Abstract
Executives of leading media outlets play a central role in the chain of news production. They are involved in strategic, economic and editorial decisions and are a focal point of power relations both within and outside of media organizations. Paradoxically, they have been neglected in the academic literature. This chapter intends to fill this gap by committing to the analysis of media executives as a professional group. Who are the executives of national media outlets? How are they appointed? What social properties and capitals do they possess? What does this tell us about the workings of the news media field in relation to other segments of the elite? This chapter argues that, situated at the intersection of several social spaces, media executives exemplify the struggles between different fractions of the elite over the definition of the types of capital expected to prevail in the field of power. Media executives form a crossroads space, at the intersection of private corporations, journalism, publishing, senior civil service and government ministers’ offices, the intellectual, academic and cultural world, the political field and regulatory bodies.
Translated from French by Jean-Yves Bart.
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Notes
- 1.
“[In] Southern Europe—and to a lesser degree France—liberal institutions, including both capital and political democracy, developed later. The forces of the ancien régime—the landholding aristocracy, the absolute state, and the Catholic or Orthodox church were stronger there, and liberalism triumphed only after a protracted political conflict that continued in many cases well into the twentieth century. One important legacy of this history is the fact that the political spectrum remained wider and political differences sharper in southern Europe than in Northern Europe or North America” (Hallin and Mancini 2004: 89).
- 2.
The executives included in the sample work for daily national and so-called opinion [political] newspapers (Le Monde, Le Figaro, Libération, La Croix, L’Humanité, Le Parisien-Aujourd’hui, France Soir), online news outlets (Mediapart, Atlantico, Slate, Huffington Post, Arrêt sur Images, Reporterre, Causeur), news magazines (Le Nouvel Observateur, L’Express, Le Point, Marianne, Courrier International, Le Monde diplomatique, Politis, Valeurs actuelles, Télérama, Les Inrocks, Le 1, L’Opinion), free papers (20 minutes, Direct Matin), national TV channels (France 2, TF1, M6, Arte, Canal +, TV5 Monde, LCP, Public Sénat), 24-hour news channels (BFM TV, I-télé, D8, LCI) and general-interest radio stations (France Inter, Europe 1, RTL, France Info, RMC, France Culture, Radio Classique, etc.).
- 3.
In France, the directeur de la publication, bearing legal responsibility for the publication under the Act of 29 July 1881, is often the person who holds the most power.
- 4.
This is shown in the recent synthesis of international literature on media elites by Eva Mayerhöffer et Barbara Pfetsch (Mayerhoffer and Pfetsch 2010).
- 5.
International comparison requires an attention to the categories employed, as those are not always transposable from one context to another, to the differences between the education systems that determine the value of degrees, curricula, networks and more broadly to forms of social reproduction and mobility (on the latter, see Naudet J. Naudet 2018).
- 6.
Sources: French National Assembly and Senate.
- 7.
Because most elite studies are country-specific and use different kind of approaches as well as strictly comparative elite studies are missing, a rough comparison is the only option.
- 8.
In the audiovisual sector, in 1988, women were more represented in production, human resources and advertising that in general policy positions (Dagnaud and Mehl 1990: 132).
- 9.
In France, the issue of parity in the political representation field appears in 1995 with the creation of an Observatory of the parity. Since then, several laws have been voted to encourage the feminization of the French political institutions (inside political parties, amongst candidates for elections).
- 10.
Source: website of the French National Assembly, last accessed on 19 February 2020. Author’s count based on phenotypes and African or Asian sounding surnames. On the place of “racial” minorities in UK and US elites, see Shamus Rahman Khan (Khan 2011).
- 11.
Christine Leteinturier found that two thirds of top executive journalists (66.5%) had over 20 years of seniority (Leteinturier 2000).
- 12.
“L’âge des patrons du CAC 40”, Les Echos, 27 February 2015.
- 13.
Centre d’observation de la société, “Tel père, tel fils ? L’inégalité des chances reste élevée”, posted on 14 August 2017.
- 14.
By adding the children of blue-collar workers and employees among members of ministers’ cabinets between 1986 and 2012 and dividing the resulting number by the total population of individuals for whom this information is available, a rate of 19% is obtained (Behr V. and Michon S. Behr and Michon 2013: 337).
- 15.
These top schools can be accessed by passing competitions for applicants with two years of higher education, who have often studied in a prestigious, selective preparatory class.
- 16.
This interview was conducted in 2012, when the director was chairman of the board at Le Nouvel Observateur. Since then, he has been the publishing and managing editor of Libération.
- 17.
