Why Journalism Needs the Fifth Estate

Why Journalism Needs the Fifth Estate:
Networked Individuals in the
War for Information
William H. Dutton
Quello Professor of Media and Information Policy
Quello Center, Michigan State University
Blog http://quello.msu.edu
Twitter @QuelloCenter
Presentation for students of the Free Journalism School, Kiev, Ukraine,
29 October 2015.

Huge Challenges for Journalism in Ukraine
Major Period of Turbulence
• 2014 Revolution
• Annexation of Crimea by Russian Federation
• War in Donbass and Luhansk regions
Ongoing ‘War on Information’
• Malaysia Airlines Flight 17: 17 July 2014?
• Presence of Russian soldiers in eastern Ukraine?
Lower Visibility, Greater Uncertainty in West

Addressing Challenges
Training of Journalists
•Amateur and Professional
•Free Journalism School: Congratulations!
Nurturing the Rise of a Fifth Estate?
•Complementing Journalists
•Fighting a War for Information

Focus of This Talk
The Internet’s Role in Reconfiguring Access to
Information
The Rise of a Fifth Estate
Discussion: Is this Relevant to Journalism in
Ukraine and Surrounding Nations

The Internet’s Use in Reconfiguring Access to:
Information
People
Services
Technology
• How you get information
• What you know
• How you communicate
• Who you know
• How you obtain services
• From whom, from where
• How you do what you do
• What know-how you
require

Power Shifts & the Internet: New Conventional Wisdom
Institutions,
such as Gov’t
& Business
Organizations
Citizens,
Consumers

A New Organizational Form:
Enabling Networked Individuals
Source
Information
Join & Create
Networks
Enhance
Communicative
Power

Oxford Internet Surveys (OxIS)
• 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013
• Cross-sectional Surveys versus Panels
• Multi-Stage Probability Sample
• England, Scotland & Wales
• Respondents: 14 years and older
• Face-to-face Interviews, High Response Rates
• Sponsorship for 2013 from the Nominet Trust, Ofcom,
UK Research Councils, dot.rural
• Component of World Internet Project (WIP)

First Port of
Call
Search v
Sites
Social Cues &
Collaboration
Centrality
Significance
Trust

Focused Case Studies
Surveys
5th Estate
Concept
Cases
Dynamics,
Strategies

The Fifth Estate
 Press since the 18th
Century - the ‘Fourth Estate’
 Internet in the 21st -
enabling a Fifth Estate
Internet enabling a critical mass of individuals to
source information, and network in ways that
support distributed social accountability in
business, industry, government, politics & media.

The Fourth Estate
“[Edmund] Burke said there were Three Estates in
Parliament; but, in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder,
there sat a Fourth Estate more prominent far than
they all. It is not a figure of speech, or witty saying; it
is a literal fact – very momentous to us in these
times.”
Thomas Carlyle (1831), Heroes and Hero-Worship, at
www.gutenberg.org.etext/1091

Feudal Estates into the 21st Century
Feudal Estates & Mob 21st Century Roles of
Clergy Public Intellectuals
Nobility Business, Industry and Economic
Elites, Internet Industrial Elites
Commons Government, Politicians &
Regulators
Press Journalists and the Mass Media
Mob Civil Society, Networked
Individuals, Mobs

Montesquieu’s Tripartite System into the 21st
(US Separation of Powers)
Tripartite Modern US Parallel
Courts Judiciary
Monarch Executive
Parliament Legislative
Press as 4th Journalists and the Mass
Media
Mob Civil Society, Networked
Individuals, Mobs

Networked Institutions v Individuals
 Networked Institutions, such as in e-Health
 Networked Individuals:
 going to the Internet for health and medical
information
 networking patients, e.g., Patients Like Me
 networking physicians, e.g., Sermo

0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
0
10,000,000
20,000,000
30,000,000
40,000,000
50,000,000
60,000,000
70,000,000
80,000,000
90,000,000
100,000,000
Slovenia Moldova Belarus Hungary Romania Ukraine Poland UK Russia
Internet Users
% Population
Source: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats4.htm

0
10,000,000
20,000,000
30,000,000
40,000,000
50,000,000
60,000,000
70,000,000
80,000,000
90,000,000
100,000,000
Slovenia Moldova Belarus Hungary Romania Ukraine Poland UK Russia
Internet Users
Facebook Users
Source:
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats4.htm
VKontakte.ru
Used in Russia

Arenas: Networked
Institutions
Networked
Individuals
News Online journalism, BBC
Online, Live Micro-Blogging
Netizens, Citizen Journalists,
Bloggers, Whistleblowers,
Leaks, Churnalism.org,
Hacking Blacklash
Government Digital Democracy, E-
Consultation, e-Voting,
Surveillance
Obama campaign, Arab
Spring, Anti-Bribery
Websites, 38 Degrees
Education Online Learning, Multimedia
Classrooms, MOOCs
Backchannels, Informal
Learning, Rate My Teacher,
Khan Academy
Health and Medical NHS Direct, e-mailing safety
alerts
Going to the Internet for
health information, networks
of patients, physicians

