Contenu du sommaire : L'agriculture en représentation(s)

The struggle to represent farming. The media and agricultural labour unions
Political science, like rural sociology, has always been interested in the complexity of ties between rural areas and farmers. Here, we examine the “forgotten history” of a scientific literature that decrypts the relationship between the media and farmers. We offer insight into the evolution of this relationship from the 1960s to the present. Farmers were once greatly valued in the media. There was a tacit agreement between members of the farming, government and journalistic elite on the portrayal of the modern farmer figure. And yet this unity began to dissolve in the 1980s. Farmers were challenged in the public eye: awareness was raised about union struggles, doubt was cast on the cost of agricultural activities financed by society, new environmental concerns arose, promoted by journalists, and a series health-related crises flourished in the 1990s.

The Agence de Presse Libération-Paysans: With farmers on the “news front”?
The Agence de Presse Libération-Paysans (APL-P – Liberation news service – small-scale farmers) was created in 1972, in the effervescence following the events of May 1968. It was modelled on the Liberation News Service, whose name it borrowed. The goal of the paper was to mobilize the agrarian masses by making small farmers the spokespeople of their own movement. The aim was both to voice their concerns and raise awareness amongst small-scale farmers – since such awareness was deemed a pre-requisite for any revolutionary process. And yet the APL-P bulletin never managed to fulfil its mandate. This failure is analysed in terms of the political and social context, its effects on the agrarian new left, as well as the profiles of the activists involved in its creation.

A course outside its field. The failure of the Agricultural Journalism programme at ESJ. In 1998, Isa, a grande école for agricultural engineering, and ESJ, a well-established school of journalism, united in Lille, France, to offer a new course in agricultural journalism. The initiative looked like an attempt to impose a new journalistic elite on the agricultural press sector. This article examines the causes behind the failure of the programme, discontinued eight years after its creation. The first reason was tied to limited financial support, which resulted in the implementation of a “bare bones” programme. The second reason hinged on the disparity in expectations between the faculty, students and agricultural elites. While the programme was designed by the institution as a vocational course based on “good journalism” techniques from the general press, students were not very receptive. This tension fuelled a “crisis of calling” which did not necessarily result in a desertion of the agricultural sector by those trained at the school. This case illustrates how the agricultural world is capable of defending its territory against demands from other social spheres.

A business-minded union newspaper. The Agriculteur normand and the FNSEA in the Orne department
This article examines the Agriculteur normand newspaper published by the departmental federations of the FNSEA (National federation of farm operator unions) in France's Basse-Normandie region. The approach draws on the sociology of journalism and of labour unionism, and is notably based on interviews with the editors-in-chief of the paper and union employees. It shows how the paper differs greatly from a typical union bulletin. Agricultural news is covered in a manner similar to the professional press and local media. On a technical level, while the FNSEA generally defends conventional farming, the paper addresses a wide array of technical models, but from a strictly economic perspective which avoids their politicization. The publication is above all a profitable enterprise that has managed to remain a leader in the field of advertising. Its business approach keeps a tight rein on how the union's views are expressed.

Don't ruffle feathers. Timid changes in the representation of women in the agricultural press in Brittany. Based on analysis of a corpus of newspaper publications and ethnographic observation, this article examines the representation of female farmers in four agricultural newspapers in Brittany: Terra, the result of a merger between Paysan morbihannais and Espace Ouest, as well as Paysan breton. The goal of this research is to understand the coproduction of media messages based on three types of protagonists: journalists, the leaders of working women's groups within agricultural organizations and the female technicians in charge of running them. The article underscores the paradox surrounding the relative stability in coverage of female farmers despite demands expressed starting in the 2000s for better recognition of equality between men and women in the content covered in the press. Ultimately, it appears difficult for this coalition of actors to move away from the traditional representation of agricultural “femininity” which places value on the irreproachable and deserving female farmer, the exceptional farm manager figure and complementarity of the sexes.

An unfinished moral crusade. Representation of the agricultural sector in the Agriculture et vie newspaper. We examined two archival corpuses and a corpus of articles from the Agriculture et vie newspaper (owned by the first organic farming company) to point up the underpinnings of an unfinished moral crusade. For Raoul Lemaire, this crusade involved protesting against the symbolic unification of the farming sector behind the “professional” farmer figure. Lemaire embraced 19th century agrarian thought, the Dorgérianism of the 1930s and the Poujadist movement. He called for a symbolic unification around “small-scale farmers”, who he upheld as exemplary moral figures, and sought to impose principles that would encourage their domination. His failure was tied to demographic decline and the decrease in “independent” farmers, as well as to the emergence of a neo-corporate form of governance.

“We are all milk farmers.” The media strategies of APLI and union competition
This article examines strategic use of the media in struggles between agricultural organizations within the context of agricultural labour unionism. Based on research conducted in Normandy, it reviews the media approach adopted by the French Association of Independent Milk Producers (APLI) as it prepared and organized the 2009 milk strike. The analysis underscores how, given its difficulties asserting itself in the union sphere, APLI sought to perfect different uses of the media in the pursuit of a single goal – the defence of all milk producers. These actions highlight three issues related to the professional representation of farmers: the issue of organizational constraints; the issue of professional identity; and the issue of institutional relations between producers and technical-economic operators in the agricultural sector.

From the “Business” section to the “Society” pages. Media coverage of the Confédération paysanne in the national press. This article examines the impact of media coverage of the Confédération paysanne following the “McDonald's destruction” affair in the summer of 1999. The findings are based on a thorough review of articles in the regional press between 1995 and 2014 and in the general-interest national press between 1998 and 2000, as well as an overview of articles in the national press between 2001 and 2014 available via Europresse. This article first examines the Confédération's media presence and its conditions and possibilities; then it shows how it has been portrayed mainly through the lens of societal questions gradually reshaped as environmental issues or tied to the alter-globalization movement, without challenging the visibility or expression of the larger unions on specifically agricultural topics. Such media coverage has therefore not radically transformed the representation of agricultural labour unions in the media, particularly since coverage has been relatively irregular.

Do journalists make victims? Media coverage of occupational diseases linked to pesticides
This articles addresses the interaction between social movements and the media. Based on qualitative research into the media coverage of occupational diseases linked to pesticides, we show how professionals from the journalism sector have helped farmers who felt they were victims of such products get involved in a political cause. Given that sociologists have alerted to the risks of media-centric analyses, we also point up the role of other parties – environmental activists and legal professionals – in the interaction between the media and victims, and we underscore that the latter develop strategies to control their image in the media and express their own political voice in the public sphere.

Livestock farmers and algal blooms in Brittany
A period of intense media coverage followed revelations about the health risks tied to algal blooms in Brittany in 2009. Intensive livestock farming was identified as the cause of the problem and Breton livestock farmers were heavily criticized in the media at the time. This article takes an ethnographic approach to show how the emotions spurred by these events pushed some livestock farmers to introversion and others to mobilization, without their representatives being able to quickly devise a coordinated course of action. It describes how farmers reclaimed the media spotlight through mobilization that showcased their determination and the threats weighing on their sector. Less visible, new communications strategies emerged and highlight how the initial shock evolved into a social experience.