Emergence of Social Media as Fifth Estate

With the advent of information and communication technologies, social networking sites have been growing at an amazing pace, and catalysing civil society movements, and bringing in political changes in various parts of the globe. This has become a challenge to the so-called mainstream media. The social media played a creative role in movements like the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, and India Against Corruption.

 

The Fourth and fifth Estates

According to Wikipedia, the “Fourth Estate” is a societal or political force or institution whose influence is not consistently or officially recognized. In his book On Heroes and Hero Worship, Thomas Carlyle attributed the origin of the term to Edmund Burke, who used it in a parliamentary debate in Great Britain in 1787, on the opening up of press reporting of the House of Commons. The other three estates were The Lord Spiritual, The Lord Temporal, and The Commons. Oscar Wilde wrote, “[A]t the present moment it is the only estate. It has eaten up the other three.”1 In current use, the term is applied to news media, especially print journalism or the Press. 

Today, journalism and media industry are dominated by the media mogul Rupert Murdoch. We live in a world in which both journalism and politics are business. It is the vested interests which determine the agenda of the media, be it newspaper, radio, or television.We had an editors’ community which upheld the moral and ethical principles of the profession. But today it is controlled by market-oriented managing directors. Now these newspapers rarely share the interests and anxieties of democratic society or civil society, when they—the “watchdog of democracy”—fill up their front pages and prime time with their own, self-created agenda.

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, the Fifth Estate is a class or group existing in addition to the traditional four. The definition given by Roy Peter Clark is more suitable: “The Fifth Estate includes the Fourth Estate, the idea and value of a professional press corps as a way of informing and engaging the populace, and holding the powerful accountable. This vision of a Fifth Estate sees the Fourth Estate as necessary but insufficient for democratic life.”2

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 can hold the other estates accountable.3

 

Civil Society Movements

The collective of people who gather together for a cause other than family, state, or market can be called the civil society movement. 

Arab Spring: The self-immolation of Muhammad Bousid of Tunisia on 18 December 2010 prompted the people to fight for their denied rights and end 23 years of tyranny. Unemployment, corruption, and denial of political and individual rights had led them to protest. The Tunisian protest flagged off mass protests in other countries in 2011.

Arab Spring dethroned governments in countries like Egypt, Yemen and Libya. It became the cause of demonstration in Algeria, Israel, and Iraq. Minor impact was there even in Saudi Arabia. The king of Saudi Arabia declared the right to vote for women in the 2015 general elections. Around 19 countries were fully or partially affected by the Arab Spring.

American Spring: Aroused by the spirit of Arab Spring, another movement—Occupy Wall Street (OWS)—was initiated by Kalle Lasn and Micah White of Adbusters, a Canadian anti-consumerist publication, who conceived of a September 17 occupation in lower Manhattan. Adbusters initiated the protest, which also led to other “occupy” protests and movements around the world. The main issues were social and economic inequalities, greed, corruption, and the undue corporate influence (lobbying) on government, particularly from the financial services sector. The OWS slogan “We Are the 99%” addressed the growing income inequality and wealth distribution in the United States, between the wealthiest 1 per cent and the rest of the population. To achieve their goals, the protesters acted on consensus-based decisions made in general assemblies which emphasized direct action over petitioning authorities for redress.

Indian Edition: India witnessed a major civil society movement under the leadership of Anna Hazare, against corruption in the country. The team’s effort was to introduce a Jan Lokpal bill (in the Indian Parliament) that would bring the prime minister and the members of parliament within the ambit of the People’s Ombudsman. The news reports of corruption in Commonwealth Games, 2G spectrum, and Adarsh Flats were the key factors that prompted the Hazare team to work for passing the Jan Lokpal bill. Interestingly, it did not create any movement in rural India, but the Indian diaspora in various parts of the world held sit-ins and meetings.

 

Social media in the movements

In the era of Facebook and Twitter, the civil society movements of 2011 strongly countered the traditional media’s self-created agenda and neglect. Social media became an innovative tool in the hands of the leaders of the civil society movements. The social networks helped the activists to get national and international attention for their movements. Analyzing the videos, tweets, and posts in detail, academic Philip M. Howard opined that the social media had played a key role in formulating the discussions on Arab Spring.4

The Tunisian movement became stronger when netizens watched on YouTube, the self-immolation of the street vendor. You Tube has more than 200 videos in this regard. When Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi assumed power (by expelling President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali), Facebook pages voiced protest against him too. Through Facebook pages and tweets they conveyed to the world the cruelties of the police and street wars; they also made social media a tool to attract more people to the protest.

