JOURNALISM ONLINE 1996-2019 : STABILITY THROUGH INNOVATION IN THE FRENCH MEDIA ENVIRONMENT

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JOURNALISM ONLINE 1996-2019 :

STABILITY THROUGH INNOVATION

IN THE FRENCH MEDIA

ENVIRONMENT

Name: Camille GODINEAU Student number: 12208663 Programme: New Media & Digital Culture

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Abstract

The world of information is rapidly changing, especially with the introduction of computing in newsrooms. The news industry has had to reorganize its traditional organizational form given the many challenges that threaten its functioning. Journalism appears increasingly as a weakened object, precipitated the emergence of new types of journalism considering the current technological capabilities, such as online journalism. The Internet has become an important means for newspapers to diversify into an increasingly competitive media landscape. This research will provide an analysis of the changes taking place in contemporary journalism by taking a particular look at online news sites stemming from printed newspapers. More specifically, this thesis examines the renewal of journalistic practices through alteration of the interface and content, in a historical way thanks to the Web archiving tool, 'The Wayback Machine’. The case studies of this research, namely Le Monde and Ouest-France, were chosen for their importance in the French media field.’ Le Monde’ is ranked among one of the leading French newspapers and is the most widely read in France. The local newspaper ‘Ouest-France’ is the first French-language daily newspaper in the world, with the greatest circulation since 1975. The studied websites have renewed certain practices in a technical and narrative way, through increased participation, interactivity, multimediality and customization. However, this research raises the question whether the news websites have formed a new model for the Web or if they merely remain "substitutes" of the printed version. This renewal is fragmented, as the analyzed media seem never to have left their form. In the light of this analysis, the two printed newspapers converted to the Web have instead stabilized their model through innovation in order to address the threat faced by contemporary journalism.

Keywords : New media, Online journalism, French media, journalistic productions, The

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Table of Content

Abstract

ii

Chapter 1: Introduction

3 Chapter 2: Literature review

8

1.1 Transition to digital 8

a. The promises of ‘new media’

8 b. Overview of digital news media

9 c. French news media landscape

11

1.2 Role of journalists and the public 13

a. Evolution of the profession

13 b. Participation of the audience

14

1.3 Diﬀerent type of digital journalism 15

a. Computational journalism

15 b. Data journalism

16 c. Blogs

17 d. Micro-blogging

18

2. A digitization that creates new journalistic narratives 18

a. Web-documentary

19 b. Newsgames

19 c. The news through augmented and virtual reality

20 Chapter 3: Methodology

23

1. Introduction 23

2. Digital Methods for web archive research 23

2.1 Internet Archive

24 2.2 The Wayback Machine

24

3. Case studies 25

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3.2 Ouest-France

26 3.3 The transition to digital

26

4. Methods / Research design 27

4.1 Data collection

27 4.2 Data analysis

29 4.3 Visualization

30 Chapter 4: Results

31

1. Introduction 31

2. From print to online newspaper: towards a renewal of journalistic practices

? 32

2.1 lemonde.fr

32 a. Webpage design

32 b. References to the newspaper

33 c. Aspects of the Web

34 d. Advertisement and marketing strategies

35 e. Forms of online journalism and new kind of journalistic narratives 36

2.2 ouest-france.fr 36

a. Webpage design 36

b. References to the print version

38 c. Aspects of the Web

39 d. Advertisement and marketing elements

39 e. Forms of online journalism and new kind of journalistic narratives 40

Chapter 5: Discussion

41

1. Technological renewal 41

2. Narrative forms renewal 42

3. Fulfilling the promises of online journalism?

44 Chapter 6: Conclusion

47 Bibliography

50

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Chapter 1: Introduction

Since the 1990s, media and 'traditional' journalism are going through a period of questioning due to important socio-political and economic changes (Bégin 11). Thus, in this rapidly evolving world of information, it seems of the utmost importance for the print industry to reorganize its traditional organizational form, given the many challenges threatening its proper functioning (Demers 55). As its durability is being challenged, the imminent "death" of journalism has often been announced. Many terms, notions, and concepts have evoked this period, mainly to designate it as a "crisis" in newspapers, media or journalism (Siles and Boczkowski 1385). This is not the first time that journalism has faced such a wave of change. While journalism is constantly altering, some could argue that this is simply another adaptation of the profession to a new medium, such as the arrival of television, radio, telegraph or the press (Singer et al. 10). The "traditional" media are undergoing a moral and economic crisis that is not fundamentally recent, but which has found with the Internet a certain resurgence (Bégin 11). In this manner, the Web has become an important means for newspapers to diversify into an increasingly competitive media landscape (Steensen 311). New terms, such as new media, digital journalism, online journalism, data journalism, blogs, virtual reality surround conversations about current journalism. Journalism is changing in light of the technological developments, that seeks to define itself with the commercial changes enclosing the sale of information, the decline of the print and the emergence of possibilities on the Web.

Given the scope of this study, the Internet as a new medium occupies greater attention. Indeed, as stated by the Federal Networking Council in the United States in 1995, the Internet merely describes all the networks that connect computers and servers (Lister et al. 164). The Internet has also evolved, adapting to what is known as Web 2.0, a term popularized by Tim O'Reilly (Stanyer 203). According to O'Reilly, the Web 2.0 or social Web can be defined as a network, a platform covering all connected devices; "providing software as a continually updated service that improves as users use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources" (O’Reilly 137). Unlike the so-called "static" Web 1.0, this new type of Internet fosters a greater participatory dimension, emphasizing the importance of collaboration and user-generated content (O'Reilly 137). One could think of the Web history on those terms but this research will explore elements of digital journalism during the period 1996-2019. Thus, it is necessary to define journalism in a

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broader sense. Without going into an a priori definition that would prove to be too cloistered, it is a question of considering journalism in general as "any text in written, audio or visual form, which purports to be (i.e., presented to its audience as) a true statement or record of certain (new) features hitherto unknown to the present social world" (Robinson 60). Traditionally, journalists have the role of "selecting the important information in the mass of detailed information", a role commonly referred to as the 'gatekeeper' model which focuses on the search for objectivity and the clear separation of reported information and dissemination of opinions (Janowitz 618). However, this traditional model is being altered by the participatory dimension and Web technologies, which have given rise to amateur information initiatives (Proulx and Millerand 14).

