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All:<BR>
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Many people in the USA don't appear to understand the absolutely critical role played by one of the fundamental institutions in our culture, the "fourth estate" of the media. If this branch of our democratic system is not functioning as it should, as "the guardians of democracy, defenders of the public interest (see bottom of this post)" then we do not have a democracy.<BR>
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Consider the shocking results of this recent survey:<BR>
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Some U.S. Students Say Press Freedoms Go Too Far<BR>
<IMG SRC="http://cdn.news.aol.com/aolnews_providers/71_article_logo" WIDTH="102" HEIGHT="24" BORDER="0" DATASIZE="1177"><BR>
By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY<BR>
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One in three U.S. high school students say the press ought to be more restricted, and even more say the government should approve newspaper stories before readers see them, according to a survey being released today.<BR>
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The survey of 112,003 students finds that 36% believe newspapers should get "government approval" of stories before publishing; 51% say they should be able to publish freely; 13% have no opinion.<BR>
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01/31/2005 07:04 <BR>
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<A HREF="http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050131072009990029">http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050131072009990029</A><BR>
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Over a third of high school students in the USA think the government should control newspaper content! If true, this is a colossal failure of our culture. These results sound more like the Soviet Union than the leader of the "democratic free world." While we are ostensibly spreading democracy at the end of a gun barrel to other nations, we are failing to educate fundamental democratic values in the USA.<BR>
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The Mass Media as Fourth Estate<BR>
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<A HREF="http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/index.html">http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/index.html</A><BR>
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The mass media are often attacked by left-wing critics: from within the broadly <A HREF="javascript:parent.remoteStart('../popups/marx.html')">Marxist </A>vein of <A HREF="javascript:parent.remoteStart('../popups/critical.html')">critical theory</A> they are criticized for reproducing the dominant bourgeois culture; from within the 'political economy' vein of research, they are attacked for representing the interests of those who own them (see, for example, <A HREF="javascript:parent.remoteStart('../popups/chomsky.html')">Chomsky</A>'s '<A HREF="javascript:parent.remoteStart('../popups/propmod.html')">propaganda model</A>'). <BR>
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Carlyle's definition of the fourth estate<BR>
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However, from the perspective of those researchers who see the media as situated within the model of a pluralist liberal democracy, the mass media are often seen as fulfilling the vitally important rôle of <I>fourth estate</I>, the guardians of democracy, defenders of the public interest. The term fourth estate is frequently attributed to the nineteenth century historian Carlyle, though he himself seems to have attributed it to Edmund Burke:<BR>
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<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important than they all. It is not a figure of speech, or a witty saying; it is a literal fact, .... Printing, which comes necessarily out of Writing, I say often, is equivalent to Democracy: invent Writing, Democracy is inevitable. ..... Whoever can speak, speaking now to the whole nation, becomes a power, a branch of government, with inalienable weight in law-making, in all acts of authority. It matters not what rank he has, what revenues or garnitures: the requisite thing is that he have a tongue which others will listen to; this and nothing more is requisite<BR>
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</BLOCKQUOTE>Carlyle (<A HREF="javascript:parent.bookWindow('../books/bookscd.html%23Carlyle_1905')">1905</A>) pp.349-350<BR>
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Carlyle here was describing the newly found power of the man of letters, and, by extension,<BR>
the newspaper reporter. In his account, it seems that the press are a new fourth estate added to the three existing estates (as they were conceived of at the time) running the country: priesthood, aristocracy and commons. Other modern commentators seem to interpret the term fourth estate as meaning the fourth 'power' which checks and counterbalances the three state 'powers' of executive, legislature and judiciary.<BR>
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V2020 Post by Ted Moffett</P></P></FONT></HTML>