Cécile Méadel

Moving to the peoplemetered audience: A sociotechnical approach

Using an actor–network theory approach, this article argues that the audience exists only from the moment it is circumstantiated and instantiated. To observe the audience, sociology thus needs to identify its practices, discourses and manifestations. This hypothesis is illustrated through a historical case study: the adoption of a new television audience measurement, the peoplemeter (a new audimeter machine nowadays widely used by professionals) in France in the late 1980s. It opens the technology’s black box at a time when changes forced actors to reconsider their collective and individual audience definitions. Through analysing the implementation of the peoplemeter, this article shows how a triple process of routine, consensus and trust led the actors to accept this new system. This process, it is argued, explains how actors translated a state of their own construction of the audience into a technological system.

Between Corporatism and Representation: The Birth of a Public Radio Service in France

After the First World War, radio clubs began to appear all over France, heralding the start of experiments with wavelengths, different kinds of aerials and the assembly of crystal sets. Radio was a hobby for a great number of amateurs and DIY enthusiasts, who had first been introduced to wireless techniques in the army during the four long years of the war. At this time, radio programmes existed more to check that receivers were working than to keep the family amused. Both public and private broadcasting stations were in the hands of amateurs. Twenty years later, on the eve of the Second World War, nearly half the French population had access to a receiver and listening to the radio had become the country’s most popular hobby. The public radio network had been transformed into a national administrative department with fifteen stations, affiliated to the PIT Ministry (responsible for the French post office and telephone service). Twelve private stations spread all over France were broadcasting and offering between 10 and 18 hours of programmes every day. Once the private hobby of a few amateurs, between the two world wars radio had become a public affair. But these images are rather inaccurate, since from 1917 onwards it was the state which legislated, regulated and kept a check on the radio service. In 1939, private stations were still broadcasting and were in fact flourishing with a minimum of intervention from the public authorities, The state had been involved right from the very beginnings of radio, but the areas considered under its jurisdiction had changed. In simple terms, in the early days of radio the state was responsible for

Deconstructing the Ratings Machine: An Introduction

After spreading out from the West, on-going television audience measurement (TAM) now prevails in many countries as the main yardstick against which both professionals and, to a certain extent, the general public measure the value of programmes. These evaluations, from one season, one week or even one day to the next, along with the careers of professionals, the value of firms and their turnovers, all depend closely on these indexes. TV audience ratings are moreover used way beyond the field of broadcasting itself, or even the cultural market. The mainstream media also consider them as interesting material to which they devote articles and programmes. Any crisis concerning these ratings has repercussions much further afield than the audio-visual or even the advertising economies. The public authorities in all countries are involved, in many ways, and they use, quote, debate and question ratings.

The Monopoly that Won’t Divide: France’s Médiamétrie

Under which conditions does a private and monopolistic facility provide information data on a highly competitive market, considering that those data are of general interest? The French case offers an interesting case study to unfold the quantification of audiences as a socio-technical mechanism, which produces ratings in a way that can be effective for very different actors, inside the television industry as well as outside (Bourdon, 1994; Bourdon and Meadel, 2011; Meadel, 2010). Actually, ratings may no longer be a ‘blind spot’ for researchers, but they remain a black box (Latour, 1987); that is, a techno-social mechanism that produces things routinely agreed upon and (almost) never questioned, except in times of crises which must, by definition, be quickly solved. Opening this black box might provide us with valuable insight into contemporary culture, the way it represents its audiences, and the way legitimacy is conferred (or not) upon specific cultural artefacts, especially through quantification (Herbst, 1993: p. 3).1

Moteurs de recherche et référencement : chassez le naturel...

L’infrastructure informationnelle que constitue Google a mis l’intelligence collective des utilisateurs du web au service d’un modele d’affaire efficient selon une logique de marche biface. A la difference des grands modeles de classification du savoir, l’acces se fait en « langage naturel ». Ce naturel relegue dans l’arriere-boutique de la machine tout le travail intermediaire de production des resultats en mettant en avant une assomption de neutralite. Or, nous montrons qu’il s’agit en fait d’une vigoureuse mise en ordre du monde afin de repondre a la fois au programme d’action fixe par le moteur, aux actions des acteurs qui cherchent a intervenir dans ce programme et au developpement de contre-modeles experimentaux.