Throughout this research, the Internet is considered essential, since it has changed journalists’ practices in three ways according to Mark Deuze. For him, the Web could make the role of the journalist "as an essential intermediary force in more or less superfluous democracy", while oﬀering infinite technological resources and possibilities, and more importantly creating its own type of journalism, online journalism (Deuze,

Journalism and the Web 373). Finally, before getting to the heart of the thesis, it is

necessary to portray online journalism. According to the Dutch researcher Mark Deuze, online journalism is, therefore, a type of journalistic tasks performed within and for an online publication (Deuze, Journalism and the Web 377). Internet developments, in terms of news and journalism, have led to a classification of key features of online journalism, such as interactivity, customization of content, hypertextuality and multimediality (Bardoel and Deuze 94). Within this framework, interactivity must be understood as "a purely audience-related feature" and hypertextuality as encompassing the phenomenon of hypertext and hyperlinks that can be considered as the starting point of the Web (Bardoel and Deuze 95). Multimediality should be considered here as the merging of "traditional media formats in one story told online" (Bardoel and Deuze 96). With the ease of publishing on the Internet and the ever-increasing number of online news sources and advertising income, the main source of revenue for journalism has also become a challenge, threatening the very existence of newspapers around the world. This intensified presence of computing in newsrooms in recent years, in response to advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), therefore, raises questions about this implication of technology in the journalistic field.

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Academic work and research into the uses of digital in journalistic production are not in their infancy, given the acceleration of technological innovations, journalism is constantly changing. Although the working methods in Web editorials or the information practices of Internet users are now fairly well known, the nature of the information and in particular its degree of diversity are, on the other hand, far less analyzed in the French scholarly works. The empirical knowledge on the adoption of online information attributes in France is still limited. Indeed, most of the previous research in this area have concentrated on the United States and England, considered the cradle of online journalism (Nguyen 227). Some research, particularly in France, has been dedicated to digital news media, in other words, the media that were developed from the outset on the Web to continue digital distribution (Nicholls et al.). French researchers have also focused on issues regarding the reorganization of editorial oﬃces, the evolution of activities and the redefinition of the profession's scope (Mercier and Pignard-Cheynel 6). There is no shortage of articles that document the story of traditional online media design. However, none have integrated the use of The Internet Archive’s ‘The Wayback Machine' (WBM) for analysis. More importantly, most academic writing is centered on adopting online news without paying enough attention to how the Web has injected a renewal into journalistic practices. Research also has largely ignored the connection between these characteristics and the evolution of resources "devoted to established sources of information, which was the ultimate cause of the weak development of online information during its first decade" (Nguyen 227). A crucial link seems to be missing in research on online journalism in France, at the junction between traditional and renewal.

Technological innovations continue to shape the path of journalism, creating the conditions for studying this so-called weakened object. Through the lens of the changes occurring on the websites over time, this research will address how these 'objects' have reacted with the Internet. The purpose of this thesis is to situate and critically evaluate the practice of online journalism, in the context of the Web between 1996 and 2019, given the emphasis on speed, ease, and functionality of new media technology. The media studied as part of this study are online media under the aegis of traditional print brands. This research aims to analyze whether journalistic practices on the Web have been renewed or whether, on the contrary, they remain faithful to traditional journalism; through the qualitative textual and visual analysis of two printed newspapers converted to the Web, using the Internet archiving tool, The Wayback Machine. This thesis seeks to uncover what are the contemporary transformations of journalism, taking place in the digital age,

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specifically the transformation of the print to digital. Broadcast media such as radio and television are deliberately set aside to focus on the contemporary transformations of printed journalism towards digital journalism. In doing so, this thesis attempt to contribute to the discussion by answering the following question:

RQ: How do the changes on the interface and the content reflect the renewal of journalistic practices?

In order to address the research question, this paper will start with a review of the literature organized according to diﬀerent themes. This theoretical framework will first rely on the concepts resulting from research in digital journalism, to examine diﬀerent currents of thought that may be relevant to contextualize the subject of this thesis. This section will begin with the digital transition of printed newspapers, with a focus on the emergence of French online journalism. Then, the metamorphosis of the role of journalists and the public in the face of new technological developments will be addressed. Finally, this literature review will discuss the terms related to online journalism and the emergence of new journalistic narratives. The next chapter will explain the methodology and the digital methods used for data collection and how they will be analyzed. This method will focus on the use of the tool 'The Wayback Machine', to access the history of websites. According to Lister and others, the best approach for understanding old and new phenomena is in a historical manner. It is about studying the field of new media to determine the extent to which a particular development is truly original and radically new, or is more understood as a mere element of change in the nature of an already established media (Lister et al. 47).

After the methodology, the next section will present the results obtained after the analysis. This part will be twofold, illustrating two French case studies: the website of the newspaper Le Monde and that of Ouest-France. Each case will be analyzed according to the same criteria. This will be followed by a discussion that will consider the main changes that have emerged during the digitization of French websites to put them in context and explore the French journalistic landscape on its adoption of new media features. It will be a question of discussing whether the online converted newspapers has created a new Web model or if, on the contrary, they simply digitize their original content

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attachment of these French media to traditional models. As mentioned before, journalism is in a precarious situation, and through the examples, the websites remain nevertheless true to their original form whilst continuing to innovate. This selective integration of elements of digital journalism could be defined as stability through innovation in a highly competitive media industry. Therefore, the results of these observations will be grouped by theme and discussed by linking them with the relevant theories in Chapter 5. Finally, the conclusion of Section 6 will then illustrate the key lessons learned from these case studies and discuss the limitations and suggestions for further research.

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Chapter 2: Literature review

Journalism has undergone profound transformations, the number of people following the news via traditional media has decreased, and the way individuals consume media and news has drastically changed. Although news article writing has changed with the emergence of the digital world, journalists and editors have found new ways to tell stories. This thesis will approach these notions in a theoretical way, relying on a review of existing literature. Firstly, the transition from a printed press to digital press in the face of new technological development will be analyzed in order to have a general insight into the mutation of contemporary journalism while taking into account the promises arising from the new media advent. This is followed by a study of how the field of digital journalism has emerged in France. The adaptation of journalists to a new medium as well as the leading role of the public will be reviewed according to the appropriate literature. The analysis of the various terms that stem from it will be carried out in order to fully understand the concept of digital journalism. Secondly, new journalistic narratives have been created by this upswing of digital journalism. In this light, this literature review will consider the introduction of interactive web-documentaries, newsgames, as well as virtual reality in the media environment.

