HomeMedia at the crossroads between reality and fiction (from Ancient Times till present)

HomeMedia at the crossroads between reality and fiction (from Ancient Times till present)

Media at the crossroads between reality and fiction (from Ancient Times till present)

Entre réel et fiction, les médias de l’Antiquité à nos jours

Congrès 2025 de la Société pour l’histoire des médias

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Published on Monday, September 30, 2024

Abstract

Français English

With the growing contemporary concerns about fake news and deep fakes, the questionof the decreasing space between fiction and non-fiction has become central. But at the same time,new genres and hybrids that play a different game are also proliferating: telling the truth underthe guise of fiction, using a fictional guise (the conventions of specific narrative genre) to ‘better’tell the truth as in self-fiction, animated documentaries, etc. The 25th Annual Conference of the French Society for Media History (Société pourl’Histoire des Médias, SPHM) is intended to explore the ambiguous connections andinterrelations between reality and fiction in media productions of any kind, any time period andany country.

Announcement

Français English

Argument

With the growing contemporary concerns about fake news and deep fakes, the question of the decreasing space between fiction and non-fiction has become central. But at the same time, new genres and hybrids that play a different game are also proliferating: telling the truth under the guise of fiction, using a fictional guise (the conventions of specific narrative genre) to ‘better’ tell the truth as in self-fiction, animated documentaries, etc.

The 25th Annual Conference of the French Society for Media History (Société pour l’Histoire des Médias, SPHM) is intended to explore the ambiguous connections and interrelations between reality and fiction in media productions of any kind, any time period and any country. The SPHM wishes to put this question into historical perspective, adopting a long-term view, beyond a given genre, technique or medium. The distinction between reality and fiction has never been as clear-cut as the debates that pit the two terms against each other seem to assume.

We suggest 4 axes of reflection to consider the boundaries – understood as limits but also as contact or friction zones – between the staging of reality and the one of fiction in the media: Technical aspects (axis 1), narrative dimensions (axis 2), political approaches (axis 3) and reception studies (axis 4). These approaches are not mutually exclusive and may intersect in the proposals submitted. Strictly descriptive or “debunking” endeavors do not fall within the scope of this conference.

Any attempt at analyzing media over a long period of time (diachronic approach), or analyzing “old media” from this renewed perspective is welcomed. A wide range of research themes and methodologies (archive-based history, oral history, content analysis, mass data analysis, media economics, etc.) are expected at this conference, which marks the 25th anniversary of the SPHM. The research presented may take the point of view of producers and/or investigate uses, appropriation and reception. The focus will be limited to existing media, excluding those invented by (science-)fiction.

1. Media at the technical crossroads between reality and fiction

We are looking for analyses historicizing the technical connections and frictions between reality and fiction. Photoshopping, sound or video editing, and special effects (from classic photomontages to deep fakes created by artificial intelligence tools) make it possible to create images, sounds and narratives that are increasingly convincing in their verisimilitude. These techniques make it possible not only to transform reality, but also to produce fictions so convincing that they can be perceived as real. Fakes, trickery, editing, collage and remix, as well as all the technological developments of the media world that help to blur the boundaries between fiction and reality, will be examined from the angle of the technologies used, their uses, production and reception, and the imaginary worlds and controversies they have generated, from the earliest days of “old media” (notably but not restricted to press, cinema and radio). We also need to look closely at and put into perspective the digital revolution, and digital social networks in particular, to consider their impact on the limits between reality and fiction, in what some have described as the ‘post-truth era’.

This increased porosity between fiction and reality also raises intellectual, political, legal and ethical issues that can be put into historical perspective. The emergence of fact-checkers, debunking videos and the analysis of public, professional or legal controversies linked to these issues, as well as the history of regulatory mechanisms, are also expected.

2. Aux frontières des formats et des genres narratifs

The birth, definition, delimitation, study and appreciation of formats and narrative genres lies at the heart of media history. Format, first and foremost, is at the crossroads of an economic approach to cultural and media production and a semiological approach: what is the concrete, material and aesthetic form of what is being produced? For example, which elements makes a program be broadcast in the ‘documentary’ rather than ‘entertainment’ time slot on a television channel?

Describing/recording/decoding reality also requires the use of recognizable and codified narrative forms: from the epic poem to the ‘journalistic style’, including of course all the semi-fictional genres (investigation, biography, satire) or even fictional genres (romance, heroic journeys, comedy, melodrama), whose effects and/or evolution over time will need to be measured/explained.

