Postcards from the Bleeding Edge
Monday, January 07, 2008

  The 9th estate

In a hostile confrontation with manipulative pollster Frank Luntz, one voice rang out clearly over the gabble: We're mad because the 4th estate has been taken away from us. That, in a nutshell, says what I've been saying for years. In the age of universal surveillance, who watches the watchers? And... who watches those that are supposed to be watching the watchers?

I have a t-shirt, manufactured by Internet Systems Consortium (one of the good guys), that describes how the internet really works -

0) physical
1) link
2) network
3) transport
4) session
5) presentation
6) application
7) financial
8) political

The conflict between the old media and the new has never been more apparent than in the battles of the Ron Paul campaigners to be heard above the noise generated by the MSM. Lacking an analogy for how the internet really maps on how information is gathered and prevented, I'm going to take a metamorphic leap and claim that the 4th estate - the Press - occupies layers 6-8 of the layers above, and that the 9th estate - what's sometimes called citizen journalism - occupies layer 9. Maybe I'll come up with a better analogy, I don't know - but this lets me abbreviate the conflicting concepts down to two words each, and move on, so....

In the conflict between old politics, and the new, and the old media, and the new,

The 4th estate (occasionally) prints retractions.
The 9th estate corrects the original article.

The 4th estate accepts article comments, and reprints only those that they think apply, occasionally.
The 9th estate allows open, unfiltered comments on articles, and sometimes even institutes a democratic rating system, like that of slashdot.

The 4th estate publishes anonymous articles, using its brand to bury the author and his/her biases. Getting a byline (and thus a brand) is viewed as a career achievement.
The 9th estate proudly links back to every article the author has ever written, branding someone from day 1.

The 4th estate depends on advertising and sales to survive.
The 9th estate depends on enthusiasm and outrage to sustain itself.

The 4th estate has its roots in broadcast media - newspapers, radio, television.
The 9th estate has its roots in USENET.

The 4th estate assumes the fact checker is doing his job.
The 9th estate fact checks the fact checker.

I'll go on and revise this attempt at dualistic analysis when I have some more time... or perhaps I'll get some comments.

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David Täht writes about politics, space, copyright, the internet, audio software, operating systems and surfing.


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