1.1 Transition to digital

a. The promises of ‘new media’

The advent of new technologies is an integral part of media development. In that respect, journalism appears inseparable from the media in which it evolves, discourses on the subject do not escape the imagination and predictions surrounding these media. The new media constitutes an integral part of this thesis, it is thus essential to define this concept that emerged in the mid-1990s, as well as the ensuing promises. Several media theorists have polarized the degree of novelty of new media. Researcher Wendy Chun asserts that despite the degree of new media dependence on computerization, they are not just digital media, but rather "interactive media or form of distribution as independent as the information is relayed" (Chun, Fisher and Keenan 1). In her book 'New media Old Media'

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New Media', new media are digital works, and many of these new multimedia objects are

converted from diﬀerent forms of old media (Manovich 28). For Manovich, the importance lies in programmability rather than computer display and distribution (Chun, Fisher and Keenan 2). This echoes Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin's concept of remediation, the idea that all new media are somehow referring to older media. "What's new in the new media comes from the way they reshaped the old media and how the old media has reshaped themselves to meet the challenges of new media" (Bolter and Grusin 15). Another key aspect of their theory is that "remediation always operates according to current cultural assumptions about immediacy and hypermediacy" (Bolter and Grusin 21). In this scope, the ‘immediacy’ is referring to the speed to which a user can connect and feel immersed in multimedia content. ‘Hypermediacy’, on the other hand, draws attention to the medium itself, often encouraging user interaction (Bolter and Grusin 21).

In the words of Lister and others, the term "new media" refers to a wide range of changes in the production, distribution, and use of the media (Lister et al., 13). The terminology 'new media' may include media that oﬀer new opportunities and experiences of representation (Lister, et al. 12) or changes in the use and reception of images and communication media in everyday life (Lister, et al. 12). New media and, in particular digital media, promise to exceed representation. The Web and computer applications, creating a digital culture, pledge to revolutionize commerce, education, and social relations (Lister et al. 60). Researchers, like Lister and others, have assumed that this strand of emphasis on the remediation of old media by new media underpins the achievement of social change (Lister et al. 61). This technical revolution fostering the advent of 'new media', hint at a "more participative media culture", notably driven by flexibility and autonomy related to the aspects of the Internet (Rebillard and Touboul 324). Henry Jenkins and Mark Deuze insist that instead of viewing producers and media consumers separately, they should be seen as 'participants' (Jenkins and Deuze 5).

b. Overview of digital news media

Numerous publications have been published on the transformation of the digital age, highlighting technological convergence, bringing together cultural industries, information technology and the telecommunication industries. This concentration of multimedia groups and multi-media information services is progressively becoming part of the vocabulary of contemporary journalism. By the early 1990s, many researchers had predicted an end to journalism since the introduction of the Internet (Steensen 311), while

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others such as the journalism scholar John Pavlik, anticipated technological change as a promise of a more eﬃcient and more democratic media for journalism and the public. Technology has always influenced journalism practices (Pavlik 229). Emphasizing the need to fully embrace the Internet and other communication technologies, Pavlik develops the idea that the journalist uses the Internet for gathering and verifying information, and that technologies shape the content of information (Pavlik 230-31). Similarly, Mark Deuze and Jo Bardoel claim that journalism must be rethought as a result of technological advances and that it should be more transparent, responsive and interactive (Bardoel and Deuze 100). As mentioned in the previous chapter, online journalism is mainly characterized by multimedia, interactivity, hyperlinks and participation (Bardoel and Deuze 94). The rise of user content and the convergence of production lead to online journalism characterized by personalization (Siapera and Veglis 4).

At the beginning of the 2000s, the first press and Internet company was created by the merger of AOL, the leading internet service provider and Time Warner, the multinational company in media and Entertainment (Delorme-Montini 189). Portals like AOL functioned as ‘aggregators’ collecting links and redirecting to other journalistic sources (Scott 94). Technological change has played a significant role in the decline of newspapers. Many countries have experienced a considerable drop in advertising revenues and a decline in the consumption and distribution of printed newspapers (Siles and Boczkowski 1376). For many authors, the press crisis results from "a combination of interrelated economic factors". Siles and Boczkowski recall that newspapers have a "historical reliance on advertising" and an excessive profit target that has limited the options available to news organizations to cope with this crisis (1377). Moreover, the first wave of online journalism was introduced between 1991 and 2001, with the release of the World Wide Web and the introduction of databases listing online news publications (Deuze, The Web and its

journalism 204). This first generation of information on the Web corresponds to the end of

"old computing" (Bucy 103).

Nonetheless, newspapers reproduced existing information practices and artifacts rather than creating something diﬀerent (Domingo 44). The second wave of online journalism has brought out the concept of convergence. In other words, the fusion of the so-called traditional media to produce "multi-platform information" (Domingo 76). In their report on

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to diﬀuse information according to diﬀerent modes of presentation (Grueskin et al. 55). While The United States and the United Kingdom are the cradle of online journalism, it is, therefore, logical that most publications and research are anglophone. However, since this thesis focuses on the French media, it is important to review the French literature on the digital shift in journalism.

c. French news media landscape

With regard to the case study of this thesis, namely the media in France, it should be pointed out that newspapers were the first to explore the digital distribution of information in France. In the academic world, interest in the online press emerges as such in the early 2000s. Diﬀerent studies have shown the daily circulation in France fell by 1.99% in 2008 (Charon, De la presse imprimée à la presse numérique 258). The press has had to integrate tools, production methods and ways of working, which has led to a gain in productivity and a change in the journalistic form. However, some researchers, such as Jean-Marie Charon, lean towards "a transition in the media as a whole" rather than a "crisis in the print media" and highlights the release of new professional figures (De la

presse imprimée à la presse numérique 258).

