France: Final Information Network

Traditional

  • Le Monde
    • Title: Le Monde
    • Author/ Org: Groupe Le Monde
    • Format: Traditional – newspaper; This source covers mainly French, as well as international news. This newspaper is known to be traditionally left on the political spectrum. Target audience: general French population.
    • Access: Print or online at http://www.lemonde.fr, French news in French, global news in French
    • How often it’s updated: Daily newspaper with stories published online throughout the day
    • Why I selected it: This source is one of the most popular news sources in France. It is a popular daily newspaper written in French about French, as well as international news.
    • Strengths/weaknesses: reaches a large population of readers; only covers main news
    • Value: very valuable for understanding French media and news coverage
  • Le Figaro
    •  Title: Le Figaro
    • Author/ Org: Dessault Group
    • Format: Traditional – newspaper; This source covers mainly French, as well as international news. This newspaper is known to be traditionally right on the political spectrum;  Target audience: general French population.
    • Access: Print or online at http://www.lefigaro.fr/culture/
    • How often it’s updated: Daily newspaper with stories published online throughout the day
    • Why I selected it: I found this source particularly interesting, as it is the oldest newspaper in France. The articles are all in French as well, written by French writers.
    • Strengths/weaknesses: reaches a large population of readers; only covers main news; biased to the right
    • Value: very valuable for understanding French media and news coverage
  • Libération
    • Title: Libération http://www.liberation.fr
    • Author/ Org: Libération SARL
    • Format: Traditional – newspaper; This source covers mainly French, as well as international news. This newspaper is younger than the other newspapers I’ve found, and it is known for its revolutionary views. It is famous for its provocative headlines and pictures.  Target audience: general French population.
    • How often it’s updated: Daily newspaper with stories published online throughout the day
    • Why I selected it: I liked the idea of having a few one sided view for a source. Many of my other sources fall somewhere in the middle, so having an extreme seemed like a good way to add variety.
    • Strengths/weaknesses: complicated French language (large use of idioms and complex words), biased towards left, reaches a large audience
    • Value: valuable for understanding French and improving reading skills, covers some topics not covered in traditional news
  • Aujourd’hui en France
    • Title: Aujourd’hui en France (le Parisien) http://www.pressreader.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/france/aujourdhui-en-france/20180411
    • Author/ Org: LVMH
    • Format: Data; Traditional; This source covers mainly French in French, as well as international news. This newspaper is known to be traditionally neutral on the political spectrum; it is a daily French newspaper with tabloid headlines; Target audience: general French population.
    • Access: online at http://www.pressreader.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/france/aujourdhui-en-france/20180411 through OSU library link
    • How often it’s updated: daily newspaper
    • Why I selected it: It was accessible through the OSU library at Press Reader. I enjoyed seeing a traditional source that didn’t seem as serious as others. For instance, this paper also covers celebrities and health.
    • Strengths/weaknesses: harder to access print version, online version is easy to navigate, French is not as difficult to understand
    • Value: kind of valuable, you’ll find the same information in other news sources, however this one has more of a neutral stance; not owned by France Médias Monde, which a lot of sources are owned by

New Media

  • France 24
    • Title: France 24
    • Author/ Org: France Médias Monde
    • Format: New media – website; This source covers France and international news; target audience: English speakers wanting learn about France
    • Access: Online at http://www.france24.com/en/france/
    • How often it’s updated: Updated throughout the day, live t.v coverage, social media
    • Why I selected it: It covers international news in addition to French, while being based in Paris. It also has live coverage in both English and French.
    • Strengths/weaknesses: easily accessible for English sparkers, has multiple formats to listen, read, or watch
    • Value: very valuable for understanding French news for English Speakers
  • France and Beyond
    • Title: France and Beyond- “a non-political, grassroots humanitarian network based in France.” http://franceandbeyond.fr/blog/category/blog/
    • Author/ Org: Kathryn Dobson = founder
    • Format: new media; blog; this source has a blog section where it informs readers about refugee conditions in France
    • How often it’s updated: blogs seem to be updated every few months, however, they are more active on social media
    • Why I selected it: I really wanted to get some insight on the refugee crisis in France from the humanitarian perspective. So often we hear of these people as statistics or as a group, not as individual humans fighting for their lives. I wanted a source that would share that perspective.
    • Strengths/weaknesses: humanitarian approach, very biased, real life insight to humanitarian issues
  • Value: valuable for understanding a specific group and their issues

