Seite - 119 - in Media – Migration – Integration - European and North American Perspectives

Souley Hassane | Mainstream Media vs. Ethnic Minority Media 119 told with disregard for these people, their culture, and especially, for their status as full-fledged French citizens. Internet media have encouraged thousands of people to engage in reading texts on the Web, and are a genuine democratic revolution in terms of letting French people of foreign origin speak their minds. Never before was there production on such a scale related to minority society and their connection with the media. The influx of factors related to ideological confrontation on the network is also without precedent with regards to their number, insistence and presence. Minorities use the Internet as an identity establishing network to be able to hold their position against the fortresses of the mainstream media. The more heated the debates are, the greater is the interactivity of the agents. This interactivity continues to be fed by the ever-increasing alternation of statements and actions on the parts of politicians and the dominant press. The events of 9/11 facilitated a renunciation of the French republic’s former taboos involving a torrent of essentialist criticisms of Arabs and Muslims in the dominant press. Six years later, the left and right have met halfway on this point. The anti-religious tradition of the left has converged with the anti-Arab passion of the right. French society has not managed to put this behind itself; on the contrary, a competitiveness of sorts can be noticed in this domain. From 2001 to the present, there have constantly been confrontations between the dominant and minority media related to discrimination, racism and xenophobia, all revived by a “Le Pen-ization” of popular opinion. A public, political and democratic move to the right has been a major part of Nicolas Sarkozy’s agenda in his climb to power. The spirit of the right, now allegedly freed from its complexes, has revived traumas, anxieties and fears in the hearts of French people of foreign origin. Hence, an analysis of the minority press is the key to understanding the ever-widening schism not only between the two types of media, but between their respective target groups as well. 2. From the French audiovisual landscape to that of the minority media The minority media landscape in France is dominated by two main components: African/Caribbean media and Arab/Muslim media. This corresponds to the two main groups of French people of foreign origin, who are, respectively, the principal target groups. These media include approximately a hundred magazines, journals and Internet sites of African origin, and thirty of Arabic origin. The specific feature of these media is their focus on a group for which they homogenize cultural references, harmonize a