Contenu du sommaire : Mises en scène marchandes

In this paper, we focus on the contract of science communication in the public sphere. From the perspective of science studies, we consider the social communications surrounding the controversy about the phylogenetic status of the fossil Toumaï, since the publication of its discovery in 2002. The authors analyse the scientists' arguments both in the scientific publications and in media spaces, arguing that the logics of public communication within the media affect the dynamic of the controversy. As science communication appears to be characterized by personification and professionalization, such processes are discussed and shed light on the way scientists deal with their reputations.

The aim of this article is to reflect on how the Chanel ready-to-wear 2014/15 fall/winter fashion show exposes fashionable bodies, within the frame of a staged supermarket. If the presentation device of signifiers for sale that constitutes any fashion show is part of the order to sell, it also builds a culture, inscribing in a sort of museum memory the sedimentation of exhibited collections. The author wonders how the media device of the fashion-show, between trade and culture, produces models playing consumers strolling in the Chanel Shopping Center theater, while creating at the same time a piece of art, paradoxically made visible by the emphasis on the mercantile and parodic character of the presentation. The brand operates a carnival inversion by playing with the scrambling of roles – guests and models – as well as with distorting mirrors.

This paper examines a press genre characterized by the fact of coupling information for consumption with the incentive to consume, which the author proposes to call a “consumption news brief”. After a presentation of its semiotic and pragmatic properties based on a women's magazines corpus – of which this genre is emblematic –, it is then studied in relation to journalistic writing standards as formulated in journalism textbooks. Participating in the promotion of products and brands, these texts appear as a meeting place between journalistic informative discourse and commercial discourse and as an effect of market-driven journalism.

In the context of advertising, authority figures can share presumed experiences, attesting to the truth of their words. The author associates this kind of mise-en-scene with the notion of “testimonial advertising”. This article examines the definition of “testimonial advertising” and takes an interest in the individuals that are capable of exercising their authority in testimonial messages. By identifying three main authority figures – celebrity, “corporate personality” and “web personality” –, our objective is to understand how these figures stimulate target audiences to approve advertising messages.

Media representations play a significant role in the social construction of fashion: photos, promotional movies, shows, websites or social media are used as tools in order to structure, often highly spectacular, imaginaries linked to fashion. The fashion industry communication strategies are constantly reinvented and showing what happens behind the scenes is a way to reinforce the spectacular dimension of the industry as well as its authentic one, since, despite its staging, what takes place backstage is presented so as to be seen as a moment of truth. This paper questions the role played by the backstage in the representational politics of the fashion industry since the late thirties, through the concept of backstage-picture.

This article aims to show how the development of Internet affects the literary field. To discuss the issue, the author first establishes a parallel between what he calls the “traditional editorial system” and the “new editorial system”. This distinction is then put into perspective through the study of three renowned writers that hold blogs. This literary writing practice is highlighted as being particularly symptomatic of a phenomenon that the author designates by the term hybridisation, a result of the tension between the two coexisting editorial systems. Finally, the article shows that this literary hybridisation is the manifestation of a more radical change, which is questioned through the issue of the power of literature and the notion of authority.