OpinionsFood for ThoughtThe fifth estate, Marites, and trolls

The fifth estate, Marites, and trolls

-

- Advertisment -spot_img

Last week, I posted on Facebook about the Fourth Estate, and immediately, someone asked what it meant, and then I realized it would be familiar to most people my age who grew up with the traditional media.

Here, I am borrowing a clear explanation from Study.com: During the French Revolution, there were things known as the three estates. These included the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners; however, that’s changed and expanded with time.

With respect to modern politics, there is a term known as the Fourth Estate. It’s used to denote the spheres of influence over modern policy-making:

1. The first estate is the executive branch of a government. Think the president, governor, or mayor.

2. The second estate is the legislative branch of a government. For us, that would be the Congress and the Senate.

3. The third estate is the judicial branch of a government. This includes the Supreme Court and lower courts.

4. The fourth estate is mass and traditional media, sometimes called ‘’legacy media.’’

But for a long time now, there have been murmurings of a Fifth Estate, an alternative sphere of influence, another component of society that affects policy-making, social norms, buyer preferences, consumer spending, and as the recent elections showed, even packaging and rebranding of candidates for political office!

In a short definition, the Fifth Estate stands for non-traditional media.

The Fifth Estate represents the decentralization of the media. It’s allowing anyone, you included, to become a powerful voice in shaping policy decisions without having to depend on the mass media.

What is ‘’it’’ though? What is this medium that allows you to do this?

Well, it’s the internet and the add-ons, so to speak, of the internet. These add-ons include websites, and hosting services that allow you to easily create a website, or blog of your own. It’s social media where your voice can be heard, including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. It’s file-sharing websites and technologies that allow for the sharing of knowledge freely, and without constraints from big publishers or governments.

For the latter, a good example of this is WikiLeaks, a website that purports itself to be a free, and independent way by which to expose the corrupt secrets of powerful people or nations, although it’s worth noting that this organization has its clear biases and limitations, nevertheless.

What is the Fifth Estate in media? It is a term that has been used to describe the role of journalists, bloggers, and social media users in shaping public opinion and political discourse. The Fifth Estate has emerged in recent years as a result of the growth of technology and the rise of social media.

Threat to ethical standards

The Fifth Estate is often seen as a threat to the traditional four estates. This is because the Fifth Estate is not subject to the same rules and regulations as the other four estates.

For example, social media users are not required to adhere to the same journalistic standards as professional journalists. This means that they can share information without having to worry about things like accuracy, fact checking, or objectivity!

No accountability

Call me a dinosaur but as a former PR specialist, and now a marketing communications manager, I have had my run-ins with runts who think they can write and possess the inalienable right to spew out uncorroborated information, and pass them off as facts by being bloggers.

I do remember a time when we had to call separate press conferences for the traditional press, and for the bloggers because the former didn’t want to have anything to do with the young ‘uns!

The Fifth Estate is thought to wield significant power in politics. This is because of its unique methods and abilities in influencing public opinion, and shaping political discourse.

Abhorrent language, grammar, syntax

In 2011, writer Jeff Goins posted an article titled “Why Bad Writing is Essential to Good Blogging.” He wrote: Our fame-obsessed culture has driven teenagers and baby boomers alike to create their own blogs – all for the sake of being heard. They’re taking up space with half-formed opinions and rants, and it’s given the blogosphere an infamously bad name.”

But now, there’s a new phenomenon: The prolific, mediocre blogger. This person actually understands the basics of SEO (search engine optimization) and social media, and can attract a decent readership. The problem though is that “their content sucks.”

If you’ve stuck around the Internet long enough, you’ve seen how even a terrible writer can build his own tribe. You’ve seen spam queens go into six digits on Twitter, and typo-ridden articles go viral. The days of the gatekeeper are ending!

There are terrible writers out there with nothing to say, and they’re saying a lot … very poorly, and making the readers dumber by the minute! But Goins maintain that those who are truly excellent in their craft, and committed to finishing will win in the end.

Citizen journalism

The internet and social media have played a key role in the growth of the Fifth Estate. Blogs and social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook allow anyone with an Internet connection to publish their thoughts and opinions to a wide audience.

This has given rise to citizen journalism, where ordinary people are able to report news and events without going through the traditional media.

The Fifth Estate in Media can refer to Citizen Journalism, which is different from Professional Journalism in a few ways:

– There are no editorial guidelines that content must follow.

– Anyone can publish anything he wants without fact-checking.

– There can be minimal or no quality control.

– Social media platforms allow for instant publication without editing.

– Readers must be critical of everything they read.

– There is less editorial or informational suppression from government, media owners, or others in power.

Citizen journalism is a form of journalism that is produced by ordinary people, rather than professional journalists. It often takes the form of eyewitness accounts of news events, or of opinion and commentary on current affairs.

Citizen journalism has grown in popularity in recent years due to the rise of social media. A famous example of this is the Arab Spring, where citizen journalists used social media to report on the protests and uprisings taking place in their countries.

But our most vivid example is how the Fifth Estate was used most extensively and effectively during the recent elections.

‘Marites’
‘Marites’ is now a word synonymous to a gossip or busy-body. How did Marites become so popular? Some digging revealed that Marites started out as a celebrity gossiper, a harbinger of news about our favorite artistas’ hook-ups, break-ups, and every scandal in between! There is no confirmed origin, however, of where the use of the name started. (Manila Bulletin Online)

Why this much attention over something so personal? “Generally, it’s a form of diversion. Instead of facing pressing personal matters in their personal lives na dapat pinagtutuunan talaga ng pansin, some people would rather concern themselves with the lives of celebrities, which they somehow feel like they’re entitled to have an opinion about,” Joseph Marquez, a clinical psychologist explains.

