Page - 118 - in Media – Migration – Integration - European and North American Perspectives

Souley Hassane | Mainstream Media vs. Ethnic Minority Media 118 and employer of millions of workers of African descent, also controls Channel TF1. Vincent Bolloré exploits transportation networks in Africa and is a vendor of cocoa, coffee, rubber, palm oil and wood. The activities of his 70 companies in Africa are the source of his wealth. A friend of president Sarkozy, he has invested 10% of his assets in various mass media.1 The mainstream media, then, are a sphere involving huge amounts of capital and occupy a central position in the world of business (Observatoire français des media 2005, p. 95-96). In the face of such an audiovisual landscape controlled exclusively by large-scale corporations, the media of the minorities, more often referred to as “community media” (or as the media of ethnic minorities), have been active since 2000. These are media created by French people of foreign origin, not to be confused with foreign media in France. Today, there are hundreds of such magazines, FM radio stations, Internet radio stations, and Internet television stations in France. Compared to the mainstream media, their capital, which varies from 400 to 4000 euros, is practically negligible. The owners are individuals, groups, associations or small publishing houses. Even so, they are far from inefficient. They make information in reaction to the monologue or monopoly of the dominant forms of information and, in particular, to contest their own negative representation in the mainstream media. Minority media are the consequence of a rejection of information from a direction that makes French people of foreign origin the anti-heroes of the ‘news-in-brief’ columns, of violence, or of fundamentalism. Such mainstream media reports are often 1 Compare Daniel Sauveget: „Vincent Bolloré: l’ex-roi du papier à cigarettes, nouvel empereur des médias?“, November 17, 2004. One can read here: „1. Audiovisual production and provisions since the privatization of SFP (2001), acquisition made with Euromédia: Bolloré holds 30% of the SFP, Euromédia 70% – but Bolloré possessses 24% of Euromédia. The group Euromédia Télévison (EMT) have the studios of Saint-Denis and of Arpajon, and run the previous studios of the Victorine in Nice. SFP has its studios Bry sur Marne, Saint Ouen, and Boulogne- Billancourt as well as its power of reporting and filming. 2. VCF (Video Communication de France), resold in 2003: technical provisions. 3. Streampower: video and Internet. 4. A movie theater in Paris, the Mac Mahon. 5. Direct 8, digital television station currently being created, approved by the CSA within the grouping of free digital channels (director: Philippe Labro), and specializing in direct broadcast, as its name implies. 6. RNT, (la Radio des Nouveaux Talents), AM radio and Internet created in 2004. 7. 10% of Gaumont, TV and cinema production, distribution and exploitation. 8. A small percentage of RCS Media, in Italy – but Bolloré also holds shares in the bank Mediobanca which plays an important role in the reorganization of the press section of Rizzoli-Corriere della Sera. 9. More than 22% (end of October) of Havas, an advertising group detached from Vivendi after the fusion of the no longer existing group Havas with Vivendi.“