August 28, 2001

fourth and fifth estates

How did the press come to be the fourth estate? This obviously begs the question of what are the first three estates? I'm guessing government and church are two of them.

And Dex Packard wrote:

I have heard newspapers referred to as the fifth estate. What are the first four, and where did the saying come from?

Estate in this sense was first used in the 14th century and means 'a major political or social group or class'. These groups comprised the body politic and participated in the government, either directly or through their representatives. In England, the estates were the Lords Spiritual, the Lords Temporal, and the Commons. In France, the estates were the clergy, the nobles, and the townsmen.

In 1752 Henry Fielding spoke of "that very large and powerful body which form the fourth estate...The Mob." Thomas Carlyle was the first to refer to journalists as the "Fourth Estate" although he attributes the usage to Edmund Burke: "Burke said there were three Estates in Parliament, but in the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important than they all" (Hero-worship, 1841). The full quotation makes clear the growing power of the press and Carlyle's belief that it should serve as a guardian of democracy and a check on the power of the other "estates."

And this brings us to the fifth estate, which Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary defines as 'any class or group in society other than the nobility, the clergy, the middle class, and the press'. Early references use the term for trade unions, for the poor, for organized crime, for radio, and then for television. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has had a public affairs program called The Fifth Estate since 1975, and many journalism schools have zines with that title.

A Web search turned up two basic meanings in current use. People dissatisfied with mainstream journalism maintain that we need a fifth estate because the fourth estate is abdicating its responsibility as a watchdog against government and failing to provide balanced coverage. In this sense, the fifth estate is some sort of alternative newspaper.

Alternative newspapers these days tend to appear online, and that's the other current meaning of fifth estate. It can mean any sort of electronic medium. As someone wrote in a chat room, "The fourth estate is being watched by the fifth estate."

Georgia