Social Media

  • France Info Twitter
    • Title: Twitter page of France Info
    • Author/ Org: Twitter, France Télévisions, Radio France, France Médias Monde, Institut national de l’audiovisuel
    • Format: Social Media; This source covers mostly French and Francophone news. This provided short snippets for quick facts, as opposed to long articles.  Target audience: general French population.
    • Access: Online or on twitter app at https://twitter.com/franceinfo
    • How often it’s updated: Tweets multiple times throughout day
    • Why I selected it: It is a popular news source that is written in French by French people, but it can be translated to English on twitter.
    • Strengths/weaknesses: reaches a large population of readers on social media; many tweets are simply links to articles
    • Value: not very valuable if you are able to follow their online publications
  • Skyrock
    • Title: Skyrock http://www.skyrock.com
    • Author/ Org: Téléfun
    • Format: Social media. This is a popular social media website for the young people of France.  It is the equivalent of Twitter or Facebook in the U.S; Target Audience: young French people
    • How often it’s updated: New posts are shared by the minute, perhaps the second.
    • Why I selected it: I thought it was very cool to have an account that people from my country use on a day to day basis. While it is not as popular as some other forms of social media, it is still prevalent. Even though it is not necessarily a reliable news source, this will be helpful in finding information about French daily life.
    • Strengths/weaknesses: easy to join, slightly difficult to navigate, young population
    • Value: not valuable, it didn’t give me much insight to French life, the colloquial language was challenging but manageable

Audio/ Video

  • Radio France Internationale
    • Title: RFI or Radio France Internationale
    • Author/ Org: It is owned by the Government of France through France Médias Monde.
    • Format: Radio; This source covers French news mainly, as well as some international.  Target audience: general French population.
    • Access: Online at http://en.rfi.fr
    • How often it’s updated: There is 24/7 radio to listen to.
    • Why I selected it: I found this source useful as it provides French news coverage, as well as international news coverage in 15 languages, including English and French.
    • Strengths/weaknesses: 24/7 coverage, multiple languages to listen to
    • Value: very valuable, provides similar news coverage as other websites, but this one provide some interesting news stories
  • World Radio Paris
    • Title: World Radio Paris- it is the only radio station in Paris licensed to air in English http://www.worldradioparis.fr
    • Author/ Org: France Médias Monde, while this is the same source as RFI, this source is in English, and it is different in that it is not as well sponsored. Its also partnered with BBC and NPR. This source is also local and focuses on Paris.
    • Format: radio; this is a local news source for Paris; Target audience; English speakers wanting to learn about Paris
    • How often it’s updated: has daily streams between the hours of 6 am and 5 pm
    • Why I selected it: I struggled finding another source that I’d be able to understand. Listening to the other source in French has been a challenge, so I wanted an English one. However, as France is protective of their language, this was rather difficult.
    • Strengths/weaknesses: in English, covers mostly Parisian news
    • Value: very valuable for understanding Parisian issues, life, and culture

Data

  • World Bank
    • Title: World Bank
    • Author/ Org: Made up of International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), and the International Development Association (IDA), as well as being a part of the World Bank Group
    • Format: Data; This source gives a variety of statistics on different countries across the world. Target Audience: individuals interested in French or European economics
    • Access: Online at https://data.worldbank.org/country/France
    • How often it’s updated: Most reports are updated annually.
    • Why I selected it: It was mentioned in class by Professor Black, and when I was looking into it, I found it particularly interesting to learn about a country from a statistical perspective, learning about everything from GDP to Life Expectancy.
    • Strengths/weaknesses: you have to do some digging to find the information you really want
    • Value: very valuable for understanding numerical data about France
  •  Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques
    • Title: Insee – Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques https://www.insee.fr/en/statistiques
    • Author/ Org: Jean-Luc Tavernier (director)
    • Format: data; This source is responsible for the official production and analysis of French statistics. It is the French branch of Eurostat.  Target audience: general French population.
    • How often it’s updated: New reports are shared daily, and old ones are being updated frequently, but not in a fixed time that I can observe.
    • Why I selected it: This website offered a multitude of statistics. I found it interesting that they were French statistics that came from the French government.
    • Strengths/weaknesses: a large array of different statistics and numerical data
    • Value: very valuable for understanding numerical data about France
  • Country Watch
    • Title: France Country Watch Data http://data.countrywatch.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu
    • Author/ Org: Country Watch
    • Format: Data; This source gives a variety of statistics on different countries across the world. For the French specifically, there are statistics on everything from unemployment rates to total petroleum consumption. Target Audience: individuals interested in French or European statistics
    • Access: Online at http://data.countrywatch.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu
    • How often it’s updated: Most reports are updated annually.
    • Why I selected it: It was accessible through the OSU library. It gave a numeracy of statistics on interesting things not covered in the previous data sources I found.
    • Strengths/weaknesses: easily accessible, easy to navigate, only updated annually
    • Value: very valuable for finding yearly statistics on French life

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