve major social roles in shaping the quality of our information environment and they complement one another. Dutton adds:
This space of flows enables a multitude of actors to reconfigure access to information, people, services and technologies.....A key implication of this for society at large is that the Internet can be used to increase the accountability of the other Estates, for instance by being used as a check on the press. It can also be deployed as an alternative source of authority and as a check on other established positions of authority, such as politicians, doctors and academics, by offering alternative sources of information, analysis and opinion to citizens, patients, and students.
Thus through the space of flows, the network of networks, the Internet is enabling the development of a Fifth Estate that is enhancing the accountability of many sectors across all societies is the argument.
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I think that what was stated here makes some sense, however I am skeptical that from the standpoint of the person who is reading and interpreting texts that appear as hypertext will continue to be deluded in one way
or another into thinking that some how the Internet will liberate their mind, where in essence we fail to see that ultimately what we read is left up to us to decide what is truth for us is already within. Most of what one reads must be taken in as if it were a way of thinking, but then one must must consider that to agree or disagree with the text therein is where our cognitive ability must remain in tact and discriminate from what is the wheat and the chaff. I see a grand plan of Orwellian proportions on the horizon that has and will convince the uninformed citizens of this planet that the Internet will exercise control over unsuspecting minds that have lost the capacity to think for themselves. there is an inherent danger in that what one reads is not questioned or
where we read between the lines so to speak or else we will give away our own capacity to seek the truth. Some people believe that the Internet is some how going to enlighten us and that there is a way to utopia and all one has to do is embrace this new technology as if it were a god. So then I remain unconvinced that this will make things better or easier or that we are being manipulated just like all other forms of media that exist in television, the movies, the radio and any other form that continues to misinform and hypnotize the minds that are passive and not thinking about what they heard, saw or read etc. What then is a Fifth Estate, will it end war, famine, disease and ignorance and eliminate greed in all its forms including those with all the information that could be unreliable or false?
Comments please on this idea.
Peter Tarsio
www.nwcmta.com