Global Media Journal -- Canadian Edition

Users are no longer passive in their consumption of digital content. They directly participate in the media conversation, which is no longer the prerogative of professionals. Users are becoming a fully-fledged productive and critical force, especially vis-à-vis information professionals who are seeing their role transformed by the emergence of social media. A co-creation process for content production is being established. Illustrated by a comparison of three French websites, Agoravox, Rue89 and LePost.fr, and based on the literature, this emerging phenomenon is analyzed here from several angles, particularly ethics. In this exploratory study, the authors first analyze the transformations of the role and social functions of journalism: when the media become relational, what could be the journalist’s new position? How can the journalist remain the one who manages the transfer of ideas and opinions? Secondly they study, and limit, the ethical implications of this alleged “back-to-roots journalism”. They also observe a homogenization of approaches; the “French exception” could only be the manifestation of a transitional phase before a paradigm closer to the one studied in the USA and Nordic countries takes over.