Yochai Benkler Describes the "Networked Fourth Estate"

In 2011 Yochai Benkler of Harvard Law School published "A Free Irresponsible Press: Wikileaks and the Battle Over the Soul of the Networked Fourth Estate," Harvard Civil Rights-Civl Liberties Law Review, 46, 311-397. In this paper Benkler described the "Networked Fourth Estate."  He explained the growth of non-traditional journalistic media on the Internet and how it affected "the traditional press using WikiLeaks as an example. When Benkler was asked to testify in the United States vs. PFC Bradley E. Manning trial, in his statement to the morning 10 July 2013 session of the trial he described the Networked Fourth Estate as the set of practices, organizing models, and technologies that are associated with the free press and provide a public check on the branches of government.^{[15][16][17]:28–29} It differs from the traditional press and the traditional fourth estate in that it has a diverse set of actors instead of a small number of major presses. These actors include small for-profit media organizations, non-profit media organizations, academic centers, and distributed networks of individuals participating in the media process with the larger traditional organizations.^{[15]:99–100" (Wikipedia article on the Fourth Estate, accessed 10-2020)./}