In the
run-up to the French presidential elections, French voters on social
media have not been particularly kind about their mainstream media.
Terms like "Merdias" (blending "media" with
"merde", meaning shit) and "journalopes"
(blending journalists with "salope", meaning slut or bitch)
have become relatively common when the French discuss their press
online. Why all the hate? It's become clear that in the period before
the elections, French media granted centrist candidate Emmanuel
Macron of the En Marche! movement significantly more airtime and
cover-story profiles than other candidates. So just before the second
round of the presidential elections this Sunday – when either
Macron or far-right candidate Marine Le Pen will be elected president
– I wanted to talk about how the French press framed Macron with
sociologist Alain Accardo. Accardo is a senior lecturer at Bordeaux 3
University, and his writings focus on journalism and the system in
which the mainstream media operate.
Accardo
argues that media organisations are part of the capitalist system and
therefore have an interest in keeping that system in place.
"Journalists working for those media are uniform middle-class
types," he says, "and what they write about serves only the
interests of their own social group." Accardo doesn't think
journalists are puppets to wealthy shareholders, nor does he think
they're plotting to spread misinformation or fake news. But that they
all share the same background, have the same perspective and profit
from the status quo in the same way. He argues that that's
illustrated in the way the French press uniformly reported on "the
phenomenon of Macron". I met with him to better understand his
views.
by
Ludivine Bénard
I think [the
media] played a decisive role in establishing Macron as a credible
candidate, the one who could "bring people together beyond the
traditional party divide", as you'd read a lot. His own ambition
led him on that path. Since he's relatively new to the field of
professional politics, he didn't have the same political capital as
his competitors. But instead of working his way further up the
traditional central left or right party ladder, he took a risk and
entered the competition as an independent competitor, with the En
Marche! movement. That gave him an air of being fresh, being "neither
right nor left" – which, truthfully, isn't all that
revolutionary in the modern French political climate. But the
narrative stands.
Virtually
all major titles in print media, major TV-channels and radio stations
are part of larger media groups with capitalist interests. Those
companies produce information for the market and at the same time,
produce a market for information. They're like any other company that
makes cars, perfume or barbecues. A company produces your desire for
a barbecue, and then produces the barbecue you desire. If the press
is part of that capitalist system, their underlying mission is to
keep that system in place.
The media
has to appear to respect the values on which our Republic and our
Constitution are based – democracy and secularism. That's why
they'll appear to give way to diverse voices – a far-left candidate
like Jean-Luc Mélenchon will get the floor, but in the media
narrative he'll be associated with extreme left-wing leaders – like
Hugo Chavez, for example. Anti-capitalist candidate Philippe Poutou
will be interviewed, but will always be presented as a minor
candidate without vision. More traditional candidates who don't
threaten the capitalist structure are presented positive or
neutrally, without devaluing connotations. Individually, each of
those comments or connotations might seem small or irrelevant, but
the fact that it's repeated so often in all media creates that
narrative around a candidate or their ideas.
Journalistic
titles hire journalists whose social background – socially,
culturally, educationally and morally – fits perfectly with what
the current capitalist order asks for. People working in media are
mostly middle-class types with the same interests, favouring
consumerism, hedonism, libertarian individualism and unconditional
Europeanism from Brussels. And they're all subject to this form of
political illiteracy – they reduce reporting on politics to
reporting on political personalities. The journalists and pollsters
in the press turn political life into a theatrical stage, where
personalities just endlessly talk and debate. All that talk drowns
out any serious criticism of the system. The French people
have been indoctrinated that way for decades – we've had more than
30 years of a certain consensus between the centrist powers of the
conservative right of Les Républicains and a right that's disguised
as socialism by the Parti Socialiste. It's hard to wake up from that,
but I think the country is starting to take note. I think the
mainstream media and the journalists working in them are now seeing
that, and want to save the system they're working in. So it's a
natural step for them to promote all candidates who don't really
threaten the capitalist order.
Macron
happened to be in the right place at the right time, while candidates
of the traditional parties were failing. Someone needed to fill that
void, and along came Macron, a young and ambitious supposed outsider,
who's still completely and safely part of the system – having gone
to the right school and having worked at a bank. The marketing
campaign around him gave him the fashionable air of being neither
left nor right. There's nothing modern in that – it's just
well-tried logic of a well-organised system. It's naive to think that
if Macron hadn't been there and then, the establishment would have
been pushed aside and lost power. There are hundreds of potential
candidates like Macron, formed in our schools and political
organisations, ready to take over if necessary – each with a
slightly different flavour.
Far-left
political figures we have in France, like Olivier Besancenot and
Philippe Poutou of the New Anticapitalist Party, or even militant
socialist Jean-Luc Mélenchon, probably wouldn't have very long
political careers in the United States.
Full
interview here:
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