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and Gricis Université du Québec à Montréal, within the ACI programme
« Les mutations des industries de la culture, de l’information et de la communication : bilan, cartographie, observation ».
| Workshop 1.1 - Workshop 1.2 - Workshop 1.3 - Workshop 1.4 - Workshop 1.5 | |
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Workshop 1.2 ICTs and changes in the Culture sectors |
| Chairman : - Nicole Arnal- Observatoire OMIC, MSH Paris Nord Speakers : Ester Applgren, The Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Suède « Interactive news services – competitors to the printed newspaper »  >>> Download
the communicationSue Ferguson, Wilfrid Laurier University, Brantford Campus, Canada Dominique Nauroy, Université Paul Verlaine -
Metz, France Barbara Sallé, Université Saint-Denis-Paris
8, CICM/MSH Paris Nord, France Laïd Bouzidi, Sicomor, Centre de recherche de l’IAE,
Université
Jean Moulin, Lyon 3 / Eric Thivant, Université Jean Moulin
- Lyon 3 - Sicomor, France Khaled Zouari, Université Stendhal - Grenoble
3 - GRESEC, France |
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«Interactive news services – competitors to the printed newspaper » Ester Appelgren >>> Download
the communicationThe December 2005 issue of Newspaper Techniques - the international magazine of newspaper strategy, business and technology addresses the issue of a second generation of new media, denoted as “new new media”. In the above mentioned article Northrup (2005) states “Now publishers have a new set of new media to master, such as video, podcasting, mobile and epaper”(p.1). In an out-of-date reference book on New Media (Pettersson, 1986), one of the suggested “new new media” technologies, ”video” was included in the long list of new media. Thus video was considered as new both in 1986 and in 2005, however in different contexts. New media or contemporary new media is seldom completely “new” but rather combined characteristics of old media (van Dijk, 2004). This is also discussed by Bolter and Grusin (2001), suggesting the concept of re-mediation to be “the formal logic by which new media refashion prior media forms”. New media is thus obviously a continuously evolving time-dependent concept. Rogers (2003) suggests that an innovation is an idea, habit or an object that is perceived as new by an individual. However, the actual newness of the idea, measured objectively in time, is of minor importance for the individuals’ reactions to the idea. Hence, according to Rogers, for the publishers, traditionally having worked with printed media, video can be regarded as new media. Researchers as well as industry representatives have ever since on-line newspaper editions were introduced on the market discussed them in terms of potential threats or as complements to the printed editions of the newspapers. As new digital editions of the newspapers continuously have been launched on the market, the threat to the printed edition may have increased further. In this paper, four digital news media services have been analyzed; the on-line news paper edition, web TV news services, news podcasting services and news blogs. The four services all contain elements of interactivity. One of the objectives of the paper is to investigate whether the interactive aspects of new digital news media services are the core of the potential threat towards the printed edition. Furthermore, the paper will discuss the newness of new media forms such as interactive news services. When do such services stop being new and how important is it for their success to be perceived as such as they are much depending on a critical mass of users? The results have been obtained using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. Literature on and available statistics on both sales and usage of the four new media news services have been analyzed. A survey have been carried out with early users of the selected new media news services, with the purpose to discuss the usage of the interactive aspects of the services. Deep interviews with experts of the respective services have been carried out. The paper consists of an introduction to the area of digital news media services, background of the selected four communication channels, presentation of statistics regarding usage of the four selected services, results from the focus groups and interviews, discussion of the results with emphasis on the newness of new media and interactivity in relation to being potential threats to the traditional media, conclusions of the paper and suggestions for future research.
