Abstract
Terrorist attacks generate intense media coverage, in which horror is constructed as a communication framework that brings together performances of propaganda, information, reaction and reception. This results in irreducible complexity for journalists who must inform the public while being an active part of this same communications framework. These issues are particularly important for television, which finds itself at the centre of recurring and heated public debates about the role of the media in relation to terrorism. This chapter analyses the factors explaining the evolution of the regulatory framework for broadcast media since the Islamist attacks of the 1990s.
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Notes
- 1.
The present study is part of the project SENSI-TV-T, with the support of the CNRS, and the project MEDIATERR, linked to Équipex DIME-SHS.
- 2.
For example, on 18 March 2021, the CSA imposed—for the first time on a 24-hour news channel—a fine of 200,000 euros on the private channel CNews for ‘inciting hatred’ and ‘violence’, after a polemicist described underage migrants as ‘thieves’, ‘rapists’ and ‘murderers’.
- 3.
‘I simply note that the extraordinary lack of media discipline which characterised these attacks was unparalleled in any country in the world, and undoubtedly exceeded all the hopes that the terrorists might have placed in their endeavour to destabilise French society. […] Everyone in life must assume their responsibilities’ (TV news, 1 pm, France 2, 5 September 1995).
- 4.
CSA, Circular of 24 August 1995 on the accuracy of the information and the verification of sources (coverage of the attacks).
- 5.
CSA, verdict of 24 April 2012.
- 6.
CSA, verdict of 10 July 2012.
- 7.
CSA, Recommendation no. 2013-04 of 20 November 2013 on the treatment of international conflicts, civil wars and terrorist acts by broadcasting bodies.
- 8.
Le Monde, 23 June 2015.
- 9.
CSA, communiqué of 12 February 2015.
- 10.
Report by the Parliamentary Commission investigating the means implemented by the state in the struggle against terrorism since 7 January 2015, published by the Assemblée Nationale, 5 July 2016.
- 11.
CSA, press release of 25 November 2015.
- 12.
CSA, Précautions relatives à la couverture audiovisuelle d’actes terroristes, 25 October 2016.
- 13.
This measure was defended by the Observatory for Information Ethics (ODI) and involved creating an independent body made up of representatives of the profession and the public.
- 14.
Le Monde, 7 September 1995.
- 15.
Ibid.
- 16.
Libération, 6 September 1995.
- 17.
Libération, 8 September 1995.
- 18.
Le Point, 10 July 2012.
- 19.
Reporters sans frontières, quoted in Libération, 10 July 2012.
- 20.
ODI, Rapport sur les journées de janvier 2015, 13 March 2015.
- 21.
86 people were killed (and 458 injured) by a truck on 14 July celebrations in Nice and a priest was killed during mass in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray (26 July). There were op-eds on the radio (France Culture,15 July) and in the press (Le Monde, 16 July); and a petition ‘asking for the anonymity of terrorists in the media’, launched on 18 July 2016 on Change.org, attracted over 165,000 signatures in just a few weeks.
- 22.
‘Following the attack in Nice, we will no longer be publishing the photos of those who carry out these killings, so as to avoid any posthumous glorification’ (Le Monde, 27 July 2016).
- 23.
Libération, 28 July 2016.
- 24.
Communiqué of France Télévisions, 15 July 2016.
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Lefébure, P., Sécail, C. (2022). On Television: Journalists Caught Between Rival Demands. In: Faucher, F., Truc, G. (eds) Facing Terrorism in France. French Politics, Society and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94163-5_4
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