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Journalism developed in response to the need for a mediator between the state of the world and people wanting to stay abreast of it. But this role is increasingly weakened today by the commoditization of information technology and cannot fully explain how journalism frames reality. The author takes the view that journalism is one possible way of obtaining and communicating information. As such, it lies halfway between everyday perceptions of reality and the epistemology of legitimized forms of knowledge production. The author first examines the emergence and evolution of French-language journalistic standards, then examines them in relation to the principles of more formal knowledge-generating systems.

This article analyzes how the exclusion of freelance journalists from the core group of legitimate French journalists during the inter-war period can be interpreted as being simultaneously an indicator and a result of the social logic of reification of both journalism and journalists. With the benefit of almost a century of hindsight, the author examines the historical branding of freelance journalists as illegitimate and challenges the argument that this branding was the sole workings and result of the reification of legitimate journalism and journalistic practices, whose genesis and effects extended far beyond the perimeters of this profession.

What are the effects of sustainability on the coverage of architecture in the specialized trade press ? This study was based on a decade-long (2000-2009) analysis of articles in French architecture trade publications. The authors document the appearance and development of ecology as a permanent fixture in these professional forums, along with the resistance and changes it provoked. They contend that the issue of long-term ecological balance has had a profound effect on how professional publications refer to architectural production. In other words, they explore how different ways of talking about an architectural feature actually contribute to its very existence.

The authors explore the degree to which increased feminization of the journalistic workforce at Quebec's two major television networks influenced their news production between 1960 and 2010. The results show that female journalists were not restricted to "women's issues" and that they did not tend to favour major female figures or spokespeople in their news coverage.

The authors provide an analysis of how school shooters first start out by broadcasting videos, using participatory media, as a strategy for "pre-mediating" their killings. By doing so, they are able to have news outlets buy into their self-defined identities and the storyboards of the deadly plans they have themselves created. The detailed analysis of these storyboards sheds light on how the killers exploit performative utterances and subversive cultural references to confer political significance on their acts of "expressive violence".

In this article, the author studies how the anti-capitalist militants at the 2010 meeting of the G20 in Toronto and the thousands of demonstrators during the 2012 Quebec student protest movement used Twitter to develop alternative forms of online news production and journalism practices in an era of technological surveillance. Through a contextual analysis of how activists conjugate their knowledge production practices and identity construction expertise in influential social media, the author sheds new light on recent structures, patterns and routines of news production on Twitter.

Mountain sports accident research is more than a little hamstrung in France. The study described here was designed to pinpoint the specific barriers to the compilation of reasonably complete, statistically accurate, and sufficiently detailed information relating to mountain sports accidents. A qualitative survey carried out by the authors reveals that the challenges to producing dependable statistics are multiple and multifaceted: institutional, economic, corporatist, methodological, etc. Currently, these barriers and challenges to the production of a reliable knowledge base place serious limits on research on mountain sports accidents and the development of campaigns for their prevention in France.

This research brief presents France's first analysis of the communicational, social and legal issues pertaining to sexual overtones in advertising in both France and the United States. The author's doctoral study analyzes the impact of advertising content on social norms and suggests solutions to potential management problems for both advertising practitioners and regulators. Using a multi-method approach, she carries out a communicational analysis of the potential psycho-sociological effects and ethical tensions in this field and provides an interdisciplinary synthesis of her findings.

This research brief provides a broad-brush description of the results of a project whose objectives were: 1) to compare different countries' self-regulated programs governing sexist advertising with a view to recommending the most appropriate practices for implementation in Quebec's advertising industry; 2) to do a documentary analysis and carry out a survey among a sample of advertisers, advertising agencies and consumer advocacy associations to gauge their knowledge of Quebec's self-regulated programs. Two data gathering tools were used: documentary analysis and online survey.

Through most of recorded history, in almost every culture and civilization, young men and women who reach the age of puberty have had to prove themselves in one of two contests, both loaded with sexual overtones: for the men, the trial of strength, symbolized by Ulysses' prowess with the bow; for the women, the ultimate trial of beauty, symbolized by the search for the mysterious beauty (Cinderella) whose physical attributes needed to be commensurate with the beauty of the lost slipper. Both trials are fundamentally questionable processes of selection and exclusion, essentialist in nature, that establish an arbitrary ordering of “masculine” strength and "feminine" beauty. The author questions whether, in today's world, the methods we use to “judge” a person's masculinity, femininity, or sexual difference are any less primitive, violent or essentialist?

This research brief sheds some new light on the interplay of factors influencing brand marketing. The authors examine how the connotations attached to brand names in two holiday travel promotions evolve in parallel with particularly inventive accounts of trips. Scenarios are created to convey beliefs, myths and fantasies surrounding the designated destinations. Such scenarios are constructed from accounts by by-gone or would-be travellers who either recreate these beliefs, myths and fantasies from previous travel experiences or project them into prospective journeys.

Virtual worlds, or metaverses, should not be confused with video games. They are enduring digital universes, accessible 24/7 only on the Internet and in a constant state of change. These metaverses draw their inspiration not only from academic culture — antique mythology, Norse mythology, great works of literature, both medieval and modern — but also from forms of popular culture such as the movies. In their turn, metaverses have inspired literary and cinematographic creations and productions. Academic and popular cultural products and the virtual world of the metaverses are increasingly intertwined. The author offers an overview of the mutual interplay of influences between metaverses and academic and popular cultures.

The cultural practices of the younger generation have changed with the advent of the Internet. Recent surveys show however that book reading is not measurably affected. Rather, new forms of book reading have emerged with the arrival and wide use of computers, digital tablets and smartphones. In this research brief, the author discusses the results of her study of a somewhat neglected aspect of this issue, drawing on a primarily closed-question survey on print book reading given in 2011 to a random sample of 461 college and first year university students. The study's hypotheses were based on existing French-language research on the topic, discussions with professionals from the book industry and pretests with student respondents.

Since the 1990s, the apparent decline of readership among the younger generation, especially among students, has been a source of fierce debate and innumerable studies — all too often based on the printed word. Such arguments are today losing all credibility. With the growing number of digital books and increasing virtualization of content, this trend can only accelerate. Can e-books possibly counter the expected demise of the printed word and become catalysts for increased readership among the younger generation and students? After surveying a sample of students, the author provides some answers.

The authors examine the use of a palette of colors by political leaders and parties, in general, but more specifically in post-communist Romania, to communicate with their electorates. Using both visual semiotics and discourse analysis to identify assumed or presumed motives for embracing or rejecting party dogma, they analyze political insignia (posters, flags, flyers) and web sites to determine whether any significant relationship can be found to exist between the range of colors employed and the range of political ideologies.

Can one establish a relationship between time frames, whether accompanied by moments of silence or a soundtrack, and nascent sensations and meanings among viewers of television advertising? The author began her investigation by carrying out exploratory analyses of a small number of short advertising clips made by cell phone companies and broadcast on French television networks between 2006 and 2010 and on Iranian television in 2010. This research brief provides her an opportunity to reflect on how the passage of time is conveyed through the language of television.