Governance, Networks and Information Technologies : Societal, Political, and organizational Innovations

Digital technologies play a major role in the profound changes that characterize political and economic regulations both within nation states and in international relations. They often provide the conditions for these evolutionary processes by means of new modes of information circulation, of interactions between individuals and of collective organization. They have also prompted the emergence of new modes of regulation and governance. In addition, they raise qualitatively new issues, since global information networks affect the performance of information-based activities, the organization of related industries and coordination between all kinds of stakeholders whose interests are impacted by the rise of the information society. As a result, technical governance and political governance are becoming more and more intertwined. There is therefore a need to understand how technical, political, economic and social norms are articulated, as well as to understand who the main actors in this process of transformation are, how they interact and how these changes may influence international rulings in terms of individual rights, public liberties, property rights, economic competition, market regulation, conflict management, security, state sovereignty, etc. This contributory volume aims to address these related issues from a truly international perspective, with views from different academic cultures and backgrounds. Although the role of digital technologies is highlighted, other factors that are driving our rapidly changing world are also considered.

Governance, Regulation and Powers on the Internet: Governance, networks and digital technologies: societal, political and organizational innovations

Digital technologies play a major role in the profound changes that characterize political and economic regulations both within nation states and in international relations. They often provide the conditions for these evolutionary processes by means of new modes of information circulation, of interactions between individuals and of collective organization. They have also prompted the emergence of new modes of regulation and governance. In addition, they raise qualitatively new issues, since global information networks affect the performance of information-based activities, the organization of related industries and coordination between all kinds of stakeholders whose interests are impacted by the rise of the information society. As a result, technical governance and political governance are becoming more and more intertwined. There is therefore a need to understand how technical, political, economic and social norms are articulated, as well as to understand who the main actors in this process of transformation are, how they interact and how these changes may influence international rulings in terms of individual rights, public liberties, property rights, economic competition, market regulation, conflict management, security, state sovereignty, etc. This contributory volume aims to address these related issues from a truly international perspective, with views from different academic cultures and backgrounds. Although the role of digital technologies is highlighted, other factors that are driving our rapidly changing world are also considered.

Governance, Regulation and Powers on the Internet: Self-Regulations, Communities and Private Orders

Digital technologies have prompted the emergence of new modes of regulation and governance, since they allow for more decentralized processes of elaboration and implementation of norms. Moreover, the Internet has been raising a wide set of governance issues since it affects many domains, such as individual rights, public liberties, property rights, economic competition, market regulation, conflict management, security and the sovereignty of states. There is therefore a need to understand how technical, political, economic and social norms are articulated, as well as to understand who the main actors of this process of transformation are, how they interact and how these changes may influence international rulings. This book brings together an international team of scholars to explain and analyse how collective regulations evolve in the broader context of the development of post-modern societies, globalization, the reshaping of international relations and the profound transformations of nation-states.

Governance, Regulation and Powers on the Internet: Figures

Digital technologies have prompted the emergence of new modes of regulation and governance, since they allow for more decentralized processes of elaboration and implementation of norms. Moreover, the Internet has been raising a wide set of governance issues since it affects many domains, such as individual rights, public liberties, property rights, economic competition, market regulation, conflict management, security and the sovereignty of states. There is therefore a need to understand how technical, political, economic and social norms are articulated, as well as to understand who the main actors of this process of transformation are, how they interact and how these changes may influence international rulings. This book brings together an international team of scholars to explain and analyse how collective regulations evolve in the broader context of the development of post-modern societies, globalization, the reshaping of international relations and the profound transformations of nation-states.

Governance, Regulation and Powers on the Internet: The Changing Nature of the Law: Coding, Contracting and Ruling

Digital technologies have prompted the emergence of new modes of regulation and governance, since they allow for more decentralized processes of elaboration and implementation of norms. Moreover, the Internet has been raising a wide set of governance issues since it affects many domains, such as individual rights, public liberties, property rights, economic competition, market regulation, conflict management, security and the sovereignty of states. There is therefore a need to understand how technical, political, economic and social norms are articulated, as well as to understand who the main actors of this process of transformation are, how they interact and how these changes may influence international rulings. This book brings together an international team of scholars to explain and analyse how collective regulations evolve in the broader context of the development of post-modern societies, globalization, the reshaping of international relations and the profound transformations of nation-states.