Fifth Estate as Complement v Substitute
Networked Institutions
• Democratic-
Autocratic
• Not Replaced
Networked Individuals
• Core to Institutions
• Base of 5th Estate

Fifth Estate Strategies
• Find through search or social media
• Patient or citizen finds information about problemsSearching
• Individual creates information
• Martha Payne’s NeverSecondsSourcing
• Distribute or leak information to networks
• Whistle Blowers, WikiLeaks, OpenLeaks, Edward Snowden
Distributing-
Leaking
• Self-selected collorative networks
• Sermo, Patients Like MeNetworking
• Aggregate information, observations
• Rate My Teacher, Bribery Websites, Environmental Sensors
Collective
Intelligence

Business & Industry Meet the 5th Estate
Bloggers covered the Web and Social
Media with Images of BP’s Deepwater
Horizon Explosion and Effects of Oil
Spill (2006)

Martha Payne, 9 yr old girl
writes blog for school project in
Scotland: ‘NeverSeconds’
- Produced content: photos &
reviews school lunch in 2012
- Distributed on her blog:
neverseconds.blogspot.com/
- Censored by her institution
(her primary school’s council)
-8,859,514 pages views
-Fostered debate over the
quality of school lunches
nationwide and worldwide

Business & Industry Meet the 5th Estate
Videos of individuals circulated on social
media immediately after huge chemical
explosions at warehouse in Tianjin, China
(13 Aug 2015)
By 17 Aug, 50
Websites shut
down by
Cyberspace
Administration of
China (CAC) for
spreading rumors

Nanjing, China, Gas Explosion (28 Jul 2010)
Explosion not covered by local papers, but covered
by bloggers, including video of gov’t official
interrupting a live report, saying “Who gave you
permission …?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLdaO-XDOdM

Photographs of Snipers in Kiev
Celebration in Kiev Marking a
Year Since Shootings of Anti-
government Protesters
Conflicting War on Information
about Who Ordered What?

Sourcing and Checking Facts
•Churnalism
•Fact Checking
Challenging
the Press
•Retraction Web
Sites
Challenging
Academia

Accountability: Distributing, Leaking

Sermo: a Collaborative Network Organisation

Reporting on China’s Stock Market
Social media (WeChat and Weibo) rather than state
news media have become major sources of information
for Chinese given blocking of Western media reports*
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/29/world/asia/consumer-anxiety-in-china-
undermines-governments-economic-plans.html?_r=0

Fifth Estate Strategies
• Find through search or social media
• Patient or citizen finds information about problemsSearching
• Individual creates information
• Martha Payne’s NeverSecondsSourcing
• Distribute or leak information to networks
• Whistle Blowers, WikiLeaks, OpenLeaks, Edward Snowden
Distributing-
Leaking
• Self-selected collorative networks
• Sermo, Patients Like Me
Networking
• Aggregate information, observations
• Rate My Teacher, Bribery Websites, Environmental Sensors
Collective
Intelligence

Ratings with their Drawbacks
Rate My
Teacher
Amazon Seller
and Product
Ratings
eBay Rating of
Suppliers

Pollution Monitoring Mobile Apps

Challenges
to the
Fifth
Estate
Public
Intellectuals
Business &
Industrial
Elites
Government
and
Regulatory
Agencies
Press
The ‘Mob’
Bad ‘Hackers’

Threats to Trust & Centrality of 5th
• Low Up-Take of the Internet
• Quality or bias of algorithms
• Privacy and surveillance
Search
• Low Levels of Social Media Use
• Echo chamber
• Freedom of expression & assembly
Social Cues and
Collaboration
• Need to Create a virtuous cycle of use
• Rise of entertainment
• Closing of a world on mobile apps
1st Port of Call

Opportunities and Problems
• Empirically Anchored
• Pluralistic Democratic Accountability
• Distributed Intelligence
Value
• Enemies of the 5th Estate
• Inappropriate Regulatory Responses
• Top-down control of search & networks
Challenges
• Empowering Individuals
• Critical Mass v Universal Access – Not Just
a Social or Political Movement
New
Reality

What can be done?
Encouraging Access to and Up-take of the Internet
Fostering Greater Use of Social Media
Learning and Education on Critical Sourcing and Use of Information
Awareness of the Potential Value of a Fifth Estate
Journalists Supporting Fifth Estate & Vice Versa

Research Foundations
• Oxford Internet Surveys: 2003-2013 and World Internet
Project (WIP)
• The Internet Values Project: OII in collaboration with
INSEAD, comScore, WEF, and ictQATAR
• The Performance of Distributed Problem-Solving
Networks (DPSN) Project (2007-8)
• The Oxford e-Social Science Project (OeSS), Economic and
Social Research Council (2005-12)
• The Fifth Estate Project, supported by the OII, Oxford
Internet Surveys (2003-13), June Klein, Electronic
Boardroom™, and the Quello Center
• Readings: http://quello.msu.edu/research/the-fifth-
estate/

Why Journalism Needs the Fifth Estate

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