In ancient and medieval times, epic tales such as The Illiad and La Chanson de Roland combined fictional and real-life elements, conveying a vision of the world, values and information to educate and edify. Conversely, satire and parody magnify certain aspects of reality or famous fictions to provoke laughter, reflection and sometimes protest. Letters have also been widely distributed (disseminated) as bearers of news, albeit in literary forms such as Ovid's Heroides. The letter as media format produces an effect of reality, with content varying according to the period, for example with the emergence of the concept of privacy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 

Media history shows that the porosity of formats and narrative genres appeared very early on. It was already at the core of the editorial models of the 16th to 18th centuries press, a period of trial and error but also of great freedom in exploring the relationship between reality and fiction, with the rise of political pamphleteering and satiric engravings. The arrival of the ‘newspaper age’ in the 19th century may have given an impression of rationalization and stabilization under the guidance of industrial capitalism. But the success of serialized novels (feuilletons) was not synonymous with the complete separation of fiction in the material space of the newspaper: on the contrary, it led to ‘multiple circulation effects between the top and bottom of the page’ and therefore to a fictionalization of all journalistic genres, esp. the “faits divers” (miscellaneous news).

More recently, the hybridization of narratives in the media, for example through docu-fiction, serialized documentaries, museum exhibitions using clips from fictional films or live historical shows or reconstitutions... These projects that bring together authentic archives and reconstructions manifest the (con)fusion of genres. The same could be said of reality TV, where ‘reality’ has been highly scripted since its inception. These formats must be investigated to understand the way in which reality and fiction are presented and perceived throughout time.

We might also ask whether form and formats’ hybridization and the mixing of narrative genres are a new production of (post-)modernity/digital age or a sign that cultural and media productions often escape the attempts at definition and codification that are part of their very conditions of existence?

3. Aux frontières de la politique et de l’information

If fiction can be conceived of as a quest for truth (and veracity), a way for an author to tell and interpret the world, then it is not surprising to observe its strong presence in the news media, from 17th-century newspapers to the digital social networks of the 21st century. Media history is full of cases that shed light on the way in which the boundaries between reality and fiction have transformed journalistic practices and news conventions. What's more, at every period in history, the process of fictionalizing reality, whether in relation to historical events or current affairs, has helped to shape public debate. In so doing, they have had an impact on the political systems themselves, since these structures are based on actors and institutions, as much as on values, beliefs and imaginaries.

As manufacturers of narratives to tell the facts and enlighten public judgment, the media rely on creative processes which, to varying degrees and more or less intentionally, may resort to fictionalization processes. This is by no means a recent development in a contemporary media system at grips with fake news or post-truth. On the contrary, while the first gazettes attempted to create a neutrality of discourse by introducing each piece of news with standard formulas such as “it is heard in Paris that...” or “they say in Vienna that...”, the imprecision and delays in transmitting information, as well as the need to tell the news, represented obstacles for gazetiers, who were then often forced to draw “prognostics”. Above all, the press that was being invented at the time set no limits on the a priori conditions required to tell a real story. From then on, ideal journalistic postures, the staging of imaginary situations of enunciation, perfect sources of information, and so on, flourished to produce newspapers that reported the news with meaningful editorial and stylistic diversity. Yet each of these editorial choices informs the way in which contemporaries, depending on the authors or target audiences, conceive the relationship of their professional ethos with reality and its meaning, as well as the role they attribute to the media in the building of “what’s real” and what’s happening.

In the 19th century, the fictionalization of reality entered an industrial age with the widely circulating national newspapers and the conquest of an ever-wider audience with “yellow journalism”. This popular press fictionalized news stories. Later, television, by bringing the moving image into the home, has also shaken up the territories of information and diversified the links between reality and fiction, and uses fictional material - particularly cinematographic - to help the public “reflect” on questions of society, history or current affairs... Broadcast as a preamble to an on-set debate, works of fiction thus take on a new meaning and scope in this specific context of reception. From The Daily Telegraph to Spitting Image, from media hijacking for political ends to fictitious political events, the question arises as to the role of satire and humor in the process of fictionalizing (to the point of hoaxing) information, which raises the question: what does it cost to twist reality for political ends? Indeed, from fake news to deep fakes generated by artificial intelligence, Donald Trump's three election campaigns (2016, 2020, 2024) show the extent of the democratic risks now hanging over the digital informational ecosystem, which is open but largely under the control of private actors and interests.

The aim here is to explore the diversity of the relationships between reality and fiction in the field of news media, and to understand the political and media implications of the processes of transformation between the world of “true facts” and that of made-up or twisted narratives. We are also interested in the way in which this question of the boundaries between fiction and information has itself interested contemporaries and been the subject of debate, even polemics, over the centuries. We will also look for analysis of the mediatization of political speeches and spin doctors’ storytelling.

