This document summarizes internet and new media in France. It discusses the decline of traditional French media and rise of internet usage. It provides an overview of internet infrastructure and access in France. It also examines popular French blogs, social networks, and debates around privacy, network neutrality, and concentration of media ownership in France.

1. RENAUD Clément
Internet and New Medias in
France
Wuhan University
April 23, 2010 (Friday) - 14 :00

2. The French language

3. French speakers in the world

4. 1. An overview of French
Medias

5. Medias in France
• Old tradition
since 19th
Century
• Old medias
Le Monde 世界报
since 1861
1897

6. Traditional media in crisis
ÉVOLUTION OF NATIONAL PRESS DIFFUSION IN FRANCE
• Newspaper sells are going down for 10 years

7. Economy of newspaper
• New economic deal with the dependency
on publicity
• The main medias aren’t independant
anymore
• The journalists don’t own their media

8. Advertisement incomes go online
Advertisement by medias Recent growth

9. Media & Industrial group
dependencies in France
Mainstream media in France have generally 2 types of
owners :
- Big industrial group or financial corporation
- State (government)
Newspaper : TV Channel : Radio :
• Le Monde • TF1 • RTL
• Le Figaro • France • Radio France
• Liberation Television • Europe1
• L’Equipe • Canal+
Owned by French State
• M6 Owned by an industrial group

10. Case study: TF1 and Bouygues
• The first TV Group in
France is TF1.
• TF1 is owned by the
French Industrial group
Bouygues

11. Case study: TF1 and Bouygues (2)
The TV channel is only a
little part of the whole
business of the Bouygues
Group.
This affect journalism
independency

12. Case study: Lagardere Group

13. French industrial group and their sphere of
influence on French Internet

14. Internet in France
An overview

15. Short history of Internet in France
1981
Minitel is the first
networking device
in France

16. Short history of Internet in France
• 1992
Creation of
Renater,
first Internet
backbone in
France

17. Short history of Internet in France
• June 1994 : The 1st Internet provider is
FranceNet
• From1996 to 2000 most of people use
AOL (an US provider)
• In 2001, 17% of French families are
connected to Internet (40 % using DSL)
• Today, a lot of places in France don’t have
an Internet connexion, mostly because of
geographic counstrait (mountains…).

18. Internet users population
More than 2/3
french people
use Internet
everyday

19. Internet access in Europe
(by country)

20. Where ?
French At home
netizens At work
use
At friend’s place
Internet at
home At school
In public places

22. French DSL Providers

23. Blogs in France

24. Blogs in France
• 7 millions of French people read a blog
post everyday
• Blog platforms (by users)
– Skyblog (4,1 millions)
– Msn space (2,9 millions)
– Overblog (2,3 millions)
– Six apart (1,8 million)
• Source : mediametrie 2009

25. Skyblog

26. • Skyblog is a French social network and blogging
platform
• Launched in 2002 and currently has 5.4 million
blogs, with more than 12,000 being created so
far today. (French population :60 million)
• Skyrock and Skyblog also reported good growth
during the riots of November 2005, when th e
French youth began to use Skyblog as a political
tool..

27. • Unlike most successful social sites, Skyblog is
the product of a “traditional” media player –
Skyrock a popular French radio station.
• Despite the name, Skyrock plays mostly R&B
and HipHop.
• France’s most popular station among the 13 to
24 year old generation,
• 3.7 million daily listeners.

28. Wikio.fr : the French Blogosphere
• Wikio is a blog portal which has a really
big influence in France

29. View of wikio results

30. The most readed blogs
In France

31. The web talks about itself
In the most readed blogs, a lot of tech blogs :
- Iphone, Android (Google Phone)
- Web development (PHP/Javascript…)
- Webdesign

32. Loic Le Meur’s blog
• Loic le Meur : an Internet pure player
Influencial blogger
• He created leWeb conference in Paris,
one of the most important conference for
Internet business and commercial actors
• His blog is written in French & English

33. Mashable
• A French influent blog about social
networks (available in English)

34. Does the web
mostly talk about itself ?
• In the most reading blogs, a lot of blogs
deals with Internet issues
• Why?
– Blog’s heavy consumers are bloggers
– Internet is often a self-referential world
–…