I gathered these data from the biographies of ministers in the Manuel Valls 2 and Edouard Philippe cabinets. The second Valls government (2014–2016) was the fourth government appointed by the French socialist president, François Hollande. It was composed of 16 ministers and 17 secretaries of state. Edouard Philippe’s government (2017) has been appointed by the centrist president Emmanuel Macron. It included 19 ministers and 10 secretaries of State as of 17 May 2017.
- 18.
For instance, in the second Valls government, Laurent Fabius had degrees from the ENS, Sciences Po and the ENA; Fleur Pellerin, from Sciences Po, the ENA and the ESSEC; in the Macron government, Bruno Le Maire held an agrégation and degrees from the ENS, Sciences Po and the ENA.
- 19.
By 1988, Monique Dagnaud and Dominique Mehl noted that “nearly all top managers in television [lived] in Paris’s residential neighborhoods or in the chic Western suburbs, [locations indicating] a firm social and financial base” (Dagnaud and Mehl 1990: 33).
- 20.
Interview with the director of news at TF1, 2011.
- 21.
On the concentration of society clubs in Paris, see Chauvin and Cousin (2014).
- 22.
See the appendix for a list of the modalities contributing to the construction of these axes.
- 23.
The French press card was introduced in 1935. It is issued to anyone who provides evidence that they draw the bulk of their income from journalism (not from teaching, publishing, etc.). Every year, a joint committee composed of 50% journalists and 50% employers examines applications and decides whether or not to grant a card in each case.
- 24.
Interview with the CEO of Radio France, 2012.
- 25.
Interview with the managing editor at L’Express, 2017. Born in the Alps (in Haute-Savoie), he grew up in an environment that he describes as non-politicized. His father, who worked as town clerk in a mid-size municipality, made a point not to discuss his personal opinions, as he had to work with mayors from different political sides. Spending time with him during election nights socialized his son in politics. As a teenager, he developed passions for political journalism and contemporary history. After graduating from school, he enrolled in a literary classe préparatoire and then joined the ENS in Paris. During his second year, as he did not intend to take the agrégation competition, he enrolled in the master’s program on news and media offered by the ESC business school, in which several media personalities gave lectures, thus providing access to internships. There he met the director of news weekly Le Point, who became his “mentor” and gave him a job at the magazine, in the “Investigation” section. He then joined the Politics section and followed him at Europe 1 and then L’Express, where he led the Politics section and subsequently the magazine, from 2006 to 2016.
- 26.
Stratégies, 20 October 2011.
- 27.
The son of a physical therapist and a Sciences Po graduate, Eric Fottorino directed Le Monde between 2007 and 2010. He is currently the managing editor of 1, a weekly magazine he launched in 2014.
- 28.
The father of Mediapart’s CEO, a school authority inspector, was terminated for political reasons and then reinstated thanks to the intercession of writer and diplomat Stéphane Hessel.
- 29.
As the paper’s correspondent at the Ministry of the Interior, he built a network of informers and promoted investigative journalism, encouraged by Le Monde director André Fontaine, by uncovering state secrets and forging a reputation as a journalist who remained independent from the authorities. He was appointed as managing editor in 1996, a position from which he resigned in 2004. With some former colleagues, he launched the online, subscription-only investigative news website Mediapart, which he calls the “Robin Hood of news” (2017 interview).
- 30.
Interview with the former director of Libération, 2012.
- 31.
Interview with the director of Politis, 2016.
- 32.
More precisely, executives coming from the industrial sector lead France Télévisions, TF1, the Les Echos Le Parisien group, the Le Figaro group, the Le Monde group, SFR Medias; others coming from the political sector lead Radio France, RTL, Canal +, France 3, Arte and Lagardère Active.
- 33.
In this path, I have included six individuals coming from the business and consulting sectors (five holders of a MBA from HEC—including one ESSEC graduate, three from Sciences Po, a graduate from the Ecole Centrale, a holder of a master’s degree in management control and a business school graduate), as well as three individuals who were hired by a media company after graduating from a business school. These professional schools share high yearly registration fees, as of 2016 ranging from 9500 euros (European Business School) or 13,500 euros (HEC, ESSEC) to 66,000 euros (Insead).
- 34.
Interview with the President of France Télévisions, 2017.
- 35.
Interview with the former CEO of TF1, 2012.
- 36.
Interview with the former CEO of TF1, 2012.
- 37.
The brutal dismissal of the executives of the Canal + group by new majority stakeholder Vincent Bolloré, in 2015, is another illustration of this.
- 38.
Interview with the former CEO of TF1, 2012.
- 39.
