By Pierre COUVEINHES
Rédacteur en chef des Annales des Mines
By Laurence COSSÉ
Écrivain
By Mari-Noëlle JÉGO-LAVEISSIERE
Directrice de Projet d’Orange
et David LACOMBLED
Directeur délégué à la Stratégie des Contenus d’Orange
Orange has taken the initiative to bring together a wide range of players in telecommunications, publishing and bookselling to boost an open model for digital distribution through the MO3T consortium. Given shifts in paradigms, the company is proposing a solution that opens onto the future while respecting the past as well as the wealth of experience and know-how acquired by all stakeholders in the book trade.
By Laurent de GAULLE
Président de Culture Papier
During a period of virtual schooling, the concept of sustainable development leads us to reconsider our ways of thinking. Acting and thinking “sustainably” means relating to others, a link in the chain of life. The reasoning underlying “paper culture” expresses the value of this medium as a tool and means of sharing that is useful, irreplaceable and complementary to the digital in human societies. It is a fight for freedom of thought and cultural diversity. Human beings are not information systems. Alongside the digital with its astonishing possibilities, paper will continue surprising us owing to its adaptability, innovations, and proximity with all nature of things: of the planet and the human beings dwelling on it. Ultimately, people will defend paper against machines.
By Jacques CHIRAT
Président de l’Union Nationale de l’Imprimerie et de la Communication (UNIC)
Printing is much more than a medium; it is, above all, a culture. Although media pass away, cultures remain. Printing has resisted throughout periods, changes in lifestyles and the fantastic technical and technological revolutions that have followed each other for more than a century now. As a medium indispensable for the expression of human thought and, too, for all economic, commercial and social activities, printing faces new challenges in the digital era. In particular, it must find a response to new requirements stemming from sustainable development. But without a doubt, printing will take up the gauntlet to assert itself, if not as the medium, then as one of the media in the future.
By Laurence FRANCESCHINI
Directrice générale des Médias et des Industries culturelles, ministère de la Culture et de la Communication
At first glance, comparing the music and book industries might seem odd, since they are dissimilar both absolutely and in their handling of the digital revolution. But that is the very reason why the comparison is worth making. Can what happened in music be repeated for books? Can the book trade draw lessons from the music industry’s experience? This is worth thinking about, since the issue of cultural diversity – which justifies each country adopting its own cultural policies – is becoming even more important since the advent of the digital era and given the sudden, radical economic turmoil accompanying its growth.
By Arnaud NOURRY
Président-directeur général d’Hachette Livre
With each generation, a new revolution in technology upsets the means of communication and reduces the planet’s size in inverse proportion to the increase in its population. For our grandparents, there was the telephone (one-to-one); for our parents, television (one-to-many); and for us, Internet (many-to-many). Each revolution takes exception to the very idea of the social bonds as formed by the preceding generation, and upsets the associated business model. Books are an exception that probably proves the rule. They have come through successive revolutions in an insolently good state of health. In the digital era, some pundits think that the book trade is facing a change of paradigm that will sooner or later be fatal to printed books. However several indicators suggest that this predicted death is not at all inevitable.
