I pretty much enjoyed the presentation by Natalie Fenton (Goldsmiths) and Veronica Barrassi (Regent’s College) on the first day of the IAMCR conference. They talked about the way in which social media can be used to bring about, not just political participation, but also political action and political change.What are the ways in which digital media actually produce social change ?
Here is how I interpret their message : the discourse around social media must no longer be exclusively focused on negative liberties (« liberties from »). One should go one step further and actually think about the conditions that are required for a citizen to be properly autonomous ; the mere absence of constraints – like the absence of censorship, or the absence of barriers to the means of communication – are an insufficient condition for that.
We live in a world in which great political changes are made possible, and are actually been made. But they are conditioned by a process of individuation (cf. M. Castells) : political voices come into being trough the participation of the individual to the network society. The collectivities, the insitutions are left aside. Mass self communication leaves the individual disconnected form the public sphere.
Veronica Barrassi put this theoretical thinking in relation with her field work about alternative media platforms in Cuba. A very interesting founding in Veronica’s research is that cuban “participatory” media do not easily remain participatory. At a certain point, « interactivity is something they can no longer afford ». They will, for instance, cut the commentaries on their YouTube videos, in order to avoid « trivial » things from being exchanged, and to keep a certain control on their discourse…
Je viens d’assister au fascinant discours de la journaliste iranienne Shadi Sadr. Shadi une activiste des droits de la femme qui s’est fait arrêter, en 2009, par la police iranienne. Elle a été relâchée après une dizaine de jours de détention. Elle affirme aujourd’hui que les médias sociaux favorisent les politiques répressives du régime iranien. Les autorités iraniennes, ainsi qu’un certain nombre de groupuscules conservateurs, ont en effet recours à des moyens sophistiqués permettant de collecter des informations relatives aux opposants politiques et de diffuser de fausses informations. Ils s’efforcent par exemple d’accéder au courrier électronique des citoyens gênants, de récolter des informations à leur sujet, d’usurper des identités etc.
Bizarrement, en 2009, dans la presse américaine et européenne, on parle alors essentiellement des réseaux sociaux comme d’un moyen de lutte du “mouvement vert“. Mark Pfeifle, ancien conseiller auprès de la Maison Blanche, avait même – pour la petite anecdote – proposé de nobéliser les fondateurs de Twitter, en raison des “bienfaits” que la société californienne avait prodigué au peuple iranien. La réalité – précise Shadi Sadr – c’est que ces outils de networking ont plus été des outils de contrôle, que des outils d’empowerment. Elle n’est pas la première à faire cette observation. Déjà en juin 2009, Ethan Zuckerman (Berkmann Center, Uni. Harvard) – fondateur de Global Voices – annonçait que Twitter «avait été utilisé comme une chaîne de désinformation par des groupes vraisemblablement de mèche avec le gouvernement; ils ont surtout tenté de faire peur à la population pour la dissuader de retourner manifester».
Qu’en est-il enfin du potentiel de Twitter comme source d’information journalistique ? Une ancienne journaliste de The Independant (Megan Knight, Uni. Lancaster) a cherché à répondre à cette question. Pour ce faire, elle a procédé à une analyse d’articles de presse – britanniques et américains – parus pendant la période des élections iraniennes de 2009 . Les 365 articles sélectionnés font mention de 755 sources. Résultats de son étude : 23% des articles mentionnent les réseaux sociaux (social media). Mais, seuls 8% de ces articles renvoient à une réelle citation. Conclusion : Twitter est sans doute un outil de fantastique, mais on a surévalué tant son potentiel politique, ou démocratique, que son potentiel journalistique (en terme d’enquête, d’investigation)… Comment expliquer cette sorte de mirage collectif de l’année passée? Je ne sais pas…
“Le journaliste qui était intermédiaire, qui était sur le terrain pour rapporter ce qui se passait, la révolution iranienne, un avion qui se crashe et autre, ben aujourd’hui il est en concurrence avec Monsieur-tout-le-monde qui, aujourd’hui, est avec son téléphone portable, et envoie directement l’information. Avec la puissance supplémentaire que simplement, le journalistes qui… ils sont en nombre limité, une population limitée, voilà (…) tandis que M. et Mme tout-le-monde, sont partout. Twitter c’est comme si on avait une rédaction de 25 millions de personnes, partout en même temps, et dès qu’il se passe quelque chose, boum, on l’envoie sur Twitter, c’est relayé automatiquement ; et donc quand je suis ce qui se passe en Iran sur Twitter, je suis dans la même position qu’un journaliste de CNN qui est dans la foule” (Interview avec un ancien journaliste de Trends, Juillet 2009).
