The Unbearable Lightness of the Fait Divers : Investigating the Boundaries of a Journalistic Genre
2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 29; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/15295036.2011.617378
ISSN1529-5036
Autores Tópico(s)Management and Organizational Studies
ResumoAbstract This paper investigates the boundaries of a journalistic category that typifies the French-speaking press, namely the faits divers, of which the approximate equivalent in the English-speaking press would be human interest stories. Bourdieu defines faits divers as journalistic discourses whose only function is to create diversion from what really matters, that is, socio-political issues (Bourdieu, 1996). I challenge this conception through the analysis of a case where journalists have politicized a fait divers and have used it to heighten awareness of a social problem. Certainly, the failure of these journalists' attempts demonstrates that Bourdieu is right to define faits divers as a-political news. For all that, the case shows that faits divers cannot be dismissed as pure diversion, as they fulfill functions that other journalistic discourses do not take charge of. Bourdieu's critique stems from his contempt for the logic of emotion that is at work in the fait divers and fails to recognize that the narrative of the fait divers presents a crisis of causality that can inspire a reflection on human condition. Going back and forth between theories and the case study, the paper raises the question of definition, in terms of nature and function, of this journalistic genre. Keywords: Journalistic Genre Fait Divers Human Interest Stories Acknowledgments I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers whose suggestions have significantly improved my original manuscript. Notes 1. Some works have studied the reciprocal inspiration between fait divers and fiction, be it in cinema, theatre, or literature (Merleau-Ponty, 1960). Although it is considered news, the fait divers actually plays on a certain number of resources that are close to those of a fictional account. Dubied notably mentions: the theme or configuration of time in a non-chronological order, the character as a fiction-like resource, the involvement of human interests, and the fact that the fait divers account constructs a causality that has multiple effects and is characterized by a very specific way of handling the conclusion (Dubied, 2004223). As an illustration of this proximity between fait divers and literature, and also to give an example of fait divers, I will refer to a fait divers mentioned in Albert Camus's The Outsider (1942). Reading of faits divers constitutes the main occupation of the anti-hero of Camus's novel, Meursault, while he is waiting for his execution. Vandendorpe (1991) recalls the story that Meursault read on a piece of newspaper that he had found in his jail: the story of a man who came back to his village in Czechoslovakia after 25 years, went incognito to the hostel managed by his mother and sister, and, priding himself of having a lot of money with him, was assassinated by them. This example illustrates how close a fait divers can be to literary genres: in this case to the Greek tragedy. 2. This corresponds to the exhaustive list of relevant articles found by the combined keywords "plage" (beach) and "Italie" (Italy) in the database Factiva since July 20, 2008. The 18 items include four AFP dispatches as well as articles published in French national newspapers (Libération, Le Monde, L'Humanité, Aujourd'hui en France, and online LeMonde.fr and LePoint.fr), in French local newspapers (Ouest France, and L'Indépendant), in Swiss dailies (La Tribune de Genève, and Le Temps), in a Luxemburger paper (Le Jeudi Luxembourg), and in the main Moroccan daily (Le Matin). 3. In each article, I assessed the framing of the event, using categories of analysis derived from Entman's definition of the functions of framing: definition of a problem, identification of causality, expression of moral judgment, and suggestion of solution/remedies (Entman, 1993 Entman, R. 1993. Framing: toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(4): 51–58. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). In the text of each article, I identified what elements (words, sentences, or group of sentences) fitted into which category (or categories) of functions. This was done through a semantic analysis of the text and the study of logical connections between sentences. I also used the newspaper's categorization of the article in a rubric as an indicator of frame. 4. All the quotes, from newspapers or from scholars' works, are translated from French. 5. My translation from French, although an English version exists. In the English version, "fait divers" is translated into "sensational news" (Bourdieu, 1998 Bourdieu, P. 1998. On Television, New York, NY: The New Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]17), which is a too reductive expression that does not cover the object as we defined it. Furthermore, the play on the words "fait divers" and "diversion" is lost in this translation. 6. Journalists have indeed ignored facts that might have been relevant not only to construct a significantly different story but also to challenge the actual story built: the fact that sunbathers attempted to rescue the little girls and that two other Gypsy little girls had been saved by them, the fact that a similar case of a delayed ambulance happened with the dead body of a person who was not a Gypsy, the fact that some of the sunbathers were not Italians but tourists, the fact that if some of the sunbathers showed indifference, others showed respect for the corpses by covering them, by putting flowers next to them, by waiting besides them until the ambulance arrived. These facts are known either because journalists mentioned them in passing in their story on indifference, without noticing the potential for contraction, or because late papers did qualify the thesis of indifference, notably by reporting the voice of the photographer who blamed the media outlets for selecting a misleading picture on which they decided to base their story. Indeed, the photographer explained that he used a focal that distorted the apparent distance between the sunbathers and the corpses so that the sunbathers were actually farther than it seems and might not even have been aware of the presence of the corpses. Yet this photograph served as evidence of the condemnable indifference: "Italy is in the dock after the publication of photos that show the apparent indifference of vacationers confronted with the dead bodies of two Gypsy teenagers who drowned" (Le Matin, July 25), among other extracts. The photographer also explained that he submitted other photographs to his clients but that this one, the most problematic, was selected: "The photographer considered on Friday [the 25th] that 'this case has been exaggerated' by foreign media. 'I took several pictures, some showed vacationers going on with their activities. On others, we could see people who were visibly concerned or who tried to carry the coffins"' (AFP, July 25). This biased selection confirms my point that the fait divers was politicized in a forced way and in fact served as a pretext. Additional informationNotes on contributorsSandrine BoudanaI am grateful to Elihu Katz, Daniel Dayan, Jerome Bourdon, Rodney Benson, Sarah Stonbely and Matthew Powers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper
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