Nobel on the front page: the Nobel physics prizes in French newspapers

Abstract

We have examined the manner in which the main French daily newspapers reported the announcement of the Nobel physics prizes given to P. G. de Gennes in 1991 and to G. Charpak in 1992. We found that their enunciative strategies could be distinguished according to two independent criterial whether or not the enunciator presents itself as familiar with scientific matters, and whether or not it attempts to explain the scientific content of the discovery. The different combinations of these strategies correspond to different relationships proposed by the newspapers to their readers. Different theories of scientific discovery also appear: discovery as the work of a team and an institution, or as the invention of a matchless individual.