Les espaces de participation des internautes sur les sites web radiophoniques : des dispositifs et des tactiques

Spaces of Internet users participation on the french radio web sites: devices and tactics

Valérie CroissantUniversité Lyon 2

Laboratoire ELICO

The point• A more general work on different spaces of public

participation in the media• REJ (Réseau d’études sur le journalisme)

• Radio as a subject of study because of its historical experience about the participation of listeners on the air

• This work focuses on the websites of radio stations that offer opportunities for public participations

– Radio blogs

The study

• This study focuses on 3 french radio programs over two periods (2008 – 2009)

• The chosen programs are already based on audience participation on the air : interactive emissions

• The main principles of framing the audience expression are already known (Deleu)

• So how is it different on Internet web sites ?• Are the rules of relation the same ?

The shows• Service public

d’Isabelle Giordano sur France Inter

• Bourdin & Co sur RMC

• Les auditeurs ont la parole sur RTL

The radio blogs

• 3 radio programs, 3 different channels (1 Public 2 Privates)

• 3 blogs that provide rather close tools and spaces of participation

• The blog appears generally as a space for exchange,

participation. what about of these radio programs ?– How this type of system works?– how can we describe the interactions ?

Analysis

• The analysis seeks to describe and understand these digital spaces through the following features :

– What kind of tools, spaces, the media gives to web users for participate ?

– The distribution of roles and time of speaking – How users appropriate and change the use of these radio

blogs – In short : the rules and frames of interaction

The frames• Ways of the exchange

– 1. An emphasis of the participation

– Promotion speeches about listening and participation

– the number of comments : a proof that the blog is popular

– Importance of actualisation : the blog is alive – Words, titles are incitations – everything invites you to participate (emission

titles, and all others incitations)

The framesEmphasis of the participation

IncitationsNumber of comments

The frames - Modes of exchange

• 2. The differentiation of words• Graphically, the words of the author of the blog and those

of users can be clearly identified – Formal differenciation

• The texts from the radio presenters appear in larger caracters, in full text

• The reviews of the web radio users appear on another page and in a smaller font size

Presenters words are central Comments are peripheric words

The frames - Modes of exchange – Symbolic differenciation : differences in status of speech

– the issue of self-presentation – Blogs are built on the contrast of 2 types of words and 2 types of

authors.

Presenters Web users

Full name – real identity Pseudo, fictionnal name, Anonymity

Pictures of the radio host No image

Wellknown in his professional area Unknown users

Collective voice (in the name of a mediatic institution)

Individual speech (in the name of himself)

RADIO BLOGS FRAMESWhat can we study on radio blogs ? • Presenters words and public words are not on the same

level.• 2 levels :

– The word of the blog author and the one of Institution are central

– Web users are requested to react and participate

– a system which reproduces, for the moment, the traditionnal hierarchy and dominant modalities of the radio

TACTICS

• Despite theses frames, the users on radio web sites are questioning the mechanism, mediation, moderation.

• We can see 2 ways of this : • The permanent criticism, • approriation of the space of discussion

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TACTICS - The permanent criticism

• accusation of censorship• important need to understand the rules • Permanent production of a metadiscourse, a

discourse on the system• Testing mediation and moderation devices

• querying the system and its management

TACTICS – questioning the mediation

• Despite the rigidity of the system, there are forms of appropriation and diversion

• Users turn away from the blog author and subjects proposed by him

• They launch others topics and sometimes this turns into private conversation

• They use the blog for private conversation, often impossible to understand

Conclusion : Devices and tacticsRestrictives technical and discursive systems close to what happen on the radio (hierarchy)

Practices of users who divert the communication contract proposed by the radio blog.

Work in progress : why theses pratices are on a radio blog ?What is the importance of the media reference ?How qualify this blogs in public space ? In Private spaces ?

RÉFÉRENCESDe CERTEAU M. L’invention du quotidien. 1 arts de faire, Gallimard

1990DELEU C., Les anonymes à la radio. Usages, fonctions et portée de

leur parole., Paris, De Boeck INA, 2006.JEANNERET Y., Supports et ressorts de l’anonymat, in Figures de

l’anonymat, Médias et société, Frédéric Lambert, L’Harmattan, 2001, p.193