The economic scholar Nadine Toussaint-Desmoulins have declared that one type of press replaces another, that is, the print media has been substituted by the online press for many individuals, which has been one of the triggers of the crisis in the print media in many countries, including France (Toussaint-Desmoulins 48). As the circulation of the print media crumbles and more and more readers read the information online, most researchers considered that news agencies were facing considerable financial diﬃculties, prompting them to question the online information market (Ouakrat et al. 135). The development of the online advertising market has grown in parallel with the massive use of the Internet. In France, relations between the press and advertisers have been more complex, even conflictual, than in the Anglo-Saxon world (Ouakrat 181). One of the main consequences of the print crisis was the reduction in advertising revenue for printed newspapers, particularly with the rise of the Internet (Siles and Boczkowski 1378). Some authors claim that audiences and advertising revenues are increasingly fragmented in the context of the abundance of information that characterizes the Internet, indeed, the free access is central to the Internet economy (Ouakrat 40). Alan Ouakrat aﬃrms that the Internet is redefining the "information economy", this new and sustained interest for this

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type of "informative data" economy is linked to the rapid changes in the media industry and the development of the Internet (Ouakrat 31). In the digital age, advertising is the only source of revenue, and therefore the only one to contribute to the resources of a site, when it benefits from a large or qualified audience (Sonnac 38). However, it should be noted that with this wealth of information, the various press bodies must deploy new tools to "capture the attention", the information economy then tends towards a so-called "economy of attention" (Sonnac 38).

The first news website in France was ‘Ouest-France’ launched in December 1994, followed by several other websites in the same year. In 2002, a census accounted for a total of 1900 new websites (Delorme-Montini 187). In addition to speeding up the processing of information, another feature of digital journalism, identified by Jean Marie Charon, is the conception of stories and multimedia content. Specially, the invention of information processing methods and narrative forms combining text, sound, image and hypertext links (Charon, Les médias à l’ère numérique 21).

French scholars and journalists were among the first to criticize the main players on the Web. The media history specialist and former president of the National French Library (BNF) Jean-Noël Jeanneney reminds that the mission of Google is to organize the information of the world (Jeanneney). He criticizes the fact that most of the information goes through Google and insists that digitization has brought new ads to the Web and this growing industrial concentration for the benefit of big companies is contrary to the idea of network and access that is online information. Jean-Noël Jeanneney defends the idea that Europe must act and fight against the planetary hegemony, otherwise called GAFA (monopoly of Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple). Indeed, Google is even described as a quasi-exclusive entry point to the contents listed in its index and presented as an exhaustive review of the public Web (Falgas 233). This idea of media concentration in one space, in this case, Google, was termed ‘googlization’ in 2003 by Jude Buﬀum (Rogers, The Googlization question, and the inculpable engine 1). In order to thwart this Google’s domination, a European research and development program aimed at developing multimedia and multilingual indexing and management tools, QUAERO, was launched in 2008. This attempt of a direct response to the idea of googlization ended in late 2013 (Moatti).

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continuous information production; transforming the very nature of information (Tétu 23). This context of a plethora of information no longer only plays between journalists and newspapers, but imposes on the journalist another role, because of the multiplication and speed of information. For many centuries, journalists had a monopoly position on the production and dissemination of events. However since the advent of the Internet, the information space has exploded and refocused around new communities (Tétu 18).

1.2 Role of journalists and the public

The press, organized around strong professional practices, was forced to redefine its borders. It has, therefore, become essential to attract the attention of readers (Joux). This advent of digital journalism leads to a logic of participation. This logic, in addition to being adapted to the new modes of production and consumption of information, had the advantage of attracting the attention of public become volatile and to encourage the free production of contents.

a. Evolution of the profession

Many studies have explored the eﬀects of participation on the professional identity of journalists. And this rise of citizen journalism would have directly challenged the constituent elements of journalistic identity. Among them, some authors such as Alex Brun have stated that the confrontation with amateurs would force journalists to give up their monopoly on the selection of information (Brun 298). According to John Pavlik, the role of journalists was to "distribute information to the public with the intention of informing the public on matters considered important" (Pavlik 235). However, technological advances reshape relations between journalists and their audience. With the rise of the Internet, the supply of information is instant and unlimited. All individuals can easily access it and "become a self-employed gatekeeper" (Scott 92). Subsequently, the journalists' role tends to slide towards a position of 'representatives' of the actors rather than an intermediary and mediators position between actors and witnesses of public life (Scott 92).

Before the advent of Internet, communication between journalists and press agencies towards the public was unilateral. Since then, it is considered more like a dialogue, "with a much more balanced flow of communication" (Pavlik 235). This digitization creates new channels of distribution and communication, defined by scholars Mark Deuze and Jo

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Bardoel as network journalism. For both authors, a clear trend is emerging, that of the "self-service" of information. Individuals use and take, read and look at what suits them (Bardoel and Deuze 98). This change in the balance of power between journalists and their audience reduces the need for professional mediation, which can be explained by an audience who has access to a lot of information and is more educated (Bardoel and Deuze 112). The media were jeopardized by the Internet, shifting from the role of ‘gatekeeper’ to the one of ‘gatewatcher' (Tétu 28). In other words, rather than managing access to information in order to make it visible to the public, institutions, and the media, journalists monitor the material that passes through these "gates" corresponding to the interests and the concerns of their own public and introduce them into their own information and news coverage (Boler 40).

b. Participation of the audience

Without this need for professional mediation, rules and conventions have been rewritten, creating a new environment in which journalists, their sources and their readers come together (Allan 15). Leading to a new type of discourse on institutional journalism, where journalists are urged to adopt more participatory practices. It was not until the early 2000s that journalism understood the shift towards "a voluntary commitment" from the public (Deuze, What is multimedia journalism 147). The symbol of Web 2.0 is the participative aspect and therefore this interrelation between journalism and amateurs (Charon, Les

médias à l’ère numérique 21). It should be added that as journalists are no longer entirely

mediators and those who have privileged access to sources, the public has turned into a source, becoming the driving force of public action (Tétu 28). Described as ‘citizen journalism’, individuals referred to as the ‘public’ would be able to emancipate themselves from the media by using the tools of the press that are at their disposal to inform each other. The term 'citizen journalism' was coined during major disasters taking place abroad, where journalists were often not on hand to report events. In such events, the press had to rely on the stories of amateurs on the scene and published user-generated content (Allan 7).

