Fourth estate is the press itself, there are three other estates, religion, the courts and Parliament. The fourth estate was argued by Edmund Burke to act as a check on abuses of power by the other three estates by holding them accountable to the electorate and providing information to ensure democracy is allowed to operate efficiently.
Is new media technology responsible for the decline in newspapers?
Newspapers are now seen as publishing yesterday's news whereas new media technologies such as the internet and live news channels can broadcast live and breaking news at the time it happens. As well as this the internet has usurped the newspapers' role of news provider even further, so now newspaper companies are publishing newspapers on the internet for free, however newspapers which have experimented with subscription-only web access have had little success.
What does it mean "maybe the internet is already the cyberspace of the fourth estate"?
This means that the internet is taking over the role of the press, the internet is able to publish news when it breaks and can also offer online newspapers. The internet is now taking over from newspapers, as you can access news on the internet for free rather than having to pay for news which can be seen as old news in newspapers.
