Fourth Estate

Fourth Estate, fourth power, or publikative violence is used as an informal term for the public media, such as press and radio. " Fourth Estate " in this context means that there is a fourth, virtual column in a system of separation of powers. In addition to the executive, legislative and judicial branches, there is then the media, though without their own power to change the policy or to punish abuse of power, but can be influenced by reporting and public discussion of political events.

The spelling of the fourth estate is more common; but next to it is also the spelling to make the Fourth Estate.

Background

Differences exist among others in the designation of the first three branches of government. The English term ( fourth estate ) would correspond to a German fourth stand in the French language is of powers ( quatrième pouvoir ) spoken. Based on these analog concept formation is going back to Charles de Montesquieu constitutional principle of separation of powers, whereby the state power between legislative power (legislative, ie the Parliament), executive power ( executive, that government and administration) and jurisdictional authority ( judiciary, ie the courts ) is divided and therefore limited. Even Jean -Jacques Rousseau, the press has referred to as the fourth pillar of the state. In the context of the liberal theory of the press, which had its heyday in the 19th century, the name of the press was a " fourth power" in use.

Analogous to the fourth power of lobbying is also referred to as the fifth force.

History

The Austrian legal philosopher and writer René Marcic took the term in the 1950s, again - which refers less to the Legal Constitution as on the real Constitution. Thus, the demand for a constitutional reform in the sense of a stronger consideration is expressed on the real Constitution, also counteract to prevent misuse of the media. At the same time, the concept of publicists calls for a professional ethos that is the order of the free opinion and will formation justice in the interest of democracy and the rule of law.

Since the excited by René Marcic discussion has many, at least in the approach, further developed: The Basic Law grants the media as a collective though not about the actual three branches of government equivalent prominent position. Nevertheless, the Federal Constitutional Court comes in a judgment of 25 April 1972 concluded that " the free intellectual debate [ is ] a vital element of the liberal democratic order in the Federal Republic and for this order simply constitutive. It is crucially dependent on the opinion, the press and freedom of information as equal guarantors independently side by side. "

Thus the court substantiated its comments on these levels the Lüth judgment of 1958, since it had drawn attention to the constitutive character of the fundamental right to freedom of expression relatively general. " Is the fundamental right to freedom of expression as the most direct expression of the human personality in the company of the distinguished human rights at all [ ... ]. For a liberal- democratic state, it is simply constitutive, because only enables the constant mental struggle, the struggle of opinions, which is its life element. It is in a sense the foundation of any freedom at all. "

Influence of Public Relations

Often press or ( mass) media in democracies are seen as representatives of the people, legitimate voice of political opinion and will formation. In reality, however powerful actors take (eg governments, large corporations, political parties ) through professional public relations ( neudeutsch: PR public relations of engl. ) Regularly more or less covert influence on reporting. This makes it possible them sometimes to falsify the " popular opinion " or even " fabricate " to. From such experiences become a widespread distrust of the " fourth estate " fed located in the vernacular (eg distinction between " public opinion " and " published opinion " ) as well as in numerous book titles ( The manipulated public, Manufacturing Consent ) reflected. The term " fourth estate " is used in this context to denounce a deviating from constitutional theory negative constitutional reality.

Siegfried Weischenberg judges that one must the public task, which is to perform according to the highest law of the journalism, " now with a magnifying glass looking ", "In the entire journalism critics role is increasingly more called into question. The crisis of journalism [ ... ] proves especially as a crisis of his criticism function; it will be obsolete when the distance is missing and the relevance anyway. This is traditionally for the structurally corrupt motor and travel journalism as well as a part of economic journalism. " Paid journalists are to retain their increasing scarcity of labor, more oriented because of the ratings and the advertising - dependence, tend to like the PR the mainstream. Independent professionals and citizen journalism is investigative.