Back السلطة الرابعة Arabic Quart poder Catalan Тăваттăмĕш влаç CV Vierte Gewalt German Τέταρτη εξουσία Greek Cuarto poder Spanish رکن چهارم مشروطیت Persian Neljäs valtiomahti Finnish Quatrième pouvoir French Četvrta sila Croatian
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The term Fourth Estate or fourth power refers to the press and news media in their explicit capacity, beyond the reporting of news, of wielding influence in politics.[1] The derivation of the term arises from the traditional European concept of the three estates of the realm: the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners.
The equivalent term "fourth power" is somewhat uncommon in English, but it is used in many European languages, including German (Vierte Gewalt), Italian (quarto potere), Spanish (Cuarto poder), French (Quatrième pouvoir), Swedish (tredje statsmakten [Third Estate]), Polish (Czwarta Władza), and Russian (четвёртая власть) to refer to a government's separation of powers into legislative, executive, and judicial branches.
The expression has also been applied to lawyers, to the British Queen Consort (acting as a free agent independent of her husband), and to the proletariat. But, generally, the term "Fourth Estate" refers to the press and media, emphasizing its role in monitoring and influencing the other branches of government and society. The concept originally comes from the idea of three estates in medieval European society:
First Estate: The Clergy - This group included religious leaders and institutions, which held significant power and influence over people's lives and societal norms.[2] Second Estate: The Nobility - This consisted of the aristocracy and landowners, who had political power and social status.[3] Third Estate: The Commoners - This group comprised the general populace, including peasants, merchants, and the burgeoning middle class, who were not part of the clergy or nobility.[4]
A Fifth Estate, while not recognized in the same way as the first four, includes bloggers, social media influencers, and other online platforms that can influence public discourse and politics independently of traditional media.[5][6][7]
- ^ "fourth estate". Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House. Retrieved 28 June 2017.
- ^ Binski, Paul. Medieval Death: Ritual and Representation. Cornell University Press, 1996.
- ^ Allmand, Christopher. The Hundred Years War: England and France at War c.1300–c.1450. Cambridge University Press, 1988.
- ^ Phillips, Seymour. The Medieval Peasant. Routledge, 2014.
- ^ Castells, Manuel. The Rise of the Network Society. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
- ^ Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. Penguin Books, 2008.
- ^ Bruns, Axel. Gatewatching and News Curation: Collected Essays on Journalism and Digital Communication. Peter Lang Publishing, 2015.