La radicalisation vue par la presse – Fluctuation d’une représentation

Abstract

One of the consequences of the events that occurred in France in January and November 2015, and of the Syrian war is the focus on radicalisation phenomena. Nonetheless these phenomena have a long history as this 1965’ title shows: “Our Republic: Ben Bella is preparing a radicalisation of his regime” ( Le Monde, June 1965). In order to describe the current meanings of the indeterminate concept of radicalisation, we proceed with a systematic analysis of four daily newspapers between 1995-2015, using the Mallet computer program. We distinguish several relevant semantic fields regarding the notion of radicalisation and their temporal variations. We show a restriction of these semantic fields since 2012, leading to a quasi identification between radicalisation and Islamic terrorism.