Fourth estate

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In the first edition of the daily newspaper Le Salut Public (dt. “The public good”) published in Lyon on March 13, 1848, it says on its own behalf: “The press, suddenly freed from the shackles that restricted their freedom of action and slowed their boom , is acquiring an unexpected authority and influence today. ”The press took on the legacy of the three other branches of state that it helped to destroy. - See February Revolution 1848 , Second French Republic

Fourth power , fourth power or publicity power is used as an informal term for the public media , such as the press and radio . "Fourth power" means that there is a fourth, virtual pillar in a system of separation of powers . In addition to the executive , legislative and judicial branches, there is then the media, which does not have its own power to change politics or punish abuse of power, but can influence political events through reporting and public discussion.

Often the fourth power spelling is common; but the fourth power is correct as a proper name .

background

There are differences among other things in the naming of the first three powers. The English name ( fourth estate ) would correspond to a German fourth estate . In French usage one speaks of violence ( quatrième pouvoir ). The basis of this analogous concept formation is the rule of law , which goes back to Charles de Montesquieu , of the separation of powers , whereby the state power between legislative power (legislative, i.e. parliament ), executive power (executive, i.e. government and administration ) and judicial power (judiciary, i.e. the courts ) divided and thus restricted. Even Jean-Jacques Rousseau described the press 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 term “fourth estate” of the press became common.

Analogous to the fourth power , lobbyism or social media are referred to as the fifth power .

history

The Austrian legal philosopher and publicist René Marcic took up the term again in the 1950s - which refers less to the legal constitution than to the real constitution . This expresses the demand for a constitutional reform in the sense of greater consideration for the real constitution, also in order to counteract misuse of the media. At the same time, the concept of publicists calls for a professional ethos which, in the interests of democracy and the rule of law, does justice to the mandate of free formation of opinion and will.

Since the discussion initiated by René Marcic, some things have developed further, at least in the beginning: The Basic Law does not give the media as a collective a prominent position equivalent to the three actual state powers. Nevertheless, in a judgment of April 25, 1972 , the Federal Constitutional Court came to the conclusion that “free intellectual debate is a vital element of the liberal democratic order in the Federal Republic and is an essential element of this order. It is based crucially on the freedom of opinion, press and information, which stand independently as equal guarantors. "

In this way, the court made its statements in the Lüth judgment of 1958 more concrete. At that time , it had drawn attention relatively generally to the constitutive character of the fundamental right to freedom of expression : “The fundamental right to freedom of expression is one of the most direct expression of human personality in society most noble human rights at all [...]. It is absolutely constitutive for a free-democratic state order, because it enables constant intellectual debate, the clash of opinions, which is the element of life. In a certain sense it is the basis of all freedom. "

Control efficiency

In democracies , the press or (mass) media are often seen as representatives of the people, legitimate mouthpieces for the formation of political opinions and will. In reality, however powerful players take (eg. Governments , large corporations , parties by professional) Public Relations (neudeutsch. PR of English public relations ) regularly more or less covert influence on reporting. Such experiences feed a widespread distrust of the "fourth power", which is popularly (e.g. differentiation between "public opinion" and " published opinion ") as well as in numerous book titles ( Die manipulated Public , Manufacturing Consent ) precipitates. The term “fourth estate” is used in this context to denounce a negative constitutional reality that deviates from constitutional theory.

Siegfried Weischenberg judges that the public task that journalism is supposed to perform according to the highest jurisprudence must “meanwhile look with a magnifying glass”: “In the whole of journalism, the role of criticism is increasingly being put up for discussion. The crisis of journalism [...] turns out to be primarily a crisis of its critical function; it becomes obsolete if the distance is missing and the relevance anyway. This has traditionally been true of the structurally corrupt motor and travel journalism as well as some of the business journalism . ”Paid journalists tend to be more mainstream oriented , as in PR , in order to keep their increasingly scarce work due to the audience ratings and the dependency on advertising . Independent specialist and citizen journalism is more investigative .

Media practitioners like Ulrich Wickert also question the function of the 4th violence. The claim has always been wrong that there is no democratic legitimation of the press. Instead, media are largely a part of the economy. "The media are shaped by economic interests. Publishers have to consider: How do I sell my paper? How much profit do I make? In my eyes, that is a limitation of the Fourth Estate."

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Löffler : The constitutional mandate of journalism. In: Publizistik 5/1960, Festschrift for Emil Dovifat, pp. 197–201.
  2. ↑ Michael Kunczik: Journalism as a Profession. Böhlau, Cologne 1988, ISBN 3-412-02887-8 , p. 60; Michael Kunczik, Astrid Zipfel: Journalism. A study book. Böhlau, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-412-11899-0 , p. 73.
  3. ↑ Article sketch of a Magna Charta der Presse , Jur. Blätter 1955, p. 192 ff.
  4. ↑ Chapter “The fourth power” in his book From the legal state to the judge state , Vienna 1957, pp. 394–397.
  5. ^ 1 Senate Federal Constitutional Court: Federal Constitutional Court - decisions -. January 15, 1958, accessed March 24, 2020 .
  6. ↑ One of several works by Manfred Zach that provide insights into the depths of the PR work of German governments
  7. ↑ One of several works by Noam Chomsky
  8. ↑ Ulrich Wickert: The term “lying press” possibly launched by the Russian secret service ›Meedia. January 28, 2016, accessed December 27, 2016 .