The demonstrations in Egypt against President Hosni Mubarak started when visuals and news from social media were exhibited in public places. The protesters passed updates about mass movements and on how to resist police actions. On a Facebook page which asked the Egyptians to join in the movement against poverty, unemployment, and corruption, 90,000 people signed up on a single day (25 January 2011). The major opposition party, Muslim Brotherhood, officially declared that they would not support the movement, but many of its members took part in the protests. The following day Mubarak took measures to curb the internet as social media was the protesters’ crucial messenger. The internet and mobile was brought fully under control. Then the protests became worse and the streets were filled with protestors. The New York Times concluded that Mubarak was afraid of social media.

In Libya, the internet was fully under government control; political change came here through military action. In Syria, mobile phones and cameras were used by protestors to capture pictures, and these were uploaded to YouTube and Facebook. President Bashar al-Assad started a campaign saying that all were fake visuals and that there were thousands who were his loyal supporters; notably, he responded through his website. Even though only 15 per cent of the population used the internet, the government blamed the online media for this movement. The internet was successful in bringing people together.

In Saudi Arabia, women organized themselves through social media. Their campaign was titled “women to drive.”

After conceiving the idea of OWS, Lasn registered the OccupyWallStreet.org web address on 9 June 2011. That same month, Adbusters emailed its subscribers saying “America needs its own Tahrir.” The reception of the idea snowballed from there. In a post on 13 July, Adbusters proposed a peaceful occupation of Wall Street to protest corporate influence on democracy, the lack of legal consequences for those who brought about the global crisis of monetary insolvency, and an increasing disparity in wealth. The protest was promoted with an image featuring a dancer atop Wall Street’s iconic Charging Bull statue. They held a protest on 17 September against corporate interests which dominate government institutions and policies. They started a Facebook page on the same day, and uploaded videos of the agitation and minutes of the meetings. By mid-October 2011 there were more than 125 pages on Facebook on OWS. Images, cartoons, and posters were shared. Various organizations, non-governmental organisations, and teacher–student groups expressed their solidarity through “Likes.” Tweets and retweets accelerated the pace of discussion. YouTube and Facebook became the tools of protest against corporate interests. The uniqueness of this protest was its origin; its labour room was cyberspace.

In India, non-violent means of protest were adopted, and the group communicated their ideas also through cyberspace, incorporating various tools like social networking (Facebook), video sharing (YouTube), micro blogging (Twitter), blogs, and websites. This civil society movement also had a website and social network page for its products to be branded (www.iacbranding.org). The Indian youth were attracted by this. When Anna Hazare was on strike, there was a huge flow of SMS to mobile phones, inviting people to participate in the strike. They had four different pages on Facebook and two websites. While Anna Hazare wrote a blog, Kiran Bedi and Arvind Kejriwal focused on tweeting. Videos and cartoons were prominent in their Facebook activities. The movement was more attractive to the Indian middle class and concentrated in metropolitan cities (than rural India). More than the mainstream or industrialized media, it was due to the influence of social media. Also, the movement was stronger among students. Studies show that internet usage is more among the age group of 18–24.

 

Social Media as Fifth Estate

Various means of communication like text, pictures, drawings, videos, and hypertext are made available for communication in social networks. Likes, Comments and Shares are the salient features of social media. The following factors differentiate social media from the Fourth Estate:

• The Fourth Estate is limited to its structured ideology whereas social media is decentralised and incorporates different points at the same time.

• Social media can be accessed inexpensively, compared to the Fourth Estate, which has to be paid, whether it is in the public or private sector.

• Fourth Estate searches for trained and skilful professionals, while social media can be used by any common man.

• There are time limits on the Fourth Estate, whereas social media can be accessed any time.

• Unlike in Fourth Estate media, correction and editing are possible at any time in social media.

• In social media, the users can select the topic of their choice for discussion and sharing. They can formulate their own agenda. In the Fourth Estate, this is based on the agenda of the management.

 

Conclusion

Facebook was launched in 2004, and by the age of eight, it was a major platform of interaction. In June 2012, it had 955 million active members, and would have formed the third largest “country” if its membership was considered a population. It has entered the social platform not only through computers but also mobile phones and tablets (like iPad). Fifty per cent of the users access social media through mobile phones.

The social media played a key role in the civil society movements of 2011. It was decisive in public opinion formation. It also helped the citizen to be a writer, announcer, or presenter himself, rather than being only the audience. As it gives freedom to individuals, social media can be considered the Fifth Estate.