The Fifth Estate: The Power Shift of the Digital Age

In the eighteenth century, the printing press enabled the rise of an independent press--the Fourth Estate--that helped check the power of governments, business, and industry. In similar ways, the internet is enabling the empowerment of a more independent collectivity of networked individuals--the Fifth Estate. Dutton uses estate theory to illuminate the most important power shift of the digital age. He argues that this network power shift is not only enabling greater democratic accountability in politics and governance but is also empowering networked individuals in their everyday life and work.