In French, the word “administration” refers to the public services that allow the State to function, unlike in American English, where it designates the executive apparatus. For historical reasons, the USA does not have a body of senior civil servants that compares to those found in centralized European states. As King Desmond and Robert Lieberman write: “To Weber, the ‘bureaucratic’ state was best embodied by the Prussian and French forms of his day. Yet, unlike the elite of civil servants that made the wheels of centralized power turn in both examples, the national US civil servants form a notoriously weak bureaucracy, one that is fragmented and half-paralyzed by its ambiguous position in the structure of power. It does not have the coercive authority of its European counterparts” (Desmond and Lieberman 2011).
- 40.
This contrasts with the following observation made in the 1980s about television executives: “They are not members of the inner circles of the great state institutions. Few of them have experienced the thrill of working in a minister’s office. They have not graduated from the grandes écoles. Thus, they can be distinguished from the other decision-makers by their deficit in attributes and symbolic titles indicating membership in the milieu of power” (Dagnaud and Mehl 1990).
- 41.
“Pure charisma is specifically foreign to economic considerations. Whenever it appears, it constitutes a ‘call’ in the most emphatic sense of the word, a ‘mission’ or a ‘spiritual duty’. […] What is despised, so as long as the genuinely charismatic type is adhered to, is traditional or rational everyday economizing, the attainment of a regular income by continuous economic activity devoted to this end” (Weber 1947: 362).
- 42.
I found these names on the “list of participants in the 720th Siècle dinner party of Wednesday 20 January 2010, which was published on an American website and on press articles on the club.
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Appendix
Appendix
1.1 The Multiple Correspondence Analysis and the Construction of the Variables
1.1.1 Active Variables
-
The sex variable includes two modalities: woman (woman)/man (man).
-
The CEO/pubdir variable includes two modalities: CEO (CEO) and publishing director (pubdir). CEO refers to the person in charge of the media’s administration, management, recruitment and organizational aspects. The publishing director (pubdir) is the head of news, who may be either managing editor (directeur de la rédaction) himself or be above the managing editor. A publishing director can also be CEO, as in the cases of Laurent Joffrin and Edwy Plenel.
-
The mediatype variable refers to the type of media outlet in which the executive has spent their career and includes three modalities: print (print media), audio (audiovisual media) and mixed (with experiences in both types of media).
-
The degree6mod variable refers to the latest degree awarded and includes 6 modalities:
The “bachelor’s or below” (Bachorbelow) modality includes those who finished their studies before or after high school graduation, those who did two years of higher education (DEUG, DUT) and those who finished at bachelor’s level, with or without their degree.
The “master’s or above” (Mastersorabove) modality includes executives who continued up to a first-year master’s program or beyond (DEA, DESS) and those who attended a regional branch of Sciences Po.
The “ENS, ENA, PhD, engineering school” (ENS, ENA, PhD, eng) includes executives who graduated from the ENS (4), the ENA (4), the Centrale school (1) and PhD holders (3).
The “business school” (businesschool) modality includes executives who graduated from one of the following business schools: HEC (4), ESSEC (1), Sup de Co. (1), ESP (1).
The “journalism school” (journalismschool) modality includes executives who attended the leading journalism schools: CFJ, ESJ, IPJ, CUEJ, IFP.
The “Sciences Po” (SciencesPo) modality includes executives who attended Sciences Po Paris.
-
The fieldentrydate variable refers to the date of entry into the press field and includes two modalities “pre-2000 field entry” (pre2000fieldentry) and “post-2000 field entry” (post2000fieldentry).
-
The books variable indicates whether the individual has published books or not. It includes two modalities: books/nobooks.
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The Whoswho variable indicates inclusion or non-inclusion in the elite biographical dictionary and includes two modalities: Whoswho/noWhoswho.
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The ministry variable includes two modalities: experience in a ministry (ministry), no experience in a ministry (noministry).
-
The Siècle variable indicates participation in the club Le Siècle and includes two modalities: siecle/nosiecle (based on publicly disclosed names of individuals in attendance at in the club’s dinner parties).Footnote 41
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The decoration variable indicates whether the executive has been decorated (Legion of Honor, National Order of Merit) by a member of government. It includes two modalities: decoration, no decoration (decoration/nodecoration).
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The prize variable refers to journalistic and/or literary prizes. It includes two modalities: prize/noprize.
1.1.2 Supplementary Variables
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The age variable includes three modalities: under 49 years old (under 49), 50 to 59 years old (50to59) and 60 years old and above (60andabove).
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The fathersSPC variable refers to the father’s socio-professional category. It includes 4 modalities: father who worked in administrative, managerial or executive capacities (Fathadmin, manag, exec.); working-class and lower-middle-class father (Fathworkmidclass); independent professionals (Fathindeppro); and father working in an intellectual occupation (Fathintellocc).
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Sedel, J. (2023). French Top Media Executives: The Sociology of a Segment of Elite. In: Hałas, E. (eds) Methodology of Relational Sociology. Palgrave Studies in Relational Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41626-2_6
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