Why Journalism Needs the Fifth Estate: Networked Individuals in the

War for InformationWilliam H. Dutton

Quello Professor of Media and Information PolicyQuello Center, Michigan State University

Blog http://quello.msu.eduTwitter @QuelloCenter

Presentation for students of the Free Journalism School, Kiev, Ukraine, 29 October 2015.

Huge Challenges for Journalism in UkraineMajor 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 Communicativ

e 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 ConceptCases

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 ofClergy 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 ParallelCourts 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

Slovenia Moldova Belarus Hungary Romania Ukraine Poland UK Russia0

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

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Internet Users% Population

Source: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats4.htm

Slovenia Moldova Belarus Hungary Romania Ukraine Poland UK Russia0

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

Internet UsersFacebook Users

Source: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats4.htm

VKontakte.ruUsed 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 EstateBloggers 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

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 SnowdenDistributing-Leaking

•Self-selected collorative networks•Sermo, Patients Like MeNetworking•Aggregate information, observations•Rate My Teacher, Bribery Websites, Environmental Sensors

Collective Intelligence

Accountability: Distributing, Leaking

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 SnowdenDistributing-Leaking

•Self-selected collorative networks•Sermo, Patients Like MeNetworking•Aggregate information, observations•Rate My Teacher, Bribery Websites, Environmental Sensors

Collective Intelligence

Sermo: a Collaborative Network Organisation

Saving Sweet Briar College

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 SnowdenDistributing-Leaking

•Self-selected collorative networks•Sermo, Patients Like MeNetworking•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 IntelligenceValue•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: Networked Individuals in the

War for InformationWilliam H. Dutton

Quello Professor of Media and Information PolicyQuello Center, Michigan State University

Blog http://quello.msu.eduTwitter @QuelloCenter

Presentation for students of the Free Journalism School, Kiev, Ukraine, 29 October 2015.