Fourth Grade: History, A British Newspaper Concept

The idea of newspaper journalism as a 'fourth estate' is a legacy left to the world, above all, by the British press. While it has undergone two centuries of transformation, it remains symbolic of the ideal of the independent spirit of communications media and continues to act as a model for interrogating the functions and value of media in modern societies. The thesis explores the history of the fourth estate as an idea from its eighteenth-century origins to its period of greatest salience in the nineteenth century. In so doing, it seeks to address the following three key problems:how the idea of the press as a fourth estate was formed, how it become established, and what its implications were for the practices of British journalism.The theoretical and narrative frameworks of the thesis draw on British constitutional history, political theory and ideologies of state development, in particular those that illuminate the estate model of social relations. They provide analytical tools for the critical study of approaches adopted by British political philosophy towards the roles of government and the functions of the press, with particular reference to the perceived relationship between journalism and the structures and instruments of power separation within the British constitutional system. The dissertation explores the early development of the idea of the fourth estate within the British constitution, its subsequent transformation, and its relationship to political and social reform. It delineates the means whereby the fourth estate evolved from rhetoric of political innovation to a label for the press as a whole in a very different constitutional and social context. In tracing the historical practice of British political journalism, the thesis analyses the ways in which the press responded to, and itself helped define, the role of the fourth estate. By the 1860s, the repeal of the 'taxes on knowledge' had brought significant transformations to the structure, operational model, form and content of the British press, and as a consequence the idea of the press as fourth estate was adjusted to accord with a changing cultural and social climate. While preserving the fundamental principle of press autonomy, it increasingly came to emphasize the role of the press in maintaining a balance of rights between different social strata, and in compensating the underprivileged in society by the dissemination of news and public information.The thesis concludes that the idea of the press as a fourth estate is not a simple designation, but rather a complex construction of texts that underwent a continuous process of historical formation. By placing emphasis on the significance of the functions performed by the press in modern society and the political system, the thesis argues that the idea of the fourth estate cannot be segregated from such terms as democracy, freedom and rights. By facilitating the accountability of state power, it is an indispensible element of constitutional government. (OR It is an indispensible element of constitutional government and in the control of state power.) The embodiment of such functions, rights and (responsibilities instead of status?) in the practices of the press is a sign of a free and civil society.