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OURNALISM AND SOCIETAL QUESTIONS THROUGH THE PRISM OF CULTURAL INDUSTRIES.
Conference co-organised by the GRESEC (Research Group on Communication Issues – EA 608), Stendhal University, Grenoble, and Labsic (Laboratory in Information and
Communication Sciences – EA 1803), North Paris University.
Institute of Communication and Media (Echirolles) – 26th and 27th of May 2011
Societal questions (related to ecology, sustainable development, health, well-being, violence, security, risk, etc.) are nowadays pregnant in the public space (Miège, 2010), to the point of practically forming a full-fledged journalistic speciality. Being part of a highly competitive market and prevailing themselves with a role of “mirror of the society” and relay of societal debates, the media, as well as journalism, reflect and maintain their visibility under multiple forms, and thus are permanently operating adjustments (Ruellan, 2005) in terms of the practices led by the journalists and development strategies for media groups.
On one hand, the journalistic coverage of these themes concern together:
- the different registers and levels of media discourse (emotion, empathy, emphasis, moral, involvement…);
- the media used (print, audiovisual, internet: sites, blogs, forums, as well as multisupport);
- the different journalistic ways of writing (the use of testimonials, the valorisation of emblematic actors, the use of commonly agreed upon expression: risk, the principle of precaution…);
- the journalistic genres (portrait, editorial, gonzo journalism…).
On the other hand, media coverage of these new themes in the contemporary public space is not initiated nor mastered by the media industry only. New actors and communicational devices take part in this evolution, deeply enrolled in an industrial context. The recent mutations in the cultural, informational and communication industries have disrupted the media companies (from both information production and distribution point of views), as well as the terms contributing to making these societal interrogations public.
In this optic, the progressive visibility given to societal questions simultaneously enrolls in the different ongoing socio-economic and socio-professional processes:
- touching the infrastructures of Cultural, Informational and Communication Industries (CICI) (the economic crisis, the multiplication of digital media, the emergence of free papers, the financialization movements, the increasing concentration, multisupport producing [Gestin et alii], the externalization of the production [Rebillard], etc.) ;
- touching the new terms of public expression (digital techniques, communication devices allowing participation, public debates, blogs, devices allowing interaction, etc.);
- disrupting the terms of militant expression, whether more or less organized: associations, social networks, etc.
Considering journalism as constitutive of the cultural industries, the aim of this conference is to question the relation between journalism and societal questions through the prism of these industries. Thus it intends to bring answers and encourage reflexions on the following questions: how are the processes that bring journalism to seizing societal questions, intrinsically related to the mechanisms of the cultural industries? What are the economic, political and social issues that raise these new productions and journalistic activities?
The proposals are expected to question journalism through the prism of cultural industries and will show the incidences on the journalistic field and its practices.
The proposals can notably be focused on one of the following dimensions:
1. Journalistic productions, a “call product” (meaning a product that attracts audience in order to present them with a different panel of products afterwards) for the media and non-media companies?
In context of CICI mutations, this conference proposes to open a reflexion at the crossing of the socio-economic analysis of the CICI, journalism and media sociology in order to question the real nature of contemporary journalism, that spreads further than the editorial press offer, let it be digital. The offer of information is nowadays marked by a strong heterogeneity: for companies, not only media-related, some journalistic productions are considered “call products”, meaning they offer ritualised stories that are renewed daily, only to encourage the consumer towards portals and other derived products with added-value (ex.:
news provided about “services”, “health”, “consumption”, critiques, chronicles published in the free newspapers, internet sites, or some TDT channels). The aim being to react to strong competition inside media groups, from one group to another, from one media to another, etc.
2. The extension of the journalistic field (service related news, expertises, alerts, infotainment…)
As a consequence to the multiplication of the journalistic offer, the journalistic field itself is experiencing an expansion (Ringoot, Utard, 2006): societal questions allow new actors to acquire an “alert giving” status (Chateauraynaud, Torny, 1999). Some associations or personalities then become specialists (and strategists) in alerting on such and such theme via the media. They create “public attention” (Céfai, 2003) on these subjects and establish the necessary conditions for publishing these new questions (risks, sustainable development, illnesses, etc.). Thus, inside the journalistic space, editorials appear in their premiere functions (Riutord, 2002) while the journalistic discourse registers (De la Haye, 1985) evolve in the writing forms, sometimes relatively close to communication (such as advertisement reports).
3. From citizen’s news to the reminder of social duties?
Media discourses are increasingly the relay of certain currents of thought elaborated inside reflexion groups (such as think tanks)(Quaderni n°70, 2009), or pick up emerging social debates, thus breaking with one of the most built in norms of journalism, that is to say neutrality. Furthermore, and to that respect, the journalistic discourse seems to be increasingly echoing the norms that are to be published and adopted, whether in a particular sector – such as health or ecology – and to the point of editing what may be the “right” behaviour, or the
“right” journalism.
