Transformation of the French Media System at the Beginning of the 21st Century

Abstract

France’s mass media attract the attention of researchers due to their traditionally significant place in the Western and world media space. France’s modern media system embraces the time lapse from 1946 till present. In this article we study the transformation of the French mass media in the context of the digital revolution of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the transition from the étatisme of the IV Republic (1946–1958) and the presidency of Ch. de Gaulle (1959–1969) to the liberalization of the French media sphere in the second half of the 1980s and in subsequent decades. French mass media materials and statistical data from French official online resources of the first two decades of the 21st century made up the empirical base of this research. The authors try to trace the transformation of the French media system in the current conditions of the strengthening of the digital oligopoly of American media corporations, as well as financialization, capital concentration and monopolization in the French media. The authors study the transformation of the French legislation on mass media from the post-war decades to the present. The emergence of many new channels of information thanks to large social networks, the ultra-mediatization of French society in the beginning of the 21st century became a reason for discussion in the French media community, and also gave impetus to the authors of this article to study the process of the strengthening of media giants in the French media space at the present stage. The authors touch upon the issue of the political sympathies of France’s main media monopolies during the 2022 presidential elections. The authors conclude that for more than seven decades of the 20th — 21st centuries France’s media system has significantly transformed, going from the étatist media system of the post-war decades to the digital oligopoly of the current decade of the 21st century.