French Media Research Articles

The post-Soviet break in economic ties between Russia and Africa: causes and consequences

The article analyzes the causes and consequences of the post-Soviet breakdown of economic ties between Russia and Africa. The post-Soviet period (since 1991) has led to a breakdown of economic ties between them. It means that trade, investment, and other forms of economic cooperation between the two sides have been significantly reduced or stopped completely. After the collapse of the Soviet Union at the initiative of Mikhail Gorbachev, Africa really became a “non-subject” for diplomats and military personnel stationed in the region, and some economic actors witnessed Moscow’s first initiatives. It was only in early 2018, on the occasion of the arrival of the first shipments of Russian weapons and dozens of “advisers” from Moscow in Bangui, that the French media learned of Russia’s “great comeback” in Africa. This Central African prism powerfully shaped perceptions in Paris: Russian involvement would be a new phenomenon echoing the confrontation between East and West, and Central Africa would be a crucial link in a grand strategy on a continental scale, where Russia would be on its way to establishing itself as a major player. The severing of economic ties between Russia and Africa has negative consequences for both regions, including reduced trade, investment, and political influence, and Russia’s lack of resources and changing political priorities since the collapse of the Soviet Union are the main reasons for it.

Disability Representation in French and Tunisian Media: A Comparative Analysis of Paralympic Games Coverage

This study is part of a broader investigation into the portrayal of disability within the context of the Paralympic Games. Focusing on media coverage from 2008, 2012 and 2016 in French and Tunisian newspapers, representing two distinct cultural landscapes, we explore the nuances of how disability is depicted. Employing a multifaceted approach involving statistical analysis utilizing the Chi-squared test, discourse content analysis, and photo analysis, we delve into uncharted territory by examining the treatment of impaired athletes in Tunisian media. Our findings highlight significant disparities and instances of discrimination, not only between disabled and able-bodied athletes but also among genders within each nation. Of particular concern are the disparities in photo representation, notably the portrayal of Tunisian women athletes. By contextualizing our findings within the existing body of literature, this study provides valuable insights into the complex dynamics of disability representation in sports media. Furthermore, it contributes to a deeper understanding of societal attitudes towards disability and offers actionable recommendations to foster more inclusive media coverage in the future.

CASE STUDY ON MEDIA ETHICS IN FRANCE

Carried out as part of an educational project by Hugo Saez under the supervision of Doina Muresanu, this case study focuses on ethical aspects linked to the field of journalism. It can be used for undergraduate or graduate students in the field of organizational management or communication. The present case study takes as a subject of analysis the situation of the French media, given Hugo's work experience in this profession and in this country. For this reason, the case is written in the first person. More concretely, students will learn about the regulations governing this profession in France, the misconduct that continues to persist in the field, and end with lessons to be learned. After having gone through the description of the situation, students are invited to think about questions relating to ethical issues linked to the French media sphere, to the errors of conduct encountered when searching for information as well as to causes which could explain the distancing of journalism from its ethical principles anchored in practice for several decades. Basically, the case study aims to raise students' awareness of issues related to the study of applied ethics in a particular context, which is the practice of journalism in France.

Differentiated secularism: discourse shaping of immigrants from different religious backgrounds in the French media

This paper examines the mechanisms of differentiated discursive disciplining for immigrants of different religious backgrounds in the French media. Based on a sample of 120 articles on immigration in the French mainstream media, textual analyses and comparisons were conducted. Results show that influenced by religious factors, the French media use secularism as a tool to portray completely different images of immigrants through different discursive logics. Muslim immigrants present a paradoxically biased negative image in the French media discourse as a collection of invaders and the disciplined. In contrast, the media image of Ukrainian immigrants of Orthodox Christian background is positive on the whole, with a certain degree of deliberateness in the details of its construction. The difference in the symbolic characterization between Catholicism and Islam enables the exclusionary media discourse against Muslim immigrants. The paper also discusses French media discourse flaws and policy dilemmas. The logic of French media discourse is paradoxical in its inability to maintain an intact secularist identification and to effectively influence political issues to the detriment of promoting immigrant integration.

Is the rule of law really a European concern? Mediatized rule of law conflicts and the contestation of the independence of the judiciary in France and Italy

ABSTRACT The rule of law is considered a foundational value of the EU, yet its validity and implementation remain heavily contested. The article investigates the Europeanisation of rule of law conflicts related to the independence of the Judiciary in Italy and France. Through a claims-making analysis of a representative sample of French and Italian legacy media and Facebook news coverage, the selective salience of the 2018–2023 conflicts over the independence of the judiciary in Poland and Hungary in relation to the application of EU sanctioning mechanisms can be established. Journalists reaffirm their traditional role as guardians of democracy, focusing on monitoring rule of law compliance and detecting violations. However, judicial independence remains primarily a domestic issue, with limited Europeanisation. Public contestation of the EU’s rule of law conflicts with Poland and Hungary is driven primarily by the populist right, not by centre and left parties or the French and Italian governments. There is thus a tendency to instrumentalise EU rule of law conflicts in order to reclaim sovereignty at the expense of debates on democratic control and the protection of the independence of the judiciary.