In the context of the evolution of information, new communication technologies have significantly altered the landscape of information production and dissemination. New

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online journalism to use interactive features to promote citizen participation and engagement (Manosevitch and Walker 3). Among them, the rise of the comment section, oﬀering a unique means of participation in public discourse, as well as journalistic content (Manosevitch and Walker 2). Computer technology and Internet allow users, as individuals or groups, to produce and disseminate information based on their observations or opinions (Domingo et al. 331). The rise of social media has led to the creation of "networked audiences" in which the sharing of personal information is seen as a central aspect of active participation in journalistic production (Reagle Jr 79). Researchers consider public participation as an opportunity for their readers to debate current events (Domingo et al. 338). The 'comment' section could be described as a space where individuals can react and comment on content produced by journalists. Either the 'comment' section is available under the article or the news website feature forums. The commentaries combine immediate response, unlimited digital space and minimal censorship, providing citizens an opportunity to participate in public deliberations and a direct link between the newspaper's voice and citizens' voices, thus bringing together institutional and public voices (Manosevitch and Walker 6). The position of ‘non-journalists’ has been reinforced by the integration of the sections comments, chats or forums online (Charon, De la presse imprimée à la presse numérique 267). Some authors also qualified this kind of journalism as a ‘participatory’ one which is defined as "the act of a citizen, or group of citizens playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news an information" (Spyridou et al. 78).

1.3 Diﬀerent type of digital journalism

As mentioned above, the early stage of digital journalism included the online press. However, in the so-called contemporary journalism, the emergence of original forms continues to grow. This is the case of computer journalism, data journalism, blogs but also micro-blogging.

a. Computational journalism

The term ‘computational journalism’ was coined by Irfan Essa in 2006. This was subsequently defined more precisely by Nicholas Diakopoulos, as the fact of finding and telling stories with, for or about algorithms or more generally as tools for journalistic purposes (Thurman 2). Journalists and computer scientists work together to deal with

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new interfaces, indexing algorithms, and data mining techniques (Cohen et al. 66). Computational journalism as an application of advanced computer science and algorithms can automate the collection of information and facilitate the filtering of newsworthy information (Thurman 1). The analysis and visualization in a collection of documents allow journalists to delve deeper into their articles. According to Cohen and others, this type of journalism develops new ways to reduce costs. It thus changes the way information is discovered, presented but also monetized (Cohen et al. 69). Computational journalism allows for a greater ability to customize content, which is a notion put forward by Mark Deuze and Jo Bardoel as one of the important features of digital journalism (Bardoel and Deuze 95).

b. Data journalism

Data journalism is based on the collection, statistical processing, and visualization of data on the Internet (Trédan 199). This journalistic practice transforms the very conception of the skills and therefore the training that the journalist needs, it must indeed cooperate with developers (Parasie and Dagiral 53). This new genre renews journalism by exploiting statistical data and making it available to the public. Understood as an emerging form of storytelling, data journalism combines the skills and techniques that inform the professional practice of journalists with skills in data analysis and programming (Franklin 485). Mike Ananny and Kate Crawford suggest that the transition to greater incorporation of data into the news was inevitable (Hermida and Young 162). These new actors are shaped by their networks and generate new journalistic practices "that encompass multiple professional identities, information ideologies and assumptions about how information and public life intertwine" (Ananny and Crawford 193).

France was relatively slow in its adoption to data journalism within its editorial oﬃces. In 2010, it was the independent news website "OWNI" that popularized this discipline. The website was one of the first French partners of Wikileaks, which made headlines by publishing tens of thousands of secret documents on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (Charon, Les médias à l’ère numérique 21; Parasie and Dagiral 53). In the same vein, the newspaper "Le Monde" launched the heading "Les Décodeurs" in 2014, dedicated to fact-checking (Goëta and Mabi 88).

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c. Blogs

The first blogs appeared on the Internet as early as 1993, but were not yet named in this way. Jorn Barger coined the term "Weblog" in 1997 to describe the process of connecting to the Web when "surfing", the name was later shortened and became "Blog" (Pledel 1). Blogs could be defined as frequently updated websites, with articles in reverse chronological order, which fall under the domain of self-publication, where one or more people regularly post hypertext-enriched publications (Pledel 2). Hypertext is fundamental in blogging practice, allowing writers to summarize and contextualize (Blood 61). The rise of the blogs’ phenomenon has been consecrated by many researchers. Indeed, many authors have assumed that blogs "are a new form of journalism", but then has been gradually changed to "some blogs are at least part of journalism" (Blood 61). For a number of writers, "these sites are a chance to say what cannot be said on the news page or to be creative beyond the confines of the newsroom" (Matheson 452). According to Donald Matheson, blogs draw from "idealization of the Internet" as a democratic space in which all voices of social actors can be heard and audiences become active audiences (Matheson 452). Most blogs allow, or even thrive, reader’s interaction (Robinson 68); one of the most important features of blogs is that they foster users to post comments, turning the blog into "an arena of debate" in which the author engages to a conversation with information or opinion (Domingo and Heinonen 5). Blogs, although may not respect traditional journalistic routines and conventions, are clearly intended to collect, analyze, interpret or comment on news in general and in same social function generally associated with institutionalized media (Lasica 70). This active participation of the audience on the blogs makes it an appropriate tool to develop new types of projects of participative journalism (Domingo and Heinonen 6).

However, many researchers claim that the blogosphere challenges contemporary journalism and internally aﬀects the redesign of online journalism (Domingo and Heinonen 13). Jane Singer in an analysis on news blogs in the United States found that most journalists used blogs based on their "existing standards and practices" (Nielsen 964). In this light, Sue Robinson in 2006 similarly concluded that in most cases, blogs are used by mainstream journalists to "reify traditional norms" and strengthen their professional claim to authority (Nielsen 964). Even if blogs remained for the traditional media "a way for journalists to recover online journalism", journalists in blogs have abandoned their "journalistic routine" leaving room for "subjectivity and rumor thus calling into question the traditional principles of journalism" (Robinson 79). The border between journalism and

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other forms is further blurred by the many news blogs held by people who are not professional journalists (Matheson 449).

