In the field of information perhaps more than any other, the choice of words and their understanding are paramount. In the digital age, in a media sphere that has expanded, where information sources are becoming more numerous and content abundant and instantaneous, the published collection by the Commission d'enrichissement de la langue française de la General Delegation to the French Language and the Languages of France of the Ministry of Culture makes it possible to remedy certain drifts by using clear and precise words to decipher the world around us.
This book presents sixty words of the vocabulary of information, its actors and digital. It offers French-language equivalents of Anglicisms such as fake news, story or greenwashingIt is aimed at students, teachers, journalists and ordinary citizens alike, in order to give them the necessary rigour. A tool that could well be seized by the various editorial boards of the group France media world which brings together 33 channels and digital offerings including France 24, RFI, and radio in Arabic Monte Carlo Doualiya, three media outlets that broadcast in 21 languages worldwide and have 64 nationalities among their employees. In this multilingual universe, the group’s mission is to pay particular attention to the Francophonie in general and to the practice of French in particular. Explanations with Cécile Mégie, director of strategies and transversal editorial cooperation at France médias monde.
The book published on March 20 contains 60 words dealing with information and disinformation. How is it useful in the editorial offices of France médias monde, where the question of language is very important?
We attach great importance to the mastery and practice of a precise, expert and current French on our antennas because it is important to meet the expectations of a French-speaking public. We want to promote a French in motion that stands out from Anglicisms. For us, francophone terminology is important and therefore referral tools to a well-controlled Francophonie seem extremely useful. This collection can therefore be consulted by our journalists who make an effort to use French equivalents of some anglicisms that, almost surreptitiously, sneak into our daily practice.
About 60 words were selected, some of which go very far in journalistic and informational practice. Among them, “ infox » (French equivalent of fake news) has really imposed itself and is now used in a common way in the media sphere. For others, the right attitude should perhaps be to combine the two English and French terms to make the correspondence well understood or to go on more descriptive phrases such as «manipulation of information» for example for « infox This makes the language accessible to the public because the issue remains to be understood by as many people as possible.
Your group broadcasts in a very large audience area, some parts of which are subject to misinformation and restriction of information. How did you handle these subjects?
We, like all the media, are confronted with a flood ofinfox through the proliferation of digital media and the anonymization that exists on digital platforms. So we’ve put ourselves in order so that we can deal with them. The term “ debunkage » (analyze information and show how it is wrong or misleading) is essential: it involves both pointing out false information and deciphering for what purpose it was disseminated, by whom, and the mechanisms that were put in place by the author or authors of this manipulation.
This work is not new but has gained momentum in our editorial offices and in all languages. France 24 created almost ten years ago the Obs in its four languages (French, English, Arabic and Spanish) which has clearly oriented itself towards decryption, the hunt for false information and the explanation of the misappropriation of images and voices. RFI has set up Audit Info, a cell of journalists specialized in monitoring, decrypting and correcting content on our antennas or on our digital media. We also have a program and a column called “ The bottom of the infox ” explaining the handling of certain information and providing tools. We are finally in touch with Radio France and France Télévisions and we make appear some of their contents on our antennas, in particular on France 24, and vice versa with our contents in French (because we produce information in a total of 21 languages worldwide!). All these tools allow listeners, internet users and viewers to be able, in a citizen approach, to decipher the truth of the fake.
Finally, in the face of restrictions, censorship, we also deploy circumvention strategies (including short-wave broadcasting, VPNs, mirror sites with RSF, etc.) to allow everyone to access free and independent information.
What do you think is the importance of choosing the right words that are used in information professions?
It is the very nature of the journalist’s work, and it is part of the duty of information, to choose the right word, so that the public is as well informed as possible. There is an economy of words, whether in print, audiovisual and even more on digital media and not using the right word is, in a way, not to name things well, to distort reality when the job of a journalist is precisely to describe, observe, report and verify specific facts. Because as Camus said: " To misname things is to add misfortune to the world ".
We are all the more attached to the use of the right word that we have been developing for many years within France media world methods of learning French, which are available on a specific site but also on RFI’s antennae with the newspaper in Easy French, the chronicle «the words of the news», or soon «the words of Olympism.
How is media and information literacy (MIL) a key issue, especially for the younger generation?
The multiplication of media and sources, the propagation of information on platforms, some of which are rather obscure about the highlighting of this or that content, the information bubbles created by algorithms… All this context makes that it is, and a fortiori for a public service media like ours, fully our mission to go to the public to give them the keys to understanding the manufacture of information. It must be understood that it has value, that it is neither communication, nor opinion, nor «influence» and that it meets ethical, ethical and professional criteria that we practice in our editorial offices.
Thus, our journalists come out of our newsrooms, go to classes to explain and sometimes create content with students. We deploy a training and awareness system for students and many teachers per year that we help to set up media and information education programs. For them it is extremely valuable to have, in addition to their pedagogical capacity, the tools and the view of professionals on these issues. Each year, during Press and Media Week in the School, we offer a video module called “ Info or Intox » realized by the Obs de France 24 as an educational resource for the classes on the manipulation of the info which shows quite simple and accessible tools like reverse search for an image in order to give it context. It is one of the most appreciated resources among the content made available by CLEMI, with whom we work closely.
But these actions must not only affect young audiences…
We know that it is important to have this type of action towards adult people who have also discovered this whole information environment in recent years. We have an approach of this kind on our antennas such as RFI for example with a heading called « Why does RFI say that », the podcast (audio on demand ndlr) “ News witness ” on the air, and “ The media workshop ", a weekly program that tells the story of how the newsrooms work.
Studies around the world show that there is mistrust of established and professional media. We can not hide the face and faced with this observation, it seems important to us to interact with the public to restore this trust. Tell and explain, decipher how information is made and what are the difficulties that a journalist encounters on the ground, from security to source protection to the use of digital tools that can pose a danger in certain areas: all this seems essential to us.
Five words of information in French
• Audio (on demand) instead of podcast: audio content made available to the public in the internet.
• Infox, misleading information instead of fake news: false or deliberately biased information.
• Sharp word instead of hashtag: a meaningful string of characters without spaces beginning with the # (hash) sign, which signals a topic of interest and is inserted into a message by its writer to facilitate its identification.
• Fact-checking instead of fact checking, reality check: verification, most often by journalists, of the accuracy of facts stated publicly, especially in the media.
• Hater, -euse, fauteur, -trice of hate instead of hater: someone who uses the web and social networks to incite hatred towards an individual or group.
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