4. Aux frontières des publics et des usages

Over the long history of the media, how have audiences in all their diversity apprehended the boundary between reality and fiction? The discourse of media professionals highlights clearly identified categories in programming: fictional content (cinema, TV and radio fiction, soap operas, etc.) on the one hand, and non-fictional content (news, features, documentaries, reality TV, etc.) on the other. Professionals have long mobilized this boundary to delimit and legitimize their profession, as well as establishing hierarchies among themselves. This boundary also serves as a reference point for how audiences interpret media content. However, these categories are porous, and fictional content is as much a bearer of objectivity as non-fictional storytelling; and there are several hybrids presented as such (advertorial, docu-drama, etc.). It has to be said that some overtly fictional works produce real-life effects: readers read fiction as a gateway to better understand reality, including their own life experience.

How are audiences' receptions processed within the framework of these belief systems? If media producers address specific content, oscillating between reality and fiction, according to what they anticipate from audiences’ responses, how do segmented audiences (“female”, “children”, “young adults”, etc.) receive and interpret this content? How can their mindsets contribute to their acceptance or rejection of the formulas offered by the media, for example about social, cultural and political issues, in contents that they consider to be more fictional or, on the contrary, more documentary ? For example, do the development of testimonials in the press since the 19th century, on radio in the 1960s, on television in the 1980s and the birth of reality TV in the 2000s contribute to greater public identification with the stories and people they highlight ?

Moreover, in both traditional and digital media, audiences themselves participate in the creation of content (readers' letters, listeners' questions, comments, etc.), blurring the boundaries of enunciation, and questioning the limits between spontaneous testimony and media fabrication. To what extent do these participations, whether prompted or spontaneous, contribute to the creation of real effects that legitimize the social and democratic role of the media ? We are looking here for papers on audiences and media use, both in the construction of categories of reality and fiction, and in their reception. Research can be carried out from a variety of perspectives, ranging from the ethnography of audiences and media practices to the analysis of media content intended for segmented audiences.

Submission guidelines

300-word proposal in .docx format have to be send at CongresSPHM2025@gmail.com

before November 12, 2024

The proposals must detail the main research question(s) and method(s) followed, as well as the sources used. A selected bibliography must be added at the end of the proposal, as well as 5 keywords. A short academic biography of the author of the proposal is also expected but proposal will be evaluated anonymously. Selected authors will be notified by December 17, 2024.

Oral presentations will have to last 20 minutes, and can be delivered in French or English, preferably accompanied by a Powerpoint-like diaporama. There will be no live broadcast of the event, since it is foremost a networking opportunity, but with the participants’ authorization, presentations will be filmed and later made available online.

Practical information

Conference fee :

  • SPHM membership completed before March 30, 2024 : 25 € (13 € for students)
  • Non-SPHM members : 50 €

The conference fees cover coffee breaks and lunch.

Travel and hotel costs must be covered by the participants or their academic institution. A limited number of travel stipends will be available for students or independent scholars upon request. Only those presenting a paper are eligible.

Organising committee

  • Claire Blandin, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord
  • Alexandre Borrell, Université Paris Est Créteil
  • Marjolaine Boutet, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord
  • Marion Breteche, Université d’Orléans
  • Alexie Geers, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord
  • Alexis Levrier, Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne
  • Claire Secail, CNRS
  • Anna Tible, Université Paris 8
  • Isabelle Veyrat-Masson, CNRS

Scientific committee

  • Anne-Claude Ambroise-Rendu, Université Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines
  • Maxime Audinet, Institut de Recherche Stratégique de l’Ecole Militaire
  • Marine Beccarelli, Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne
  • Claire Blandin, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord
  • Alexandre Borrell, Université Paris Est Créteil
  • Jérôme Bourdon, Université de Tel Aviv
  • Marjolaine Boutet, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord
  • Marion Breteche, Université d’Orléans
  • Delphine Chedaleux, Université de Technologie de Compiègne
  • Frédéric Clavert, Université du Luxembourg
  • Sébastien Denis, Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne
  • Pascal Froissart, CELSA Sorbonne Université
  • Alexie Geers, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord
  • Alexis Levrier, Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne
  • Marine Malet, Université de Bergen
  • Yasmine Marcil, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle
  • Cécile Meadel, Université Paris Panthéon Assas
  • Katharina Niemeyer, Université du Québec à Montréal
  • Bibia Pavard, Université Paris Panthéon Assas
  • Guillaume Pinson, Université Laval
  • Dinah Ribard, EHESS
  • François Robinet, Université Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines
  • Valérie Schafer, Université du Luxembourg
  • Claire Secail, CNRS
  • Céline Segur, Université de Lorraine
  • Marie-Eve Therenty, Université de Montpellier
  • Anna Tible, Université Paris 8
  • François Vallotton, Université de Lausanne
  • Isabelle Veyrat-Masson, CNRS
  • Adeline Wrona, CELSA Sorbonne Université

Bibliography

BOITEL Isaure, L’image noire de Louis XIV, ChampVallon, 2016.