d. Micro-blogging

Finally, it is worth mentioning the case of micro-blogging among the aforementioned genres. Indeed with the growing popularity of social media, every citizen has the (vocation) potential-opportunity to become a ‘journalist' as a consequence of the devices’ provision such as blogs or social networks like Twitter and Facebook, which has an infinite potential for communication (Ramonet 30). Micro-blogging considers a technology that allows citizens to gain immediate access to information, and in which each individual can instantly add that knowledge (Hermida 298), that only reinforces a blurred boundary between the journalist and the public (Franklin 483). One of the most popular microblogging platforms is Twitter, created in 2006, which facilitates the immediate distribution of digital news fragments and information from oﬃcial and unoﬃcial sources on various systems and devices (Hermida 298). And the use of Twitter has been quickly adopted within newsrooms as an additional means of informing, producing information as well as a quick and concise distribution mechanism (Hermida 299). The use of Twitter by journalists for news gathering and reporting has become a standardized aspect of their professional practice (Franklin 483). The online news pioneer, Alfred Hermida points the risk of drowning the production of journalistic information in a vast hyper-reactive flow of information of all kinds, what he termed ‘ambient journalism’ (Hermida 301). As suggested by the literature, the growing interest in digital platforms and interfaces is liberating journalistic practices, as well as producing new visual narratives in the media environment.

2. A digitization that creates new journalistic narratives

As aforementioned, the audience plays a key role in digital journalism. Individuals are more and more solicited, especially in the production of new kind of journalistic content. John Pavlik in the early 2000s had already mentioned the transformation of the nature of storytelling, and that readers should feel more present at news events, and this by immersive and interactive reports (Pavlik 232).

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a. Web-documentary

The web-documentary can be defined as a combination of documentary filmic codes with the modes of interaction specific to "computerized media" (Gantier 1), that is to say, a documentary that uses the World Wide Web as a means of distribution and content production on the platform (Aston and Gaudenzi 126). This hybrid format has the particularity of aﬀording a new way of presenting multiple points of view (Aston and Gaudenzi 133). However, most researchers have sought to focus on interactive web-documentary. The authors Aston and Gaudenzi advance the documentary as the intention to document the "real" by using interactive digital technology as its "delivery mechanism" (125). Interactivity is a means through which viewers position themselves within the artifact, forcing them to play an active role in negotiating the "reality" conveyed by interactive-documentary (Aston and Gaudenzi 126). Besides, this interactivity consists in helping the reader, who thus becomes "interactivist" by intervening in the story (Gantier 4). Since the advent of Web, interactive documentary producers have begun to look for ways to actively engage users in production, providing a new construction of reality while creating an embodied experience for participants (Aston and Gaudenzi 127).

In France, between 2005 and 2015, more than 400 francophone web-documentaries were published online (Gantier 1). The French television company Arte has created a web-portal (webdocs.arte.tv) that oﬀers a project's variety (Aston and Gaudenzi 128). Samuel Gantier emphasizes on documentary methods residing in an artistic practice aiming to deconstruct the real to make visible phenomena otherwise invisible to our understanding. Web-documentary is therefore beneficial for journalism, as it deconstructs real phenomena to allow the viewer to access an understanding of complex processes that escape immediate perception (Gantier 14). The web-documentary as hypermedia wavering between the media model of television and the model of video game, opens the way to discursive forms for journalists favoring the development of newsgames (Gantier 3).

b. Newsgames

As mentioned earlier, most online journalism merely translates the existing practices of journalism to the Web. However, it took a few years for academics to recognize the relevance of new media, such as video games (Frasca 221). The game designer Gonzalo Frasca appends that traditional media are representational, that is, they produce "descriptions of features and sequences of (narrative) events" (Frasca 223). Video games

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also rely on another semiotic structure, termed simulation. One other important difference between traditional media and video games is the possibility for the audience to browse several versions of the same story (Frasca 227). This ‘serious game’ movement initiated since 2003, marks the meeting of video games with the set of economic and institutional activities (Mauco 85). It makes possible the understanding of what surrounds us, offering a different perception and reducing the complexity of the world. Games teach individuals critically analyze the constraints and biases of real-world systems. They allow the public to ask the right questions instead of giving the answers (Raul Ferrer Conill 27).

Olivier Mauco, one of the French video game specialists has offered a definition of this new genre of video game. For him, newsgames are part of this new category of games and can be defined as transmitting a news item through video game codes. Their interactivity allows to capture the attention differently and bring a complement compared to the discursive productions of the written press, the radio and the television (Mauco 84). Newsgames can make a valuable contribution to journalism, the question of the audience in online press appears as a central concern, due to the discovery of a younger audience which one must catch the attention (Mauco 86). The author and game designer Ian Bogost insists that video games have paved the way for a new form of rhetoric, procedural rhetoric, which describes how something works or must work, dictating norms and the material or social functioning of its norms (Bogost et al. 58). This way of decrypting information differently, in a ludic way, is called ‘interactive journalism’. User enters a digitally represented world through a traditional computer interface. "There is an element of choice, in which the user can select actions among a set of possibilities, by examining different topics and aspects of the underlying news" (De la Peña et al. 292). Nonetheless, it should be underlined that the notion of interactivity and immersion in journalism can encompass several journalistic formats, such as video games and virtual reality.

c. The news through augmented and virtual reality

Immersive journalism according to Nonny De la Peña, known as Godmother of virtual reality allows for an experiment designed to parallel multiple reports - using ideas of representation of the body (295). Despite a blurred border, this kind of journalism includes two distinct categories, augmented reality and virtual reality.

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Augmented reality has undergone several developments for a couple of decades. The term, coined by Preston Thomas Caudell in 1990, can be described as improving the user's interaction with reality through a computer-generated environment while allowing user to continue to see and hear the surrounding world supplemented by synchronized sounds and images (Pavlik and Bridges 6). The idea of implementing augmented reality in journalism is to generate a new way of storytelling and to improve journalistic content. Authors John Pavlik and Frank Bridges argue that the development and use of this technology make it possible to tell stories in which the events took place via interactive and immersive multimedia presentations integrated into the real world (Pavlik and Bridges 21). This form of immersive narrative - unique to journalism - redefines the audience, change the relationship between the media and their audiences "from passive receivers to active producers of news and other social media" (Pavlik and Bridges 5). This technology, that enables real-time embedding of digital images in the field of view determined by the lens of a camera, should not be confused with virtual reality, which empowers a total immersive experience.

