Citizens: The New Fourth Estate
Huffington Post | 10 Sept. 2013
Citizens are taking to the streets in cities across the world to
demand greater accountability from their leaders in a surge not seen
since the end of World War I. The issues differ from country to country
-- against graft, violations of the rights of women, exploitation of the
environment or the abuse of privilege -- but they all demonstrate a
hunger for good governance and the power of the new media. These citizen
uprisings represent a new force on the world stage that serves as a
counterweight to the excesses of our current political order, whether
democratic or authoritarian. The grass-roots are stirring and
politicians everywhere must pay attention.
As these pages themselves testify, the news media have traditionally
played an essential role as our watchdog over government, a "fourth
estate" that guards against abuse of power. From Watergate to today's
exposures of the NSA's surveillance activities, the news media shed
light on the workings of government and provide a public forum for the
debate of our laws and policies. But with the decline of traditional
news outlets, particularly on the local level, there are concerns that
the power of the press has been compromised and that our freedoms have
been curtailed.
Not so. Citizens are the new Fourth Estate. As the new media disrupt
the industrial model of information, citizens have become empowered to
oversee the doings of their elected representatives. A more direct form
of democracy is emerging. The availability of information and, more
importantly, the ability to communicate and self-organize has created a
diverse "citizens movement" that serves as a check and balance on the
prerogatives of government. It is a worldwide phenomenon. Millions of
citizens have taken to the streets of Sao Paulo, Tel Aviv, Manila,
Madrid and Bangkok demanding good governance and an end to corruption.
Demonstrators have swept away autocratic governments in scores of
countries. Citizens in India demand protection from rape. In China tens
of millions of bloggers have become a virtual citizens lobby pushing for
environmental change, blocking huge new dams and petrochemical plants.
In Italy and other European countries new citizen parties have emerged
to challenge established political powers.
Now that almost everyone on the planet has access to a mobile phone,
news reports, pictures and opinions can come from everywhere and anyone.
Traditional journalism continues to sort, contextualize and analyze the
vast data that is available and has the training, the skills and the
credibility to tell the story. But a new citizens movement is now
emerging that has the people power to demand accountability from our
governments, whether in America or in China. There are certainly risks
that these newly empowered citizens could become pawns for populist
demagogues, but this is far more likely to happen when the media are
controlled by a few than when there are multiple and independent sources
of information.
Politicians everywhere fear the crowd. They try to control the
powerful new tools of communication, they censor the content they don't
like and they tighten their secrecy regimes against leakers and
whistleblowers. This will only harden the resolve of the emerging
citizens movement. Instead of manipulating and monitoring its speech and
activities, political leaders should embrace this surge in democracy.
Sclerotic eighteenth century systems of representative government need
to evolve into new forms of direct democracy. Let the peoples' voices be
heard. Open up government data. End the surveillance state. The people
demand full transparency. The citizens movement is not going away. It
will increasingly assume its role as the watchdog of government.
David Hoffman is the author of Citizens Rising: Independent Journalism and the Spread of Democracy (CUNY Journalism Press)