«The Children’s Culture Industry and Globalization: Shifts in the Commodity Character of Toys» Sue Ferguson Whether it’s lamented, celebrated or merely noted, the Children’s Culture Industry is widely seen as having undergone a significant transformation in the last quarter century. Numerous scholars have drawn attention to the ways in which global capital’s control of key cultural resources for children (namely toys and media, or the media-toy hybrid) has drawn children into a more intensive and extensive relationship with the marketplace. One influential articulation of the “commodification of childhood” position understands this change as fostering a greater differentiation between adult and childish desires. Whatever the drawbacks, suggests Gary Cross, as the toy industry has become increasingly tied to the logic of the market, toys have moved away from representing the values and messages of the adult world. Mattel’s introduction of Barbie in 1959, the argument goes, signaled the beginning of a trend – accelerated during the 1980s and 1990s when toy advertisers essentially cut out the middle-mom and aimed their messages directly at children – in which toys appeal to a child’s unfettered imagination, expressing their innermost needs and desires. This paper challenges Cross’ thesis, suggesting that he and others focus unduly on the features of toys – a focus that fails to consider how adult messages have changed (not simply disappeared) over the years. Rather, I argue, a more coherent understanding of the nature of the changes wrought by the globalization and commodification of the Children’s Culture Industry is possible by focusing on the current specificities of the toys’ commodified form. Here I am referring primarily to the way in which the production of toys is implicated in a veritable fashion cycle. Toys have long been creatures of the market. What’s important about the “commoditoy” industry (Beryl Langer’s term for toys that stimulate, rather than satisfy, longing by urging children to consume an endless array of add-ons, accessories and/or theme-related media products) is the way in which toys – and the children on behalf of whom they’re bought – are drawn into an endlessly expansive fashion cycle in which, following Walter Benjamin, the quest for novelty (not play) becomes an end in itself. And if, at the same time, as Benjamin suggests, the only truly novel experience is death, it is not surprising that so called “clash toys,” violent video games, and fashion dolls (all of which can be interpreted as brushing up against mortality in one way or another) dominate the toy market. To push the Benjaminian framework even further on these issues, it is arguable that commoditoys implicate children in a collective trance, inspiring or strengthening a subconscious belief in the mythic powers of capitalism. But play (in particular, the cognitive mode implied by play), as Benjamin saw it, has a special place in breaking free from that myth. For this reason, it is at least worth questioning the extent to which the transformation of the Children’s Culture Industry is capable of fully colonizing children’s hearts and minds. «Cybooks and the publishing industry» Dominique Nauroy >>> Download
the communication (French)In 1998, Cytale, founded by Jacques Attali, has been the first company in France aiming to migrate reading to the digital world. Noting on the one hand the success of digital music, on the other hand nomad lifestyles, Cytale creates in 2001 an electronic book: “Cybook” tablets are consumer electronics intended for great readers, expatriates, seniors and travellers. However, the marketing is a spectacular failure, to be compared with the expectations and the dreams, notably sustained by the press, that this device had created as a prototype. It may be attempting the impossible to try to appeal to reading lovers with consumer electronics: in 2000, no one conceives a priori the electronic book as an invitation to read. Hybrid between a book and a computer, the Cybook is a new device that doesn’t look like the one or the other at first sight. Thus, it is a difficult task to give a clear interpretation of this invention, as distributors among others in the marketing area experience it. The general public mostly prefers the printed book. And the electronic device faces some resistance revealing the referential status of the printed book in the collective imagination. Thus the novel appears incompatible with the screen, despite some experimentations led in libraries attesting the contrary. Cytale fails in these attempts and is led to negotiate the device with the partially sighted. In this case, the Cybook becomes an artefact which gives a new and a truly unique access to a cultural field. Rather than mutation, we should better talk about the creation of new usages. And Cytale has created, there, a successful mediation. From this standpoint, the Cybook has succeeded in “translating” the needs of specific customers, and we can’t say that this device was stillborn. So, has Cytale been led by blindness, in such a way that the company has been unable to change its marketing policy? Has Cytale been weakened by a loose network weaved with its main partners? Even if the decision process is sometimes long, compared to the short lifetime of the company, we can reply to all these questions in the negative. Cytale is not the result of absurd decisions. The fall of Cytale, which in France symbolizes the end (or the break) of an idea, can’t be explained by a single cause. Indeed, it is the result of the conjunction of a series of actions and judgments, linked to the company and / or to the world in which it was living. This is what we intend to explain. Our study will thus cast a new light on the current editorial strategies led by Amazon and Google in the United States, and by Sony in Japan in the field of a new kind of electronic book, hybrid between the sheet and the screen. «New means of distribution of contemporary musical works at Radio France» Barbara Sallé >>> Download