By Denis MOLLAT
Libraire à Bordeaux, Président du Cercle de la Librairie
What future for bookstores? Might the right question not be: do bookstores still have a future? The prospects of the digital era frighten people who work in the book trade and worry about the turmoil wrought in the music market. True, the digital revolution deeply altered the music industry’s business model: pirating of course, but also the elimination of middlemen and the increasing power of newcomers from the realm of technology. Those who supplied the market with MP3 players absorbed a large share of value in the music industry, along with those who manage the platforms for distributing music on line… to the detriment of traditional distributors and editors, the “majors”, who were unable to reinvent their line of business fast enough. Nowadays, Apple accounts for 70% of digital music sales. The die is cast…
By Alexandre MOATTI
Ingénieur en chef des Mines (Conseil général de l’Économie, de l’Industrie, de l’Énergie et des Technologies), chercheur associé à l’Université Paris-VII Denis-Diderot (laboratoire SPHERE UMR 7219), ancien Secrétaire général du comité « Bibliothèque numérique européenne » (sept. 2005- mars 2006)
Why do big plans for data processing that are announced with political support from the highest level in the government turn out, a few years later, to be wasteful failures in a context of widespread indifference that is inversely proportional to the mobilization of the media and politicians at the time of the announcement? The project for “personal medical records” – launched in the media in May 2004, presented as the key to curbing health insurance costs, and included as part of a Social Security act in August 2004 – provides an example. Every French person was to have a medical record on the Internet by 1 January 2007 – but who still remembers? Like this project, the digital European library, announced urbi et orbi in May 2005, would supposedly counter what was seen as Google’s cultural hegemony over the diffusion of knowledge on the Internet. This anticlimax leads us to turn our thoughts to the effectiveness of political words and public deeds in France and the EU.
By Sarah SAUNERON
Chargée de mission au département Questions sociales du Centre d’analyse stratégique (CAS)
and Julien WINOCK
Responsable du service Veille et Prospective au Centre d’analyse stratégique (CAS)
For a dozen years now, the printed press has had to cope with major difficulties. Besides declining circulation owing to changes in the way of life, receipts from advertising have fallen off; and a new source of news has emerged through digital devices. The technological revolution has rattled not only the printed media’s business model but also its organization, jobs and contents. However the digital era should not simply be seen as a threat to the press’s survival. It also represents an extraordinary opportunity for development and reinvention so that the press continues attracting readers, in particular from younger generations.
By Pierre-Jean BOZO
Ancien Président directeur général du quotidien (gratuit) 20 Minutes
We often hear talk about the crisis of the printed press. Insisting so much on the image of a sick, assisted industry can but reinforce the defeatism in the newspaper business. It is essential to make observations and then propose new prospects by designing new models. The need of the public for news has not changed, regardless of the media and genres. This need for information, often immediate, is even growing in some cases. Access to information must remain a right for all, since it guarantees the operation of our democracies.
By Philippe MABILLE
Directeur adjoint de la rédaction de La Tribune
Since 1 February 2012, La Tribune is no longer printed and distributed as a daily. In the turbulent history of this business newspaper, which has been seen as a challenger and competitor of the leader in the field, Les Échos, a new adventure has started… on the Internet. Nonetheless, the paper format has reappeared in the form of a new weekly.
By Christophe ATTALI
Ingénieur général des Mines, Conseil général de l’Economie, de l’Industrie, de l’Energie et des Technologies (CGEIET), ministère de l’Economie et des Finances
This article reviews The Price of inequality: How today’s divided society endangers our future, a book written by Joseph E. Stiglitz. This laureate of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2001 has drawn from his experiences and knowledge about how the US economy operates and interacts with the realm of politics. His book is a strong indictment of certain deviancies that cause or worsen market failures while consolidating economic rent, distorting processes for allocating resources and creating ever more inequality in favor of the wealthiest 1%. Stiglitz points out the social, political and ethical implications of his new paradigm, information economics, which has gradually compelled recognition.
By Céline ROUQUETTE
L’année 2011 est marquée par un contexte économique atone au niveau mondial : la croissance de la production et surtout celle du commerce mondial ont nettement ralenti. La zone euro est particulièrement affectée. Dans un contexte géopolitique tendu, notamment au Moyen-Orient, les prix internationaux des matières premières croissent fortement en 2011, plus particulièrement ceux du pétrole. Cela pèse sur la facture énergétique française. À 61,4 milliards d’euros (Md€), elle s’alourdit de près d’un tiers et cumule à 88 % du déficit commercial de la France. Elle représente ainsi 3,1 % du PIB, contre seulement 1 % dans les années 1990. La seule facture pétrolière s’élève désormais à plus de 50 Md€.
