What is the significance of the fourth estate?

As John Vivian describes, the fourth estate is pretty much media and the press. “Medieval English and French societies were highly structured into classes of people called estates. The first estate was the clergy. The second was nobility. The third was the common people. After Gutenberg [printing press], the mass-produced written word began emerging as a player in the power of structure, but it couldn’t be pigeonholed as part of one or another of the three estates. In time the press came to be called the fourth estate. “ -Vivian 379. As the ‘estates’ go, it’s pretty much a measure of power that people have to judge the influence people have on other things. The thing is, the press isn’t one person but it still has a bunch of control on the people around it. Because of this, it’s considered another estate. The press has so much influence in everyone’s’ life that a person literally couldn’t live without it. Especially because now of the First Amendment for ‘Freedom of the Press’, we use our ‘fourth branch of government’ to monitor the other branches on the behalf of the common man to make sure there is no foul play or corruption going on. The press is, as the textbook says, the ‘watchdog’ for people. As this role developed it helped the people and because of it keeps the government officials on their toes and in check, or at least better at hiding what they’re doing better and not being careless.