35. But in the most readed blogs in France, you
got also :

36. Chocolate&Zucchini
• A blog about cooking

37. La Bande pas Dessinee
• A community of artists draw a new comic
everyday

38. Bondy Blog
• It deals with Paris
suburbs and their
local social
issues
• It was created
during the riots in
November 2003
by non-
professional
journalists. Most viewed blog in 2008

39. Maitre Eolas
• A blog written by
a Paris lawyer
• About law and
justice issues in
France.
• Also often about
politics and
social issues.
15000+ views /day

40. Social networks in France

41. SNS : Facebook and Myspace

43. Social networks in France
77 % of French
people have a
SNS profile

44. Evolution of SNS reputation

45. Copains d’avant
• The 1st SNS in France
• Reach fo former classmates with this SNS

46. Where is your personal data going ?
• Privacy issues online are a main issue
today, especially with the growth of SNS
• Who’s viewing/using your data ? What for?
• Does Facebook sell your personal
information ?
• Is the governement able to reach for your
friends list ?

47. CNIL
• CNIL = National Council for Computers &
Freedom Issues
• CNIL is a French administrative authority
• Created to protect data privacy and
citizens' right
• Its mission is to ensure that data privacy
law is applied to the collection, storage,
and use of personal data

48. Privacy in France
• The CNIL was created in 1978 with the 1st
law about computers, files and liberties
(data privacy).
• Since 2004, some new laws have reduced
the power of the CNIL
– The police can create new files without the
authorization of CNIL
– The provider are forced to stock and share
connexion logs with the police

49. Portals in France

50. Portals in France
• In France, big portals was widely used during
the 90’s.
• Now, portals are more for professional use or
specific topics)
• Differences between China and France about
webdesign
– China: All on the homepage, few menus
– France/ West: Nothing on the homepage, a complex
menu navigation

51. Netvibes : Portal 2.0

53. Orange.com . A provider portal
• 1st portal in
France
• Providers
want also to
get involved
into content

54. Network neutrality
• La Quadrature du Net is a French
association
• try to inform and create a public debate
about the question of Network Neutrality

55. What is network neutrality ?
• The network neutrality is a principle
proposed for user access networks
participating in the Internet that advocates
no restrictions by Internet Service
Providers or governments on content
access

56. Network neutrality
YOU

57. Network neutrality
Slow Slow
Fast
YOU

58. Network neutrality
Provider Content
•The provider will give more space to its
own content

59. Network neutrality
Provider Provider’s content
Other provider’s content
•The provider will block content from other provider

60. Rezo.net : non-profit info portal

61. Alternative info online

62. Backchich.info
• Traditionnal info and Investigation
Keep a long French tradition of dark humor about politics

63. Mediapart
• Is a ‘Club’ :
you have to
pay to get
access to
the content
• Ruled by
journalist
and people

64. rue89
• Community news website created by 2 ex-
journalists from a famous French newspaper

65. Agoravox
• 100% user-ruled - European platform
started in Belgium

66. Alternative info
• Many famous journalists, disappointed by
the traditional medias have started their
own media online
• Many difficulties to survive online : their
economic models aren’t efficient enough
• The participation of netizens depends of
websites’s own editorial choices

67. About Internet mobile

68. About mobile Internet
• 30% people who have a mobile phone use
mobile Internet
• Growth rate more than 50% / year
• 54% of users are less than 25 years old
• Most used for : email, meteo, news,
search engine

69. Dailymotion
A case study
(View ppt)

70. Conclusion

71. Medias and dependencies
• The control of Internet in France is
inherited from the control of former media
– Providing : Orange with the phone
– Info : Newspaper or online press by
newspaper journalist
• So, big industries, politics and Internet are
tied together

72. Audience and uses
• Most readed blogs are tech blogs
• Most used SNS is to meet former
classmates, not to get acquainted with
new peoples
• Internet mobile is growing quickly

73. An independant network
• Still, there is a big indy network for
information
– Blogs about politics and social issues
– New online medias
• Also a big activist network for the debate
about Internet :
– Privacy : CNIL
– Copyrighted content : GNU/Linux and copyleft
– Network neutrality : La Quadrature du Net

74. Freedom on Internet
• Last 5 years, new laws are reducing
netizen rights
• Online privacy issues are getting worst
• But it still an independant network of
medias and association which are working
and fighting for Internet freedom