In France – between 2005 and 2007 – new influential journalistic platforms have appeared : blogs but also (1) « citizen journalism » platforms : platforms based on a model in which the members of the audience, the citizens, play an active role in the newsmaking process (Agoravox, LePost). And more recently, (2) « network journalism » platforms have appeared : new web-communities of journalists who produce information, independently from the traditional media, and in collaboration with non-journalists. (Rue89).
Today, we will try to analyse how these platforms cover the climate negotitations (in comparision with the online version of traditional newspapers). There are few studies that have been done on this subject (Shanahan & McComas, 2004 ; Dirikx and Gelders, 2010), and no study at all on the participatory aspect of this subject. We will proceed as follows : first, (1) we will identify the issues and actors, that are percieved (by the different media) as “central to the negotiations”. Second, we will try to identify the ways in which (2) the different contributors/journalists act on their audience through their words (Searle, 1979).
MEDIA REPRESENTATION OF ACTORS AND ISSUES
Here are the different articles classified according to the issues they focus on. In traditional papers (LeMonde, LeFigaro), the three most important issues are (1) negotiations (37 and 33 %), (2) education and eco-sensitivity (19 and 24%), and (3) demonstrations. In participatory media – Aoravox and Rue89 – the three most important ones are (1) “negotiations” (25 and 35%), (2) “science” (19% and 24%) (3) “religion and ideology” (14% and 10%).
We see – without any surprise – that the issues that are left behind (or taken as implicit premisses) by traditional platforms, are massively expressed (or put into question) on participatory platforms. These participatory platforms are used for the expression of viewpoints which – otherwise – could not easily be expressed ; and it includes criticism the logics of the negotiations, criticism of Cap & Trade, as well as climate scepticism, and conspiracy theories…
That’s all for the issues. How about the actors ? We see that the mere identification of political actors leads to the establishement of specific frameworks of understanding which favour the expression of particular viewpoints. Example: some articles associate emerging countries (BRIC) to the developed countries, others do not. The drawning of these categories has a tremendous impact on, either the denial, or the recognition of the historical responsibility of the developed countries (77%).
A word must also be said about the identification of scientific actors. The participatory platforms gave a lot of importance to them during the negotiation, but not to any of them. One can observe that a strong tendency for some participatory journalists to relay the scientific voices that are convenient with the ideological views they is willing to defend (Carvalho, 2007). So, the phenomenon described by A. Carvalho – in her articles about the British traditional press in the 1980’ – can easily be extended to the participatory press. Some journalists [participatory journalists included] “pick individuals at the margins of respected science (…) and magnify their opinions in order to sustain a certain view of the world and a certain social order” (Carvalho, 2006, p. 27). And – as a result of the recent development of the participatory platforms – this individual “truth-building” process is becoming accessible to anyone.
SPEECH ACTS
There are different ways in which a journalist can act on his environnement – his/her audience – by words (Searle, 1979).
(1) Assertives : Assertives are speech acts by which a person commits himself (or herself) more or less strongly to the acceptability of a particular proposition (description). In our content analysis, we categorized these assersives as follows. There are, first, assertives about (1) the existence of global warming, which are extremely rare. Second, those about (2) the causes of global warming, which are quite frequent in the participatory media. Third, one finds (3) assertives about the consequences of global warming – in TP as well asi in PP – and finally (4) assertives about the degree of responsibility of the different actors, and how it is possible to define it. This fourth point is the heart of the negotiation. But, as we have seen in our article: the use of the concept of “scientific certainty” and “scientific proof” (about the causes and consequences of GW) is intrumentalized – in the participatory press, as in the americazn press in the past – to avoid this question of “responsibility”. It reinforces the ethics of inaction (Carvalho, Boykoff).
(2) Directives : Directives are speechs act in which the locutor does no longer describe things the way they are, but things way they should (not) be. Journalists are traditionaly reluctant to express directives. But in the case of climate change, the french newspapers did not hesitate to use more of this prescriptive language (ex : common editorials) : in many articles, we can find the idea that it is the « last chance summit », « we have ten days to re-think our modes of consumption and production », « the last opportunity that we have to limit the damage done » . This prescriptive discourse has been heavily criticized or even rejected on participatory plaforms, (which did not hesitates to compare it to ideology, and religion). It is important to remark that these critiques are not necessarily expressed by right-wing conservative climate skeptics. They are also expressed by people who believe in the existence of AGW, but ask questions about the implicit premissies that are at the basis of the climate negotiations : « why do we think that cap and trade is the only way, or the best way, to tackle climate change ?». Is it sufficient to mitigate it ? etc.
