TOP DOWN IS ON THE WAY OUT

In the traditional four-estate model of previous centuries, changes were decided at the top by lawmakers beholden to the political elites.

While lawmakers were held to account by news professionals in what may have seemed a contentious relationship, they all operated in the same high-level orbits of the centers of power. With the exception of those in the uppermost strata, individuals and communities didn’t move in these orbits. Even in democracies, the unmoneyed and unconnected didn’t exert direct influence. They were not actively involved in making laws. To the extent that they exerted influence, it was by voting for and communicating with their representatives, voicing their views at town halls, and participating in public protests. The traditional four-estate model was top-down with occasional bottom-up input.

The emergence of the Fifth Estate through interactive platforms and democratized channels of communication is changing this dynamic profoundly. Instead of waiting for changes to be decided on high, individuals and communities are becoming proactive agents of change. Instead of pressing for change by communicating their views to their elected representatives, they are hashing out their opinions and saying what they want in public digital spaces that are accessible to all. Instead of waiting in line for a chance to get into the audiences of chat and debate shows on established TV channels, they create their own debates on platforms such as YouTube. Instead of going along with the formalities and bearing the costs of opinion polling, they are gathering their own data by conducting polls using technologies such as SurveyMonkey.

In short, the Fifth Estate knows how things work. Its members are familiar with the organizing and influencing methods of the First, Second, and Fourth Estates—the traditional centers of power—and have pioneered new methods enabled by digital media and social platforms. This prompts us to ask: Do the conventional centers of power truly understand what the Fifth Estate is and how it attains—and wields—its power?

The situation is comparable to the 1990s when innovators embraced IT while stick-in-the-muds held on to paper and fax machines. It’s like the early 2000s when innovators understood the internet’s potential to bypass traditional systems of production and distribution. Those who failed to understand and seize the opportunity lost out to online retailing and streaming services pioneers.