the communication (French)Radio France is a vital media service in France as it represents the hopes of cultural and technological action’s development set up by authorities. For the Presences festival, Radio France objective is to help musical creation, by broadcasting it live or pre-recorded and organizing free concerts within the firm, represented by its assorted orchestras, its chor and its “Maîtrise”. The Presences festival offers to the public a variety of national and international personalities, representative of the musical composition circle, with about 20 creations per year featuring the best performers. The festival has been an important channel for contemporary music’s transmissions in France for the last fifteen years. Created in 1991 by Claude Samuel, it was an avant-gardist musical fair, structured to promote musical creation from conception to broadcast. In addition, there is the Electronic Presences festival, created in 2005, issued from the INA-GRM label, which presents the electro-acoustic version of the classics as well as the new electronic trends in musical creation. In this work, we will study the new means of contemporary musical creation's broadcast within Radio France framework and both Presences Festival and Electronic Presences festival. Until today, the traditional means of airing were through radios such as France Music, France Culture, in addition to the announcements made on France inter, France Info, Fip and Mouv. In 2004, new transmission techniques, using the Internet, have been implemented, and then proposed to the audience in 2005. They are: 1/ Radio on the Internet, thereby with an international span. Firstly, we need to gauge the impact of these new means of broadcast on contemporary musical creation: Is the audience better informed, wider? Are the classics listened to more often? Are the classification, transmission and distribution any better? What about the showcase? From the composers, performers and music editor’s point of view on the one hand and the politician’s on the other hand: What about copyrights? Secondly, we need to appraise how these new techniques can give a revival in the airing and aesthetic autonomy of the contemporary musical creation. The latter has not been industrialized yet and has few chances to become so. Unlike the plastic art’s market, it concerns a limited audience and exists thanks to the authority’s cultural involvement. This work is based on researches for our university thesis, entitled "The new means of musical creation’s broadcast", which asks among others the following questions: *) In which terms can we speak of musical airing? In other words, what are the possible connections between art, industry and broadcast; and how can we develop other ways of musical creation’s airing - beyond the industry and its economic models - connected to it, communication’s progress and the transformations they lead to. «Analysis of the strategies of Specialized Information Industries» Laïd Bouzidi Eric Thivant >>> Download
the communication (E.Thivant French)
This article deals with strategies of industrialization and modes of development for specialized information’s industries such as the financial information industries in front of the globalization of the economy. After presenting the main economical models of development for Cultural and Media Industries (CMI), such as the editorial’s or the stream’s model, we work on the hypothesis that this specialized information industry uses specific strategies of developments, contributing to stimulate the Cultural and Media Industries theories. Using a constructivist framework, we analyze the development policies of the main actors of this industry, from a strategic, sociological and technological point of view, by taking into account the market’s reality, the technological evolution, the markets’ deregulation and the failures and the successes of vertical and horizontal mergers on this sector. The specialized information enterprises become more industrialized on this market and capital-intensive. In other words this research concerns the evolution of the media capitalism (capitalism belonging to the sphere of media) and the strategies of new media in an fragmented public space and in the impact of new technological standard to explain the dynamic of this sector. « Electronic media in the Arab World: towards a new information and communication industry? » Khaled Zouari >>> Download
the communication (French)Our communication, based on a research in information communication sciences, try to discuss about the mergence of the online newspapers in Maghreb (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia). Our ambition is to analyse the development of print newspapers to
Internet and to clarify the specificities and the economic model
of these media and cultural industries. Our studies expose that population, show that reading online newspapers harms using print newspapers among the young, but does not substitute the use of the print newspaper or other media or the time spent on them. On the contrary: Online newspaper readers use some information channels more often and more extensively, even after other plausible reasons for media use are controlled for. And they regard printed newspapers as still better suited for their information needs. Concerning the economic model of these media industry, we can say that online newspapers are based on the advertising and the resources of the print newspapers. Although subscription are forecast to constitute the future of online news publishing by the media executives interviewed, advertising still accounts for the majority of their online revenue. Actually, online newspapers in Maghreb countries are in the period of experimentation, their economic model and their readers are not stable and their stability will be clear in the long time and not immediately. To summer up, online newspapers are a prolongation and an association of print newspapers. Like the majority of online newspapers in the world, the content of these publications are similar than print newspapers, the mergence of economic model of these media can be evaluated with the audiences and the uses but in the long time. |
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