Twenty years of contrast: the French and British press during the inter-war period

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explain the causes of the contrast between the evolution of the French and British press presse franaise et britannique pendant l'entre-deux-guerres. during the inter-war period. The most visible sign of this difference was the commercial success of the British press and the stagnation of the French press. From a historical perspective, the most general factor was that market mechanism has a much more determining influence on the British rather than on the French press. While these decades were marked in Great Britain by a circulation war, competition was neutralised in France by the anti-competitive agreement reached among the leading Parisian newspapers. Market mechanisms also influenced the development of different patterns of newspaper ownership in the two nations. Stiff competition and a rational mode of newspaper ownership forced British journalists to develop journalistic practices and discursive strategies more commercially oriented than those of their French counterparts. These strategies, which constitute the primary cause of the commercial success of the British press, are illustrated by the phenomenon of depoliticisation.