In the same vein as interactive documentary, the essence of virtual reality is experienced by immersion. Virtual reality (VR) can encompass 360-degree video or animated techniques. Implementing in immersive journalism, virtual reality creates a new kind of sensory experience beyond those oﬀered by the print media or online journalism (Kool 1). Deep immersive journalism, as defined by Nonny De la Peña, is a concept that transfer people’s sensation of place to a space where a credible action is taking place that they perceive as really happening, and where, most importantly, it is their body per se involved in this action. Virtual reality not only presents the facts as they are but oﬀers individuals the opportunity to experience the facts. Virtual reality is very immersive and an excellent tool for transmitting cognitive information (De la Peña et al. 297). The advantage of such involvement is to possibly feel and have emotions that can surround the news, but also create a connection with the audience and information (De la Peña et al., 292). Participants have the illusion of being at the heart of the event, and the important role of immersive journalism is to reinvent the emotional involvement of the public in the news (De la Peña et al. 298). Virtual reality technology as a journalistic tool has the particularity of being a generator of empathy and connectedness. In other words, experiencing the narrative becomes more meaningful because the individual has personally "lived the experience" reducing the gap between the story and "reality" (Kool 6). The concept of presence in the virtual environment is essential, as the illusion of place, plausibility and

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virtual body ownership generates and contributes an immersive and emotional journalistic experience (De la Peña et al. 294).

These transformations, whether supported or desired, raise many considerations from media professionals, researchers and users of information. However, many have undertaken on the search for solutions for journalistic activity, after the indictment of technologies, and dynamics. Technologies have acutely influenced journalism, whether it be the work of journalists, the content of news, the digitization of newsrooms as well as the role of journalists and the place of the audience. Thus these technologies bring new means of engagement with the content, thereby creating new discursive forms. Given the current state of research, the aim of this thesis is to study the renewal of journalistic practices in the digital age in the French media environment, based on case studies. While exploring journalism through the scope of newsgames, blogs, web-documentaries, augmented and virtual reality, it is now crucial to move further to the methodology initiated for the research of this thesis. 

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Chapter 3: Methodology

1. Introduction

After reviewing several academic theories and positions on the process of digitalization of media due to technological changes, notably the evolution in France, it is interesting to study these in practice, through two French examples. The first case study will be the online version of the French newspaper ‘Le Monde’ and the second case study the local newspaper ‘Ouest-France’. The question that this thesis will attempt to answer is how do the changes on the interface and content of the selected French media reflect the renewal of journalistic practices?

The research strategy chosen in this thesis is case studies, in order to provide in-depth knowledge of processes, and experiences occurring in a specific context. This method allows for an insight that is unreachable with other methods (Rowley 16). This approach thus facilitates a qualitative dimension of the digital evolution of selected media. In this section, the case studies will be discussed using theory and the extent to which each media has evolved over time, and whether the theory can be applied in the case of these two media. To analyze these particular examples, digital methods will be used. As Richard Rogers has argued in his book "Digital Methods", studying an internet phenomenon on the same medium allows to "redirect research on the Internet to consider the Internet as a source of data, method, and technique" (Rogers, Digital methods 27). After having theoretically explained the chosen method, namely the use of Internet archives through the tool "The Wayback Machine", an overview of the two case studies will be explored. Finally, the design of the research will be stated and explained.

2. Digital Methods for web archive research

In order to carry out the analysis of the selected websites, the use of a digital methods tool seemed essential, and especially the analysis of the Web sphere. As defined by the scholars Kirsten Foot and Steven Schneider, the Web sphere is "a set of dynamically defined digital resources spanning multiple websites deemed relevant or related to a central event, concept or theme, and often connected by hyperlinks" (Foot and Schneider 2). Web Sphere Analysis is a web-based framework that analyzes communication actions and relationships between producers and web users over time (Foot and Schneider 2). Kristen Foot recalls that the Web sphere can function as a "macro-analysis unit" through

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which historical comparisons can be elaborated. To which can be added, other "more micro-units", as the analysis features or textual elements (Foot 2). Web archiving also allows for more rigorous and verifiable research, as well as time-sensitive development analyses of Web phenomena (Foot 5).

2.1 Internet Archive

Compared to other publishing media, the World Wide Web (hereinafter referred to as "the Web"), represents a revolution in publishing. Indeed, it extends the possibilities in the organization, access, and rendering of the content (Masanès 15). The fact that the Web is "an active publication space" (Masanès 15) makes it more important to study the archives of the Web, in order to understand its evolution and the way in which the interfaces have been transformed with time. In this case, the Web archive will dissect the two websites over a certain period and thus expose whether or not the media in question has evolved in line with the idea of contemporary journalism, because of the presence or the lack of digital characteristics (Rogers, Digital methods 68).

Given the uncontrollable evolution of web technology, the increasing complexity of the nature of the documents produced and the irreversible loss of certain contents, Web archiving interventions have been launched. The first initiative is the ‘Internet Archive’, a project founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle (Chebbi 20) and developed during the period of the history of the Internet, termed cyberspace (Rogers, Digital methods 34). The purpose of such a project is to collect the entire Web. The non-profit digital library indexes and stores web pages, allowing researchers or the public to access abandoned or modified versions (Eltgrowth 181). From this first initiative, emerged the website, ‘The Wayback Machine’, providing access to snapshots of web pages stored by the organization Internet Archive.

2.2 The Wayback Machine

The interface ‘The Wayback Machine’ was developed by Alexa for Internet Archive (Masanès 147). Initially, the Internet Archive’s ‘Wayback Machine’ was used as a solution to ‘problem 404’ which appeared if a page or a file could not be found (Rogers, Digital

methods 66). However, the ‘Wayback Machine’ has been useful in other ways, as a

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oﬀers access to websites in a historical way (Rogers, Doing Web history with the Internet

Archive 161).

The website "https://archive.org/web/" accesses the largest online digital collection of archived Web pages in the world and allows to search and retrieve an inaccessible or modified Web page (Rogers, Digital methods 5). ‘The Wayback Machine’ offers the opportunity to study the evolution of a page or several pages over time by collecting "snapshots from the indexing dates of a page" (Rogers, Digital methods 29). As mentioned above, web pages have a limited lifespan (Eltgrowth 181), thus having access to a website like 'The Wayback Machine’ makes it possible to constitute different versions of a selected website and give meaning to certain Web phenomena (Chebbi 25). ‘The Wayback Machine’ works by providing the general history of a website, as well as different versions of the same web page, to notice changes that occurred over time. By capturing specific periods from the layout of a single site, and in this way visualizing the evolution of a page, ‘The Wayback Machine’ allows to answer the research question of this thesis and thus demonstrate how the traditional media have appropriated digital and new media.

