Alternances politiques et transformations du champ de l'information en France après 1981

Abstract

Political alternation and changes in the field of information in France after 1981 Philippe Juhem This article wants to assess the effects of the changes in the left parties' political offer as soon as 1981 and chiefly from 1983 onwards and the « first stringency measures », upon the tranformation of the then considerd « of the left » newspapers' editorial line (Liberation, Le Matin de Paris, Le Monde). By modifying the indissociable political and commercial strategies the « left » papers were able to adopt and by initiating the process of the privatization of television, the arrival of a socialist government contributed to weakening the hold of political concepts over the journalistic comments, thus favoring a rather commercial policy. The evolution, however, of the « left » parties' political offer and the process of relative neutralization of the newspapers also contributed to modifying the opinion one might have about political struggles. The phenomenon known under the term of « decline of ideologies » whose effects can be seen both in the increasing scarcity of actors supporting the « left » parties' traditional views and the weakening of the actors' propensity to give them credit, is far from constituting an autonomous historical process, stemming from nobody knows which collective « new awareness » and -appears to be, on the contrary, the resuit of the ordinary working of the political game. Thus in 1981 the alternative government not only caused a reorganization of the public powers but also brought about the lasting modification of the agents' political beliefs and points of view.