Currently a local internet sensation, ‘Marites’ has successfully brought its habit to the online world, thanks to social media. Coined as the local version of the US’s “Karen” (“a pejorative slang term for a white woman perceived as entitled or demanding beyond the scope of what is normal”), Marites first sprang to popularity in 2020 when some people expressed their concern about Manila Mayor Isko Moreno lifting the liquor ban.

This moved netizens to rally behind the phrase “Manahimik ka, Marites!”, which trended online.

DreamWork’s Trolls, troll farms

My earliest recollection of a troll was Trevor from The Troll, the chief antagonist of the Three Billy Goats Gruff fairytale. He is a monstrous troll whose greedy nature ultimately became his downfall, like many monsters in fairytales.

Later came green Shrek, and DreamWorks’ Trolls. These animated creatures were cute in an ugly kind of way, if that makes any sense.

Google defines an Internet troll as a person who posts inflammatory, insincere, digressive, extraneous or off-topic messages in an online community (such as social media like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, a newsgroup, forum, chat room, online video game, or blog), with the intent of provoking readers into displaying emotional responses, or manipulating others’ perception.

Most of the time, this action is for the troll’s amusement, or to achieve a specific result such as disrupting a rival’s online activities, or manipulating a political process.

Even so, Internet trolling can also be defined as purposefully causing confusion or harm to other users online, for no reason at all.

Both the noun and the verb forms of “troll” are associated with Internet discourse.

Media attention in recent years has equated trolling with online harassment. The Courier-Mail and The Today Show have used “troll” to mean “a person who defaces Internet tribute sites with the aim of causing grief to families”.

Expensive, lucrative enterprise

Trolls can be costly in several ways. Due to the ability to make yourself unidentifiable online, cyber-bullying and internet trolling can flourish in internet spaces without consequence, and this is what ultimately feeds into internet trolls being malicious online.

A Rappler report states: Senate Resolution #768 says Filipinos should know why the national government focuses on spending money on these operations rather than on pressing issues, such as COVID-19 assistance, healthcare, food security, jobs protection, and education.

Troll farms, the spread of disinformation, and the weaponization of social media are not new to Filipinos. Social media was a key factor in Rodrigo Duterte’s victory in the 2016 presidential polls, and international experts have dubbed the Philippines as “patient zero” when it comes to digital disinformation.

(I Don’t Know If I Should Weep At This Point.)

The Philippines ranked first in the world for time spent using social media in 2021, according to We Are Social and Hootsuite’s annual report. This marks the sixth consecutive year the country received this ranking.

And how the trolls have thrived!

It would be hard to shut down these farms because like illegal farms growing and processing drugs, these are hidden in the concrete jungles away from prying eyes.

Our best defense against the Marites and trolls of this world is to take conscious safeguards.

Columbia University’s Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma shares these tips:

1. Get your psychological armor on.
Forewarned is forearmed, as the saying goes. Just knowing you may encounter cyberhate is helpful. And if you do end up getting trolled, keep in mind trolls are looking for your weakest point. It feels personal — but in fact, it isn’t. To them, it’s business. They are just trying to get at you any way they can.

Be self-aware, and take a mental note if the trolling is causing you to lose productivity, or making you stressed. To help unravel the anxiety, ask yourself questions: Is dwelling on the situation improving my life? Why am I still thinking about it? What could I be doing instead?

2. Ignore the trolls.
You will have heard the saying: “Don’t feed the trolls.” Research supports this. We know trolls are sadists — they want to hurt you, and get pleasure from it. So silence is a great weapon. No reaction means they are failing.

If you need support, reach out to your friends and family for support in the offline world. Debrief, and get the stress off your chest.

3. Use the report/block/mute buttons. Social media platforms have been notoriously lax and indifferent when it comes to dealing with cyberhate. However, the report/block/mute buttons exist for a reason. Use them. The “mute” button on Twitter is my favorite because the trolls effectively shout into the ether. (I’m not suggesting for a moment this is a total solution. It’s just one tool, and it’s of limited effect, especially when a tsunami of hate is coming your way.)

4. Turn notifications off at night. It’s not realistic to stay off the Internet. However, you can turn off notifications for different apps — like Twitter and Facebook — at night. You can do this on all smartphones. It means that while you’re in your bedroom trying to relax, you won’t be imbibing torrents of hate. For this reason, some people choose to keep devices out of their bedroom altogether.

5. Report trolls to the managers of the app where it happened and/or to local police.

Next week’s column will be the start of a series of articles on the reality of living and surviving in a digital world.

___________________________________________

Author’s email: [email protected]


 

 

Latest news

City’s 2025 budget still hanging

    “It will not happen again. We made the mistake before. We will not make the same mistake again.” This was...

Chinese spy nabbed in Dumaguete

    The National Bureau of Investigation and the Armed Forces of the Philippines presented in Manila Thursday an alleged Chinese...

Cause for concern

    The capture of a suspected Chinese spy last week right here in Dumaguete City continues to be the talk...

5 dolphins die in stranding

    Five dolphins died in Bais City, following a mass stranding in Bais Bay, Negros Oriental. Authorities suspect the dolphins died...
- Advertisement -spot_imgspot_img

2000 Canlaon evacuees to get TUPAD aid

    More than 2,000 displaced residents from Canlaon City, Negros Oriental, have been identified as beneficiaries of the government’s Tulong...

Comelec to hold candidates’ fora

    The Commission on Elections is organizing a forum for Negros Oriental candidates in the May 12 national and local...

Must read

City’s 2025 budget still hanging

    “It will not happen again. We made the mistake...

Chinese spy nabbed in Dumaguete

    The National Bureau of Investigation and the Armed Forces...
- Advertisement -spot_imgspot_img

You might also likeRELATED
Recommended to you