The Fifth Estate

Book excerpt: "The rise of the press led to the development of an independent institution: the Fourth Estate, central to pluralist democratic processes. In the digital age, the internet and related information and communication technologies are enabling a network power shift - empowering a Fifth Estate. Networked individuals are becoming an independent and highly distributed force for accountability in politics and society. By connecting diverse strands of decades of research with a wide range of case studies, this book explains how this emerging Fifth Estate has been empowered by the ability of ordinary people to search, originate, network, collaborate, and leak information in ways that enhance their informational and communicative power. The Fifth Estate compliments the existing distribution of power in pluralistic societies. It is not a substitute for other estates and more established bases of institutional authority, such as the press and governments, which the Fifth Estate can hold more accountable. However, threats to freedom of expression and privacy online could undermine the promise of the Fifth Estate power shift. To meet this challenge, the book concludes by discussing approaches to the governance and security of the internet and social media that that take advantage of the empowerment of networked individuals and help ensure the vitality the internet can bring to pluralistic processes in democratic politics and across all sectors of society"--