Experiences of Women With Medical Abortion Care Reflected in Social Media (VEILLE Study): Noninterventional Retrospective Exploratory Infodemiology Study.

Abortion (also known as termination of pregnancy) is an essential element of women's reproductive health care. Feedback from women who underwent medical termination of pregnancy about their experience is crucial to help practitioners identify women's needs and develop necessary tools to improve the abortion care process. However, the collection of this feedback is quite challenging. Social media offer anonymity for women who share their abortion experience. This exploratory infodemiology study aimed to analyze, through French social media posts, personal medical symptoms and the different experiences and information dynamics associated with the medical abortion process. A retrospective study was performed by analyzing posts geolocated in France and published from January 1, 2017, to November 30, 2021. Posts were extracted from all French-language general and specialized publicly available web forums using specific keywords. Extracted messages were cleaned and pseudonymized. Automatic natural language processing methods were used to identify posts from women having experienced medical abortion. Biterm topic modeling was used to identify the main discussion themes and the Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities was used to identify medical terms. Encountered difficulties were explored using qualitative research methods until the saturation of concepts was reached. Analysis of 5398 identified posts (3409 users) led to the identification of 9 major topics: personal experience (n=2413 posts, 44.7%), community support (n=1058, 19.6%), pain and bleeding (n=797, 14.8%), psychological experience (n=760, 14.1%), questioned efficacy (n=410, 7.6%), social pressure (n=373, 6.9%), positive experiences (n=257, 4.8%), menstrual cycle disorders (n=107, 2%), and reported inefficacy (n=104, 1.9%). Pain, which was mentioned in 1627 (30.1%) of the 5398 posts by 1024 (30.0%) of the 3409 users, was the most frequently reported medical term. Pain was considered severe to unbearable in 24.5% of the cases (399 of the 1627 posts). Lack of information was the most frequently reported difficulty during and after the process. Our findings suggest that French women used social media to share their experiences, offer and find support, and provide and receive information regarding medical abortion. Infodemiology appears to be a useful tool to obtain women's feedback, therefore offering the opportunity to enhance care in women undergoing medical abortion.

French Fox News? Audience-level metrics for the comparative study of news audience hyperpartisanship

ABSTRACT French news channel CNEWS is regularly compared to Fox News due to presumed ties with the far right, and for promoting conspiracy theories and partisan propaganda. Using data from the ReCitCom project, I propose simple metrics for quantifying the partisanship of news audiences cross-nationally and identifying channels like Fox News in other media systems. I apply them to France and find that CNEWS has the most ideologically radical news audience within the French media ecosystem, and that the pattern is more pronounced with higher frequency of use. Comparatively, I show that the Fox News and CNEWS audiences have an equivalent ideological lean that justifies the comparison between the two outlets at the audience level. The two audiences are also disproportionately receptive to far-right candidates compared to other news audiences and their respective national samples.

Lobbying against tobacco tax increases in France: arguments and strategies of the tobacco industry and tobacconists analysed through their trade press

IntroductionRaising taxes is one of the most cost-effective measures to reduce tobacco use. France has a unique profile: it has high tobacco use prevalence and a state monopoly on tobacco...

‘Mamie Djihad’ and ‘the white widow’: constructing French and British national identities in terrorist times of crisis

ABSTRACT This article considers the media representation of two women who left the west for Islamic State (IS) in the mid-2010s: from France, Christine Rivière, nicknamed “Mamie Djihad” (Granny Jihad); and from Britain, Sally Jones, known as “The White Widow”. Both were white, middle-aged mothers, born and raised in their respective countries, who converted late in life and left behind established lives and (adult) children to join IS. While much has been written on the migration of western women to IS territory, scholarship has focused on younger women and girls who have been represented as groomed and vulnerable to IS propaganda. These two “unlikely jihadists” profoundly unsettled commonsense ideas about who was vulnerable to radicalisation, and, more troublingly, their defections could potentially be read as statements on the desirability of life in the west vis-à-vis IS’s model. Using Critical Discourse Analysis of leading French and British news media, the article demonstrates how journalists represented both women as always-already outside their respective nations through two key narratives: a gendered discourse of abject motherhood and an intersectional discourse that constructed them as abject inside Others. These narratives worked to suture the ideological rupture caused by these women, who were at first glance typically French/British, by demonstrating that they had actually always been on the margins of the national community and had always been dangerous to the nation.

