French Media: Can Crowdfunding Serve Pluralism?

Abstract

The study presented here by Loïc Ballarini, Emmanuel Marty and Nikos Smyrnaios examines the reasons which led French media organizations to conduct crowdfunding campaigns between 2013 and 2016, and places them within a larger social and historical context. The issue of the extent to which revenue sources and capital ownership affect content has indeed been brought to the fore since the early twentieth century. This is what the authors refer to as “the quest for clean money”, or the search for funding that guarantees independent news production in accordance with journalistic ethics. This quest has taken many forms throughout the twentieth century, with the most recent one being crowdfunding. Interviews with journalists reveal that while the aims are still the same, and as with previous solutions, crowdfunding also has its limits and seems to be used only by niche media or for special ventures.