"The Fifth Estate"

"The Fifth Estate" is a term used by Erica Johnson that refers to the role political bloggers have played in politics. The reason bloggers can be called the fifth estate is because they both keep watch on and release information from three traditional estates of the government while also checking the "fourth estate" (the press). Bloggers have a superior role in this sense because they are both influential and responsible. Bloggers have been atributed with uncovering many political scandals.

Calling these groups the "fourth estate" and the  "fifth estate" relates to the fact that we have three branches of government. The contributions from the media and bloggers maintain the system of checks and balances started by the first three.

Government in ideal system has checks and balances in this idea (1st, 2nd, 3rd estates are government.)

Two examples of Blogs acting as the "fifth estate" are exposing the Associated Press for putting out a story about the debate before it happened and second, the exposing of CNN use of "undecided voters:" these voters they were interviewing were actually members of college republican groups.


 * Related page: Gatekeepers
 * Also see: Final Exam Review Questions