Exilul românesc de la Paris și influența sa asupra presei franceze, 1977-1989

Towards the end of the 1970s, there is a reactivation of the Romanian exile, along with the change on the international level. The contacts with the French mass media meant a lot for the Romanian refugees in exile: they now had the context to express themselves freely, and above all, to finally be listened to. Access to the major French publications, a dream for the generation of exiles in the early communist decades, now a reality – gave them a huge opening to the Western world. The few Romanians in exile gathered around Monica Lovinescu (Mihnea Berindei, Paul Goma, Dumitru Țepeneag, Marie-France Ionescu, etc.), will successfully manage to use all their resources and any means in order to attract French journalists to their side. Things became all the more serious, as the issue of journalists visiting our country became internationalized, especially in the last two years of the regime.

The framings of the coexistence of agrifood models: a computational analysis of French media

The framings of the coexistence of agrifood models: a computational analysis of French media

Реторичен анализ на предизборния дебат между Еманюел Макрон и Марин Льо Пен (3 май 2017 г.)

Abstract: The article includes results of rhetorical analysis of an election debate between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, which was part of the presidential candidate campaign in France in 2017. The research subject is significant in terms of rhetoric, in particular presidential and presidential candidate rhetoric in France, and the traditions of debate in the 21st century media environment and political culture. The hypothesis is that the debates during the 2017 presidential election campaign in France are an important event that contributes to the construction of the individual political image, recognition and reputation of the French presidential candidates, and that the rhetorical skills of the opponents play an essential role in the presentation of concepts, causes, vision of governance in a national and European context. The rhetorical analysis is on the debate between the two contenders for the presidency, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, which took place on 3 May 2017 in Studio 107 and which was broadcast by French media and social networks. It focuses on verbal, non-verbal means and argumentation in the debate and on the rhetorical features of media and public communication. The conclusions are based on a study of the political, social, cultural, media and communicative context in France; on the analysis of the scenario, the format, the debate hosts; and on the individual characteristics of the participants’ rhetorical and communicative behaviour. Keywords: debate, presidential rhetoric, presidential candidate campaign, media, argumentation, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen. Rhetoric and Communications Journal, issue 58, January 2024

Heroes, Victims, and Future Citizens: Representations of French Children During World War I

The effects of total war society in France during WWI dramatically altered the daily lives of both adults and children, witnessing increasing levels of patriotic rhetoric, wartime propaganda, and anti-German sentiment. Children were often made the focal point of this propaganda, as they represented the future of the nation. As such, three specific representations of children emerge from WWI propaganda in France: the heroic child, the victimized child, and the malleable future citizen. Some of these representations were depicted in propaganda meant for children specifically, while others were depicted in propaganda meant to mobilize adults in the name of children. Regardless of whether the propaganda was made for children or simply manipulated their images to mobilize adults, these representations established the only acceptable roles that children could fit into in society during the war. By analyzing collections of photographs, posters, newspaper articles, children's literature, memoirs, and school assignments from 1914 to 1919, it is possible to examine the development of these representations of children in French media during WWI and, to an extent, judge whether or not children understood themselves as fitting into these roles.

Lexical Choices of the Contemporary French Press and the Representation of Montenegro: A Lexicometric Analysis of Journalistic Discourse

The aim of this paper is to analyze how the contemporary French press used language to present Montenegro, through a corpus-based study of articles from five notable journals (Le Figaro, Le Monde, Le Point, L’Obs, L’Express), published over a period of fifteen years, from 2006 to 2021. Lexicometric analysis performed with open source software IRaMuTeQ enabled us to determine the structure of the vocabulary, as well as the salient themes and “lexical worlds” shaped by the French media about Montenegro, since the restoration of its independence in 2006. Fifteen years of reporting revealed three main centers of interest: politics, tourism and sports. The study also revealed how the most common toponyms in the corpus are characterized, how adjectives participate in the intensification of media content and what specificities distinguish the five analyzed journals, regarding the treatment of particular topics and over-use or under-use of some lexical units.

