* This one is complicated and is by no means universally agreed on but traditionally there were 3 Estates. The Clergy and the Nobility were what the extreme left call the ruling class. The 3rd Estate was everybody else, including the wealthy business class. Much later, the Press was alluded to as the 4th Estate, although the first such reference was by Edmund Burke, who died in 1797. The term might now be rightly applied to the mainstream media. Radio was never really a player, nor television in its early days, but with cable TV in America and especially the rise of the Internet, it is truly a force.
The 5th Estate was the term applied to the Trade Unions, especially in Britain, and was the title of a book on the subject published in 1978.
Some people have applied the term 5th Estate to the non-mainstream media, which now includes many small outfits, independent journalists, bloggers and vloggers, but it really still belongs to the Unions, in spite of their decline.
1. Clergy
2. Nobility
3. The People
4. The Press
5. The Trade Unions
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