Information et production numérique

The dominant discourse on the changes in journalism brought about by new technologies stresses the creation of an international network, transparency, increased professional autonomy; it interprets these phenomena as progress prompted by the explosion of the traditional spatial and temporal frameworks. An ethnographic study conducted at Metro News, the American media group that adopted new techniques of news production and diffusion on a large scale, shows radically contrasting tendencies, unfortunately rarely underscored by sociologists, who have it is true often shunned empirical research on journalism. If journalists' temporal structures are changing, it is first of all due to generalized pressures on their time that have become systematic in all areas of their activity. Far from favoring a broader mental outlook, however, the new technical possibilities only add to the break- up of American society, to the narrowing of news coverage to local interests specific to small communities ; this is, accompanied by growing subordination to the omnipresent, constraints of the market.