Complexity in online collective assessments: Implications for the wisdom of the crowd

This research investigates how the complex intertwining of multiple assessments influences the way in which scientific consensus and health policy are perceived. We identified an extreme case in France, with its divided political views on glyphosate, which enabled us to highlight unusual variations and develop a richer, more thorough understanding of cognitive biases and complex collective assessments related to health policy. Our sample comprised 51 articles from four major French online media outlets, 2944 user-generated comments (84,386 words), and 52,023 social audience metrics collected during the heated period following the glyphosate renewal decision made by the European Commission, from November 27, 2017, to December 04, 2017. Through a discourse analysis, we uncovered the media articles' discursive strategies. We also explored the embedded user-generated comments and analyzed collective assessments of glyphosate policy. Our primary contribution lies in developing an understanding of the mechanisms involved in collective assessments of health policy and research consensus. We explored the role played by emotional and moral assessments as antecedents to online polarization. We argue that the complex intertwining of rational, emotional and moral assessments influences how academic consensus is perceived. This research answers the call for more research on the health policy communication process and on the logic of controversy at the interface between politics and science.

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

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.

Biopolitical media discourse in France in the COVID-19 pandemics

The publication activities of the French media during the COVID-19 pandemic in a biopolitical way are analyzed. The theoretical frame of the study is set by Michel Foucault's concept of biopolitics, as well as the propaganda model of Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky. To collect and analyze empirical data, the methods of computational linguistics and the method of identifying contextual ideologemes were applied. The research materials were the texts of independent media (Le Figaro, Le Monde, Le Parisien), identified using the keywords “pandemic” and “COVID-19” during the four waves of the pandemic (from January 2020 to March 2022). A total of 29,584 Le Figaro articles, 22,446 Le Monde articles, and 6,402 Le Parisien articles were used in the research. The purpose of the research is to analyze the strategies for including the French media in the biopolitical practices of propaganda and public education on the example of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result of the research, it turned out that the studied media during the pandemic were integrated both into general information campaigns and into biopolitical education and propaganda campaigns. Two scenarios for organizing media discourse during the pandemic of COVID-19 were identified, determined by target groups and media tasks. The first scenario actively involves educational and propaganda tools to promote state biopolitical goals. The second scenario integrates informing readers about the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures used by the authorities for biopolitical control, with the presentation of the hierarchies of responsible persons/ institutions (within the state biopolitics). It is concluded that the participation of French independent media in the active promotion of biopolitical programs indicates their close connection with the actors and subjects of biopolitics - the state or business representatives.

Twitter: A necessary evil? Journalistic responses to Elon Musk and the denormalization of social media

The normalization of social media (notably Twitter) into journalistic routines has been well documented in research, even as social media use sometimes remains a source of conflict with traditional journalistic values and norms. In 2022, after Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, the normative implications of social media use came into sharp focus for journalists, as Musk ushered in a series of platform changes perceived as unfavorable for the journalistic profession. Focusing on the French media sector in 6-month period after Musk’s takeover, this study aims to explore what happens when journalistic digital tools are disrupted. Through a combination of semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and content analysis of French news articles, I show that Musk’s actions as CEO prompted journalists to question the broader legitimacy of social media as a journalistic tool. However, rather than abandoning Twitter entirely, journalists employed strategic disconnection in order to reconcile their continued Twitter use with their normative discomfort. These findings not only provide empirical evidence on the effects of Musk’s takeover, but also showcases how strategic disconnection can be used as a method of resistance to unwelcome influences in the media sector.

Traduire en se décentrant : exemples d’écueils rencontrés par des étudiants en français de l’économie et de la finance

This article focuses on the relationship between language and culture in the context of the translation of journalistic texts in economics and finance. We can assume that any text or discourse, whether literary or specialized, contains a number of culturemes, that is, elements at the interface of language and culture, typical of the given language, which pose translation difficulties. For the purposes of the article, translations made by students of Romance philology were analyzed and selected problems with the translation of culturemes, including the problem of adopting an appropriate deictic perspective, were highlighted. Another issue raised in the article is the hybrid nature of French media texts in economics and finance, which exhibit a large number of features typical of literary texts. The conclusion emphasizes the fact that students should be sensitized to those layers of text and discourse that are at the interface between language and culture. These layers must be properly identified, decoded and translated from the language of the source-culture to the language of the target culture.

A Return to the Grandmother of Modern Activism

From 1971 to 1981, a group of 103 farming families living on the French Larzac plateau united to protect their sheep farms and land from expropriation to create space for the planned extension of the nearby Larzac military camp. Five decades later, the name ‘Larzac’ still remains part of French collective memory as a symbol of local activism, directly contesting the legitimacy of nationwide centralised decision-making. This article analyses how the myth of the Larzac struggle as the grandmother of small-scale French collective action first emerged in French media coverage, as well as engagement by both the Larzac farmers and activists of the Occitan regionalist movement. It also shows how the continuous reappropriation of this myth has shaped other newer kinds of protest, as the memory of the Larzac is mobilised to speak to issues that are still relevant today, namely the protection of local regional identity and culture writ large.