4. The participative potentials of the internet: a societal question in its self, or only just a vector?
Nowadays the internet and the participation potential it allows are erected to the rank of a societal question: whether a tool for democracy (access to information), the improvement of freedom (Wikileaks, Le Post), it is also said be the solution to the crisis that the press industry is experiencing (on the lookout for a sustainable economic model for digitally provided information). Moreover, the actors who carry emerging societal questions by-pass the traditional media mechanisms by massively using the digital networks. Thus, the media make themselves the relay of these debates concerning the potentials of the internet, and furthermore on the growing issues implied by the diversification of journalistic practices.
Does the media’s mention of this issue - now become a societal question, often orienting the debate towards what the “right” journalism, or “real” journalism should be – lead to reorganization inside the press company? Are the evolutions, linked to the various technical communication devices in online papers, prompted by these debates - although these are often seemed to be used as a window, rather than really taken into consideration by the head actors of the company? Does online journalism serve the interests of “alert givers”, and has that become a new opportunity for the press groups?
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CIENTIFIC COMITYAUGEY Dominique, Professor in “Sciences Economiques”, CERGAM, Université Paul Cézanne, Aix-Marseille 3, France.
BENSON Rodney, Associate Professor of Media, Culture and Communication, University of New- York, USA, to be confirmed.
BOUQUILLION Philippe, Professor in “Sciences de l’Information et de la Communication”, CEMTI, University Paris 8, France.
COMAN Mihaï, Professor in Communication Sociology, faculty of Journalism and “Sciences de la Communication”, Université de Bucarest, Roumania.
DARRAS Eric, Professor in Political Science, LassP, Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Toulouse, France.
DAHLGREN Peter, Professor Emeritus in Media and Communication, Lund University, Sweden.
LAFON Benoit, Associate Professor in “Sciences de l’Information et de la Communication”, Gresec, University Stendhal, Grenoble 3, France.
MIÈGE Bernard, Professor Emeritus in “Sciences de l’Information et de la Communication”, Gresec, University Stendhal, Grenoble 3, France.
MOEGLIN Pierre, Professor in “Sciences de l’Information et de la Communication”, LABSIC, University Paris Nord, France.
RIEFFEL Rémy, Professor in “Sciences de l’Information et de la Communication”, CARISM, University Paris Assas, France.
ROMEYER Hélène, Associate Professor in “Sciences de l’Information et de la Communication”, IUT Lannion, Gresec, University Rennes 1, France.
SCHLESINGER Philipp, Professor, University of Glasgow, UK, to be confirmed.
TREMBLAY Gaëtan, Professor, École des Médias, GRICIS, Faculty of Communication, University of Québec, Montréal, Canada.
WATINE Thierry, Professor in “Sciences de la communication”, University Laval, Québec, Canada, to be confirmed.
WITTE Barbara, Professor in Journalism, Hochschule, Bremen, Germany.
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RGANIZATION COMITYHAMMACHE Razika, Gresec secretary.
HOLUBOWICZ Maria, Associate Professor in “Sciences de l’Information – Communication”, University Stendhal, Grenoble 3, France.
LAFON Benoit, Associate Professor in “Sciences de l’Information – Communication”, University Stendhal, Grenoble 3, France.
LEGENDRE Bertrand, Professor in “Sciences de l'Information et de la Communication”, LABSIC, Paris Nord, France.
NAIT BOUDA Faïza, PhD student, Gresec, Grenoble, France.
PAILLIART Isabelle, Professor in “Sciences de l’Information – Communication”, Gresec, University Stendhal Grenoble 3, France.
ROMEYER Hélène, Associate Professor in “Sciences de l’Information – Communication”, Gresec, University Stendhal Grenoble 3, France.
SALLES Chloë, Doctor in “Sciences de l’Information et de la Communication”, Gresec, Grenoble, France.
SCHMITT Laurie, Doctor in “Sciences de l’Information et de la Communication”, Gresec, Grenoble, France.
SOUZAPAES Paula, PhD student, Gresec, Grenoble, France.
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ONFERENCE COORDINATIONHélène Romeyer , (helene.romeyer@-u-grenoble3.fr), et Benoit Lafon (benoit.lafon@u- grenoble3.fr)
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ROVISIONAL CALENDAR19 février Deadline for papers (in French or English). 4000 signs including presentation of the fieldwork and theoretical background on which the author bases his text.
Address: helene.romeyer@u-grenoble3.fr et benoit.lafon@u- grenoble3.fr
25 mars Meeting of the scientific comity.
26 mars Notification to the authors of their admission or refusal.
13 mai Deadline for conference papers. They will exclusively be published in French.
26 et 27 mai Conference.
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UBLICATIONArticles resulting from the conference presentations will be published in Les Enjeux de l’information et de la communication.
A selection of papers and a synthesis of the debates will then be published in a book.
