Can the media and popular neighborhoods understand each other?

Why this feeling of incomprehension between neighborhood residents and the media? How can we highlight positive words and initiatives from the suburbs? How to overcome stereotypes? So many questions addressed during the 3^e festival edition Our futures, organized from March 21 to 24 in Rennes, under the leadership of Joséfa Lopez, journalist at World.

Discover the summary of the discussions recorded in the presence of:

Elsa Vigorous, journalist reporter at the magazine The New Obsauthor notably of The Barbarian Gang Affair and of Letter to Adama ;
Maxime Brandstaetter, journalist reporter at BFM-TV;
Jeanne Demoulinlecturer in educational sciences at the University of Paris Nanterre, at the initiative of the Pop Art project, which notably resulted in the book Young people from the neighborhoods, the power of words ;
Lucas Roxo, independent journalist, co-founder of the collective of journalists La Friche and participatory media The sparkco-author of A short critical media education manual ;
Inès Belghit, arts student and apprentice journalist at The sparkresident of Clichy-sous-Bois;
Mira Hannachiaccounting student who participated in the Pop Art project, resident of Nanterre.

Elsa Vigoureux and Maxime Brandstaetter, how do you view the work of the media when they talk about working-class neighborhoods?

Elsa Vigorous I grew up and live in Gennevilliers, northwest of Paris. When I started being a journalist, when I had very little experience, I was asked to report on the phenomenon of the turning points, or on arms or drug trafficking in the neighborhoods… And, of course, within very short deadlines! It was the late 1990s, and we weren’t talking about “working class neighborhoods”but “suburbs”of the “cities”. We weren’t talking about “revolt” but D’“riots”, which point the finger at dangerous people who turn a place upside down, while the word “revolt” suggests that there is a reaction to an injustice. Then there were formulas like “the problem of Islam”then the “communitarianism”THE “separatism”. Words that still stick to neighborhoods today. So for twenty-five years, I have been waging a fight on the power of words.

Maxime Brandstaetter I don’t come from this background, but I noticed, like Elsa, this problem of having to provide journalistic work from an angle that is sometimes defined a little hastily. While it is complicated to establish a climate of trust in working-class neighborhoods to obtain information. It is therefore up to us, journalists, to recreate a relationship. This is our role today.

What consequences does this stigma have for the young people concerned?

Jeanne Demoulin In the mainstream media, “young people” are often reduced to the stereotype of boys who hang out at the bottom of the towers. We talk a lot about young people but we rarely hear them. The image that emerges is a distorted and incomplete representation, almost frozen, homogeneous and very stigmatizing. This has an immediate impact on their ability to navigate the social field, on the way they project themselves into the future. In middle school, when it comes to choosing their high school, they face exemption strategies that are complicated to put in place. And then when you come from a high school in Aubervilliers or Clichy, you find yourself limited in your choices of studies, etc.

On June 27, 2023, Nahel Merzouk was killed by a police officer during a road check. What happens in the editorial offices of BFM and “L’Obs” from this moment on?

M.B. At the beginning, we receive information from sources who relay the police version: the story of a car that refuses to comply and the shooting to save the life of the colleague. Then the video comes out, which, certainly, does not provide the judicial truth, but which is enough to show that reality does not correspond to the official discourse. We then send several teams to collect information, to find witnesses, the author of the video, to talk with people from the neighborhood… But very quickly we notice a rejection and the impossibility of working on site. My job is to listen to people, to understand reality and to report it. The first thing I try to do in these circumstances is to liaise with all parties in the case. For the Nahel affair, we were not able to enter the neighborhood. I really took it as a failure.

E.V. For fifteen years, there have been so many young people who have died because of the police and we haven’t talked about it… In the case of Nahel, the first media is people, it’s video . Which shows that it is not a small blunder.

How can we explain young people’s general distrust of mainstream media?

E.V. When you live in one of these neighborhoods, you can only be angry when the media constantly portray an image that you consider is not that of reality. This is the problem of the distorting mirror. I may sometimes have a militant attitude, but I consider that it is our duty to avoid stigmatization and to work on the memory of the history and past of the suburbs.

Inès Belghit We are poorly represented by television. Journalists talk about “the Nahel affair”, but it’s a person! A young boy who died unjustly. I often have the impression that we are not listened to, or that an argument will inevitably go against us. So, I mainly get information through social networks.

Mira Hannachi Watching television, I realized that there was always a political point of view, that I always saw the same people interviewed, that I always heard the same speeches. So I tried other channels… Then the written press. I made the same observation. Whereas on social networks, all points of view are visible. The best is to follow independent media present, for example, on Instagram.

Collecting the words of neighborhoods and young people is possible. Jeanne Demoulin, you worked with them for four years on the power of words…

J.D. We have implemented a collaborative research method where everyone has their own voice and knowledge. And not a method of interviews (going to see people, interviewing them, leaving), because, in my opinion, this is what led to the stigmatization of the “Black/Arab/young person” who hangs around in a hoodie… Thus we produced not only testimonies, but the fruit of an analysis.

Lucas, you run media education workshops. What observation do you make?

Lucas Roxo After Charlie Hebdo and the Bataclan attacks, the State has put resources into media education to recover the lost tribes of the herd, with the idea that young people obtain information especially on social networks where conspiracy theories circulate, which could cause them to become radicalized. For me, we do not take enough account of the social usefulness of the media. The news serves a purpose, in a concrete way, to have a topic of conversation with your neighbors, to know where we are going to live, who we are going to vote for… There are issues of identification. Why does a show like “Les Grandes Gueules” from RMC Info work so well? Because there are typical profiles: the right-wing lawyer, the angry teacher, etc. Everyone has strong opinions, we listen because we identify and agree with one or the other. But when you grew up in the suburbs, in a working-class neighborhood, this process doesn’t work and you can’t use the news to make social connections.

Find all the episodes of the podcast “Our futures, the next generation has its say”.