Cet article retrace une étape essentielle dans l'histoire de la télévision européenne de service public : la transformation des représentations de son public - d'un public avide de savoir, à la fois de droite et de gauche, elle est passée à un public populaire qui vient en nombre chercher le loisir immédiat, une nouvelle forme de la «populace» d'Ancien Régime. Ce changement a précédé la mesure d'audience qui l'incarne et le confirme aujourd'hui. Le passage d'un public à l'autre pose un (...) défi à la pensée de la culture populaire, emprisonnée l'élitisme traditionnel, le néo-élitisme «de gauche» qui s'avance masqué , un néo-populisme qui donne le primat au texte et un déni du public populaire traité comme une fiction . Contre une pensée globale du populaire qui traite ensemble « le » public populaire et « la » télévision, il faut dépasser les hiérarchies culturelles implicitement ou explicitement à l'oeuvre dans les paradigmes dominants.This article recalls a major episode in the history of European public service television: the transformation of the representations of the public - from a "popular" audience, eager to be educated which came both from the right and the left, which still had a revolutionary people in view, the public became a popular audience eagerly seeking disreputable leisure in throngs: a return of the Ancient Regime's rabble. This episode constitues a challenge for theories of popular culture, all too often imprisonned traditional elitism, neo-elitism which claims than a non manipulated popular audience would have a "better taste", a neo-elitism, a neo-populism which rehabilitates the popular audience by dissolving it into the texts , and finally a denial of popular audiences treated as a "fiction" . Against a global view of television and its audience, it is necessary to go beyond the cultural hierarchies implicitly or explicitly at work in the dominant paradigms. (shrink)

This article explores the debate that has surrounded the use of analogies in coverage of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, analyzing in depth two ‘analogy affairs’ on the basis of a LexisNexis corpus: the 2002 Auschwitz-Saramago affair and the 2006–2007 Apartheid-Carter affair. Using the classic Aristotelian tripartition of logos, ethos, and pathos, the article unfolds the argumentative structure of the controversies. Carter and Saramago used the combination of their own personal status and the controversial nature of their analogies to trigger a debate. (...) Commentators focused very much on the ethos and the pathos, and tended to ignore the logos. Opponents, who made up the majority of commentators, considered analogies as a way of passing judgment on and mobilizing against one of the actors in the conflict. This analysis suggests that despite the call for a more cautious use of the analogies discussed, participants in the debate on the Israeli–Palestinian conflicts are bound to resort to them – even if only to condemn them. (shrink)

Cet article s'attache à analyser la violente controverse qui s'est développée, sur plusieurs années, autour de la diffusion d'images de la mort d'un enfant palestinien par la deuxième chaîne française en septembre 2000. Originale de par ses publics et les vecteurs de mobilisation , cette controverse révèle une forme de débat public complexe, où l'identité sociale et professionnelle des acteurs en cause est redessinée par la circulation des représentations et des arguments.This article seeks to analyze violent controversy that has developed (...) over many years around the dissemination of images of the death of a Palestinian child by the second French channel in September 2000. Original by its audiences and vector mobilization , this controversy reveals a complex form of public debate, where social and professional identity of the actors involved is redesigned by the circulation of representations and arguments. (shrink)