Nestore's blog

Emergence and development

40,000 years ago, prehistoric man began to speak and paint. He already expressed the need to transmit information to future generations .

If we think of media as anything that allows information to be conveyed, it is essential to note the importance of technological transformations ; progress in transport, for example, is an essential cog in this progression. The transformation of society also played a considerable role in this development: the bourgeoisie, which wanted to replace the aristocracy to bring about a more enlightened society, recorded many innovations in writing. Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopedia (or Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers) promotes this universalism.

In our current understanding of the term, media innovations have also followed one another (painted posters in the Middle Ages, printing in the 15th century, written press in the 17th century, telegraph in 1837, telephone in 1876, television in 1880, radio in 1890 and cinema in the early 1900s) to give increasing importance to the media in public life.

The media were then as much a source of information as they were of artistic expression. Posters featured works of art by Jules Chéret, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Cassandre, and Leonetto Cappiello, for example. The brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière held the first free collective screening in 1895, paving the way for the seventh art.

However, it was during the 1939-45 war, when people lived in uncertainty and fear, that the weight of the media really increased in the face of the need to be kept informed. 1939-45 was also the scene of the rise of propaganda and, by extension, of a sometimes roundabout way of processing information.

This is the advent of another major aspect of media: advertising. In the 19th century, during the Industrial Revolution, technological advances allowed advertising to communicate across multiple media.

On June 16, 1836, Émile de Girardin inserted commercial advertisements in his newspaper, La Presse, for the first time, allowing him to lower their prices, expand readership, and maximize profitability. The revolutionary formula was immediately copied. Media advertising was born, bringing success to both advertising agencies and media outlets, contributing significantly to their development.

Democratization of technologies

The first revolution came from the democratization of access to these technologies and the attraction to them . Television in particular, which combines image and sound, was a resounding success, becoming the standard medium throughout the end of the 20th century.

The challenge for media outlets is their audience . It's what gives them their raison d'être, keeps them alive by providing them with resources. Audiences also determine the content offered by the media. Thus, radio audiences very quickly decide the schedule for the following year.

Access to the greatest number is therefore a key to development and a necessary step . We can then have two logics at work: technological advances to give access to the media to all and a diversification of content to attract new consumers. The audience is then fragmented (measurement of audience share, per average quarter of an hour, listening time, etc.) and the programs adapted (The Young and the Restless has long remained the very solid leader among housewives under (and yes, you may be in the target!) 50 years old).

Until the 1970s, marketing was little involved in advertising strategy , leaving free rein to creativity . We also recommend the fascinating and incisive world of Mad Men, a series that won 15 Emmys and 3 Golden Globes and faithfully illustrates this period in New York.

It was in this decade that advertising refocused on the product or service it promoted, with the development of ideas such as positioning or awareness and the emergence of reliable tools for measuring advertising impact . The golden age of marketing could begin. Brands then fully appropriated these media and we entered the consumer society.

But if the landscape becomes structured and professionalized, a major metamorphosis will reshuffle the cards.

The digital revolution

If war is once again at the origin of this revolution; Colossus, the first computer was designed to decode German submarine communications, the SAGE radar computer network to control air borders…; the improvement of services and the multiplication of networks very quickly gave rise to civilian use. The Google search engine was born in 1997. In 2014, there were 1 billion sites online and 3 billion Internet users. Information was then everywhere (this revolution is also called the information technology revolution).

All uses are modified, the way of consuming , the duration of consumption , the media, the type of content...
Three key moments should be noted in this revolution: the widespread use of the laptop, the explosion of the internet and the appearance of the smartphone.

The logic at work is no longer how I increase the number of my potential receivers but how I distinguish myself among the continuous flow . The priority no longer becomes the quality of treatment but its speed, the personalization.

A deeper upheaval, the emergence of social networks/media

One can question this postulate, yet it is the greatest upheaval in the media.

Free access to information has always been a desire, and the growth of consumers has been a related need. The digital revolution is merely the culmination of this desire.

Social media is changing the paradigm. Information is no longer concentrated, it is no longer delayed. It is everywhere, it is immediate, it is available to everyone, and it is for everyone.

Facebook has 2,375 million active users (to which are added 1,600 million for Whatsapp, 1,300 for Messenger and 1,000 for Instagram), WeChat, 1,112 million in July 2019 ( Sources: Statistica )

All continents, all generations, all socio-professional classes interact through the same platforms , the same media. The meaning of freedom of information has also evolved. Because the media filter has been reduced to each person's reading of their news feed and what they choose to reflect on their wall, their stories... The Internet, which originally represented a libertarian ideal where the notion of choice was preponderant, is today locked by algorithms self-centered on the user.

This is the advent of the new economy, which is breaking free from borders, and all players must review their strategy , starting with advertisers and advertising agencies.

Certainly, some governments still manage to control it by curbing it because it is the sine qua non condition for their staying in power. It is even made (in any case it is not totally insane to believe it) one of the main keys to the last presidential election of the largest democracy in the world (cf. the Cambridge Analytica scandal)!

Fake news has taken over from satirical newspapers, capable of creating widespread distrust among elites or crowd movements.
There is therefore a need to order this whole whose coherence is wavering.

New consumption patterns and therefore new risks

However, this landscape is set to evolve. Many experts and prominent figures are pointing the finger at these new media. Social media is seriously harming humanity, as Les Echos headlines, reminding us of the warnings on cigarette packages and warning of the servitude created by GAFA, which is banking on "the attention market."

Chris Hughes, one of the founders of Facebook, is calling for its dismantling when new generations lose interest in it in favor of new platforms (Tiktok, Discord, etc.). The misuse of these platforms worries sociologists and governments alike: harassment practices revealed in broad daylight (cyberpedophilia, harassment between children or adolescents, LOL league, etc.), difficulties in controlling and stopping hateful, insulting, and even terrorist content, security breaches , etc.

It is urgent to better understand these new media , to train and alert consumers to potential abuses and, above all, to legislate to protect users.

The CNIL, Europe (GDPR) and the ePrivacy regulation are moving in this direction to limit access to user data. But the recent announcements by Google and Apple blocking third-party cookies, while laudable at first glance, will confirm the concentration of data control , the new El Dorado for companies, and an even greater loss of control over the value of the information to which we have access.

The power of the media is growing ever greater. This is even more striking given the duties incumbent upon them, which are tending to diminish. Verification of sources , of information, analysis of facts, presumption of innocence, respect for individuals and organizations; all of this is no longer the case.

As early as 1993, Jacques Rigaud, former CEO of RTL and chief of staff of the Minister of Cultural Affairs, wrote: “ The reign of political spectacle, polls and marketing gives the media a role that can be considered excessive. Through sensationalist programs where fiction is confused with reality and debate with entertainment, through a spirit of brutal and cynical competition that causes people to lose sight of the basic requirements of information ethics, [...] which disrupt the normal functioning of the judicial institution, the media sometimes practice a real parasitism of democracy .”

He would be even more dismayed today.