Le travail journalistique entre priorisation de l’information et réaction aux algorithmes de recommandation des réseaux sociaux

Abstract

This paper sheds light on the consequences of social network recommendation algorithms on journalistic work. It focuses particularly on the experience of French journalists through an investigation begun during the Yellow Vests protests—a social movement that benefited for its structuring from the modification of Facebook’s News Feed algorithm that occurred in 2018, and which expressed in a ritualized way a violence towards journalists pushing the latter to question some of their practices. Our work is based on more than fifty interviews with editorial directors, editors-in-chief, reporters and fact-checkers working in major national general-interest newsrooms (mainly Le Monde and Libération). Some of those interviewed were also founders of pure players (Les Jours, Rue89, Slate Fr, Loopsider, Orient XXI...). In addition, other respondents are heads (of training) of journalism schools (Sciences Po, IPJ Dauphine, ESJ Lille) or belong to professional associations (Reporters Without Borders, Prenons la Une). After a brief review of the inner workings of recommendation algorithms and their impact, we question the way in which these algorithms undermine the work of producing and prioritizing information. We also show how these algorithms reveal and reinforce socially situated journalistic practices and trends.

Keywords

• Yellow Vests
• algorithms
• recommendation algorithms
• social networks
• Big Tech
• journalists