3. Case studies

As mentioned previously in the literature review, the French media have been relatively long in their adoption of multimedia within journalistic editorials. In order to develop a deeper understanding of the digital processes that appear in certain French media, it seemed necessary to delimit the field of analysis. In that respect, research through case studies in the context of digital news seems essential, in the sense that "in terms of innovation, the industry is ahead of the theory" (Küng 5). This thesis focuses on a segment of actors in the media industry sector: information websites. Within this segment, this research will put the emphasis on two players: 'lemonde.fr’ and ‘ ouest-france.fr’. These two case studies were chosen because they have a certain degree of importance in the French media environment. Both of the case studies are two traditional newspaper companies that have a digital news website. With this targeted sampling, it seems reasonable to be able to study diﬀerent dimensions in diﬀerent media. After a brief introduction of each case study, it will be important to enlighten the way each newspaper incorporated digital elements.

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3.1 Le Monde

The first French online newspaper chosen for this research is ‘lemonde.fr', originating from the newspaper of the same name ('Le Monde’), is classified among one of the French newspapers of record (Saïtta 191). ‘Le Monde’ is the national daily newspaper, the most widely read in France (2.72 million readers in 2017 in terms of paid circulation) but second in the number of copies sold after the daily newspaper Le Figaro with 288 435 (ACPM, Classement diﬀusion presse quotidienne nationale 2018).

3.2 Ouest-France

The second case studied, ‘ouest-france.fr' which was founded from by the main newspaper ‘Ouest-France’, heir to the ‘Ouest-Éclair’ published until the second world war. The group has developed in a territory mainly comprising the regions of Brittany, Lower Normandy and Pays de La Loire. Primarily a regional newspaper that has built a land base on which it has become a major media institution. Indeed, Ouest-France is the first French-language daily newspaper in the world in terms of broadcasting since 1975, with an average of 661,016 copies released each day in 2018 (ACPM Classement

diﬀusion presse quotidienne régionale 2018).

3.3 The transition to digital

It is in the context of technological change, that the two newspapers, faced with digitization, had to provide responses to the changes brought to them. In response to facing the competition of new actors, they created digital versions of their paper editions. Thereupon, Ouest-France is the first daily newspaper to have experimented on the Web, by launching an archive service in 1994 (Delorme-Montini 187) to then have its own online edition. In the ranking of the regional daily press, Ouest-France.fr is at the top, and in the overall ranking of all the French websites combined, 'ouest-france.fr' is placed in 10th place (ACPM, Fréquentations Internet).

In 1995, before having their website, the newspaper 'Le Monde’ created a multimedia service for their subscribers where information was accessible via "Infonie". Several months later and since late December 1995, the newspaper ended up having its own Web version, as well as its own domain ('lemonde.fr'). Today, the newspaper oﬀers a variety of editorial content through both the website and the application. In the ranking of

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websites combined, 'ouest-france.fr' is placed in 10th place and have a unified number of views in December 2018, with up to 59 900 068. The Web version of 'Le Monde' amounts to 84,050,701 visits during the same period and ranks 5th among the most visited French sites (ACPM "Fréquentations Internet").

Figure 1 : Infographic overview of the two case studies according to ACPM (Circulation Audit Oﬃce). Created via Visme.co

4. Methods / Research design

4.1 Data collection

'The Wayback Machine' interface was used to access the history of the home page of the selected media. Once the website "The Wayback Machine" opened, the URLs of the two websites (namely ‘lemonde.fr' and ‘ouest-france.fr') were inserted individually in the search bar. After verifying in ‘The Wayback Machine’ that there were enough captures for the two websites, as well as a suﬃcient and concordant period of time for the research, the URL delivered by ‘The Wayback Machine’ was collected. Following the insertion of the pages’ Web addresses into the Internet Archive interface, the results were made into a list of all the crawled dates for that site. On the one hand, the captures were organized in chronological order to visualize and sweep the history of screenshots explored by ‘The

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Wayback Machine’. On the other hand, a calendar by month and by year was made available for the purpose of accessing screenshots in a more precise way.

The used method followed multi-fold steps. First, the link ‘https://lemonde.fr' was inserted in the ‘Wayback Machine’, providing the possibility to display 39, 861 Web pages archived within twenty-two years (November 1996 to March 2019). For the case of Ouest-France, the same step was reproduced, with the link 'https://www.ouest-france.fr/'. 14161 pages have been saved in the time span of twenty-one years, between December 1998 and March 2019. It should also be noted that during the collection of screenshots, several points of data were not available. Indeed, for ‘lemonde.fr', the year 1996, only included captures for the months of October, November, and December. The year 1997, only gave access to data for the months of June and October. The year 2000 oﬀered more screenshots during the months of May, June, July, August, October, and November. Finally, for Le monde.fr, only the month of February and August 2001 and February 2002 were missing. The year 1998 oﬀered data for the months of February, May, and December. In 1999, only January and February were present. For the case of 'ouest-france.fr', even fewer sets of data were captured by ‘The Wayback Machine’. Between the years 1996 (marking the beginning of the archives) and 1999 show no results found, which means that this particular domain was not registered and/or had no content at that time. Just like the website ‘Le Monde', the year 2000 had more data available, which were the months of March, May, July, August, October, and December. But in 2001, a smaller amount of data was noted, with only the months of March, April and May. The year 2002 contains missing data during the months of January, February, October, and December. Finally, January, May and November 2003 were missing and all of the beginning of 2004 (from January to May) was not available either.

Secondly, the URL delivered by the website ‘The Wayback Machine' was collected and then introduced into the "Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Ripper" tool, created by the Digital Methods Initiative (DMI). The Link Ripper tool then created a list of links to the archived pages. The following settings have been applied. The box "ignore duplicate results" was checked, and the capture interval option was set to "show only one return result per month", given the amount of data and in order to have a more complete interpretation of the history (Rogers, Doing Web history with the Internet Archive 166).