BRETECHE Marion et COHEN Evelyne, « La fausse information de la Gazette à Twitter », Le Temps des médias, n° 30, 2018, p. 10-16.

CEPPI Jean-Philippe, Glisser sur une glace dangereusement fine. Histoire de la caméra cachée en journalisme de télévision, Livreo Alphil, 2023.

CHEDALEUX Delphine, JUAN Myriam, PILLARD Thomas, « Dans l’intimité des publics. Réceptions audiovisuelles et productions de soi », Théorème, 32, 2020.

COOK Malcolm et JOURDAN Annie (dir.), Journalisme et fiction au XVIIIe siècle, Bern, New York, Paris, Peter Lang, 1999.

FROISSART Pascal, “L’invention de la lutte contre les rumeurs », Le Temps des médias, n° 38, 2022, p. 223-240.

GLEVAREC Hervé, « Du canular radiophonique à l’effet de réel », MAJASTRE Jean-Olivier et PESSIN Alain, Le Canular dans l’art et la littérature, L’Harmattan, p. 75-94, 1999.

GUNKEL David, Of remixology, MIT Press Academic, 2022.

HANOT Muriel, Télévision. Réalité ou réalisme ? Introduction à l’analyse sémio-pragmatique des discours télévisuels, Paris-Bruxelles : INA-De Boeck Université, 2002. 

HENRI Lise, « Le docufiction entre création originale et documentaire », Revue Française des Sciences de l’Information et de la Communication, 2018.

JENKINS Henry , Convergence culture : where old and new media collide, New York, New York UP, 2006.

JOUHAUD Christian, RIBARD Dinah et SCHAPIRA Nicolas, Histoire, littérature, témoignage. Écrire les malheurs du temps, Paris, Gallimard, 2009.

KALIFA Dominique, VAILLANT Alain, THERENTY Marie-Eve, REGNIER Philippe, La Civilisation du journal, Nouveau monde, 2010.

LAFON Benoît (dir.), Médias et médiatisation. Analyser les médias imprimés, audiovisuels, numériques., Presses universitaires de Grenoble, 2019.

MCINTYRE Lee, Post-Truth, Cambridge MA, MIT PresS, 2018.

NIEMEYER Katharina, De la chute du mur de Berlin au 11 Septembre 2001. Le journal télévisé, les mémoires collectives et l’écriture de l’histoire, Lausanne, Antipodes, 2011.

OUELLETTE Laurie, Lifestyle TV, Londres, Routledge, 2016.

POELS Géraldine, Les Trente Glorieuses du Téléspectateur : une histoire de la réception télévisuelle, Paris, INA, 2015.

RADWAY Janice, « Lectures à «  l’eau de rose  ». Femmes, patriarcat et littérature populaire », Politix, 13, 51, 2000, p. 163‑177.

REVAZ Françoise, PAHUD Stéphanie et BARONI Raphaël, « La temporalité du récit : fiction, médias et histoire », A contrario, (1), 003-008, 2010.

SIESS Jûrgen (dir.), La Lettre entre réel et fiction, Paris, Sedes, 1998.

THERENTY Marie-Ève, « Poétique historique du support et énonciation éditoriale : la case feuilleton au XIXe siècle », Communication & langages, 2010/4 (n° 166), p. 3-19.

VEYRAT-MASSON Isabelle, Télévision et Histoire, la confusion des genres. Docudramas, docufictions et fictions du réel, Ina- de Boeck, 2008.

VEYRAT-MASSON Isabelle, « La campagne présidentielle de 2017 sous le signe (ou au risque) de la télé-réalité », Nottingham French Studies, 57/2, 2018.

Places

  • Centre de congrès, campus Condorcet
    Aubervilliers, France (93300)

Event attendance modalities

Full on-site event


Date(s)

  • Monday, November 11, 2024

Attached files

Keywords

  • histoire des médias, réel, fiction, dispositif technique, format, genre, politique, information, public, usage

Contact(s)

  • comité d'organisation
    courriel : CongresSPHM2025 [at] gmail [dot] com

Information source

  • Alexandre Borrell
    courriel : alexandreborrell [at] hotmail [dot] fr

License

CC0-1.0 This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.

To cite this announcement

« Media at the crossroads between reality and fiction (from Ancient Times till present) », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Monday, September 30, 2024, https://doi.org/10.58079/12dpt

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