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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
newspapers with the leading circulations in each country and their websites). These
countries of southern Europe constitute small media markets with delayed internet
adoption by (traditional) media organizations and subsequent late development of
online journalism.
Research will focus on diversity of journalistic content, forms, tools and modes of
presentation (or lack of it). In this context, issues of reproduction/originality of content,
storytelling forms, genres, sources and authorship, as well as of employment of
internet tools for immediate, personalized and customized information, will be
addressed and examined.
The development of local online journalism in South-Western France: the case
of La Dépêche du Midi
Smyrnaios, Nikos; Bousquet, Franck
University of Toulouse, Toulouse, France
Since the advent and consolidation of the web as a news medium, expectations about
its positive role in journalism diversity were high - especially when it comes to local
public space. News websites are generally thought as benefiting from low distribution
costs online in order to challenge well established players such as local newspapers,
TV and radio stations. This is particularly true in the case of France where the media
market is highly concentrated. At the same time, local news sites are expected to
innovate in the field of proximity services, citizen participation and journalistic formats.
Our study aims at verifying these hypotheses in the particular case of the Midi-
Pyrénées Region of South-Western France (with a population of approximatively
2,5M, out of which about 1M lives around the city of Toulouse). The Midi-Pyrénées
Region is second in France regarding the number of corporate emplyees, intellectual
professions and students, thus theoretically a very appropriate field for the
development of local online journalism. Our study examines a diversified sample of
five local online news players (the dominant regional newspaper La Depêche, a local
venture of nationwide newspaper Libération, two city guides, Toulouseweb et
Toulouseblog, and a local online TV pure-player, AriegeNews).
In each case we conducted interviews with chief editors and journalists as well as
ethnographic observations in online newsrooms. The results of our study show that
eventhough the local news sector is developing rapidly on the web, it is still in
difficulty in becoming profitable. At the same time, editorial and journalistic innovation
seems to be more likely to emerge inside pure-players and marginal structures rather
than inside dominant media.
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