(3) Commissives : Commissives are speech acts in which a journalist claims (to the reader) that he or she undertakes to do (or to refrain from doing) something. A commissive expresses a form of promise (“I/We accept that…”, “…refuse to…”). A commitment. By their commitements, journalists adopt a particular framework of action that is essential for maintaining the relation with the audience. It is a way to reinforce a relation of trust with the audience.
(4) Expressives : Expressives are speech acts in which the journalist expresses personal feelings such as “regret“, “congratulation“. In traditional media – which are attached to the the principle of neutrality – the expression of personal feelings is almost inexistent. By contrast, in the participatory press – agoravox in particular – authors do not have to see journalism as the fruit of a disembodied activity. They allow themselves to say « I », and to formulate expressives such as « I regret », « I think it is a pity » or « it would be sad », « it’s undecent » (Agoravox, Rue89).
(5) Declaratives : Declaratives are speech acts that are pronounced in order to obtain the acceptance of a specific reality among a given audience. They open and close specific frames of interaction (like when a judge announces that “the session is open“, when a croupier says “the chips are down”). The media produce declaratives when they describe the summit as an “historical moment” (LM07), as a “decisive moment in history”, as the “last chance summit”… They establish a strict framework of understanding, whose access is conditionned by specific norms and beliefs –for example- the belief that Cap&Trade is an appropriate means to tackle climate change. It presents itself to the agents as the main framework of understanding of the action climate change. A sufficient condition for success. Those who think other means would more appropriate to diminish our levels of carbon emissions are put outside of the realm of interaction.
Conclusion
Let me finish with this brief conclusion: The participatory platforms are probably as partial as other media, but they have at least one considerable advantage, they express a wider variety of partial views, which – if the discourse is properly argumented - can lead the citizens to question the grounds of their jugements, and the conditions in which these jugements are made.
Mardi, à la vidéo-conférence de David Nordfors (Uni. Stanford), j’ai découvert un concept dont je n’avais jusqu’ici jamais entendu parler : “innovation journalism“. Je vais tenter, dans ce post, de vous en donner un bref aperçu (critique). Pour Nordfors, l’innovation c’est le procédé par lequel un individu créée et livre de la valeur dans un réseau, un marché ou une communauté (process of creating and delivering new value). Le pouvoir d’innovation des journalistes se trouve aujourd’hui renforcé grâce au déploiement des médias sociaux.
“Information is shifting from doing more of the same to introducing new things” (D. Nordfors, Conférence de l’IAMCR, 20/06/10)
D. Nordfors (Uni. Stanford)
Il estime qu’un système démocratique est fondé sur la concurrence des idées. Jeu de concurrence qui passe – entre autres choses – par des alliances, des compromis, des conflits, et des luttes de reconnaissance (fight for attention). Cette compétition – poursuit-il – a pour enjeu central le contrôle de “flux d’attention”, qui étaient autrefois difficilement identifiables, mais qui sont aujourd’hui rendus visibles, grâce au web. Mais – conclut-il – les journalistes doivent toutefois veiller de ne pas tomber dans le travers qui consisterait, par exemple, à réduire le réel à une série de “success stories”, au encore à troquer son indépendance contre de la “visibilité”!
28th Conference of the IAMCR, Braga, 2010
Bon, cela reste très abstrait, donc je vous propose d’illustrer ce propos sur base de l’étude empirique qu’il vient de réaliser sur ce sujet. Dans ce papier, Nordfors décrit la façon dont les journalistes de Palo Alto s’efforcent de combiner la “culture de l’innovation” et les normes journalistiques traditionnelles, et notamment la norme d “indépendance à l’égard des sources“. Les entreprises de la Silicon Valley sont jalouses de leurs propres infos. Pour contrôler la couverture médiatique, elles refusent de livrer des informations à des journalistes (même réputés) qui ne sont pas intégrés au sein de leur réseau professionnel… A l’inverse, les journalistes qui ont la chance d’y être intégrés renoncent souvent à des informations par crainte de devenir le “faire-valoir” de l’entreprise. C’est là que peuvent intervenir de jeunes journalistes, passés experts dans l’art de tirer de l’information des réseaux. Il trouvent une info à “forte valeur ajoutée”, et transmettent ensuite leurs papiers à des grands noms de la profession, dans l’espoir de voir s’accroître leur renom etc.
Le propos est intéressant, mais érige la compétition en valeur centrale du journalisme, ou en condition de possibilité de toute innovation journalistique. Or, dans de nombreuses rédactions, les logiques de compétition peuvent pousser les journalistes à déforcer leurs “collègues et concurrents”. Je me pose la question suivante : cela ne risque-t-il pas, justement, d’empêcher la “création de valeur” ?
