This article examines the uses of books that go far beyond reading itself. Books are circulated, displayed, accumulated, preserved or forgotten, thereby revealing a variety of social practices. Correspondence between readers and writers offers a privileged vantage point for examining these uses, which have yet to be extensively studied from this perspective. Letters allow us to observe how readers present themselves and describe their practices, whether these involve gifts, collections, exchanges or even speculation surrounding books. They also reveal the multiple functions assigned to reading, such as entertainment, information, a remedy for boredom or a means of belonging to a community. The article examines the case of the popular writer G.-J. Arnaud (1928-2020), author of more than 400 novels across various genres, whose archives contain 87 letters from readers spanning more than 50 years. The analysis reveals that, despite the diversity of individual practices, communities of readers gradually form around specific literary genres. These communities are created in particular through the circulation and handling of physical objects such as books, lists, newspaper clippings and periodicals.
This article analyzes the editorial stance of Police Journal, which aligns with the vigilante philosophy espoused by the fictional character Guy Verchères. First, it presents this hero as paradoxical yet moral figure; although he is a thief, he is also portrayed as a “good man” guided by a deep sense of justice. The article then analyzes the role of Paul Verchères, his foil, who highlights the role of the journalist-reporter and becomes an essential ally in Guy Verchères’s fight against injustice. Finally, the article demonstrates that Police Journal itself embraces a similar mission to that of its hero. The weekly positions itself as a defender of the most vulnerable and, from its very inception, affirms its support for the oppressed, the poor and the marginalized. By presenting itself as “the voice of the common people, the lowly, the humble, the poor and the dispossessed,” the newspaper claims the role of a social vigilante, seeking to protect the weak against the powerful, just like Guy Verchères.
This article examines the role of the film strip in French popular culture during the 1950s and 1960s, a medium often overlooked by cultural history. More specifically, it focuses on the second wave of the film strip, spurred by the Barangé Act of 1951, which enabled both secular and Catholic schools to acquire audiovisual equipment in order to modernize teaching practices. This measure ushered in what is often considered the golden age of the film strip in France, which lasted until the late 1960s. Among the categories typically identified in the archives, this article focuses on recreational film strips. This category is of particular interest because it lies at the intersection of a number of media practices aimed at youth, combining elements related to cinema, storytelling and home movies, thereby revealing diverse modes of cultural consumption. The analysis draws on the collection of film strips broadcast by the publisher Filmens, examining them using a techno-pragmatic approach (Odin, 2000; Cauche, 2020), which focuses on the significance of the narrative structure, the materiality of the medium and their effects on meaning.
This article explores the everyday uses of series culture through magazines devoted to television series in the 1990s and early 2000s, before the widespread adoption of the Internet and smartphones. Considering the magazine as an archive of cultural practices, the study draws on a personal collection consisting mainly of the periodicals Génération Séries, Séries Mania and Séries Mag, as well as various supplementary documents, such as guides, notebooks, clippings and inventories. The analysis focuses less on forms of fan participation than on the everyday and ordinary uses of series culture. Magazines emerge as mechanisms that structure and standardize these practices, particularly those related to the purchase, reading, handling and archiving of information. In this way, they contribute to the construction of a series culture based on the accumulation and organization of practical knowledge. The study also highlights the importance of means of communication that are less central today—such as letters and the telephone—which played an essential role in exchanges, the circulation of information and practices associated with television series during that era.
Henri Vernes’ archives shed light on a little-known facet of proto-fandom cultures. The Bob Morane series of adventure novels for teenagers provides an excellent vantage point into different forms of creative reception of popular literature. Several decades before the emergence of a structured fandom, Éditions Marabout was inspiring writing comparable to contemporary fanfiction. How does corporate fandom support the creation of derivative works? This article explores a corpus of derivative works from the 1950s and 1960s and their remediation in the late 1980s.
French romance magazines emerged in 1938 with the weekly Confidences, founded by Paul Winkler for Hachette, and quickly enjoyed immense popular success. Each issue featured a mix of letters from female readers, life advice, women’s columns, and, above all, several romantic “true stories”, which were the magazine’s main draw. These short stories were presented as authentic accounts, in which ordinary people recounted, in the first person, a problematic romantic or family experience from which they drew a moral lesson intended to guide readers (Giet, 1997). This formula was subsequently adopted by other publications. The emphasis on true stories (or true confessions), along with the near-invisibility of the editorial team, give the impression that these magazines consist primarily of content provided by their readers—testimonials, household tips, letters or life stories. However, this appearance of spontaneity and participation warrants closer examination in order to better understand the actual role played by editorial teams in the production of this content and the editorial construction of “truth”.
This article analyzes the enthusiasm of Montreal women for silent films in the 1920s, a defining phenomenon of interwar culture. Unlike the history of cinema, which often focuses on film production and aesthetics, this study examines the practices and experiences of women moviegoers to understand the role of cinema in their daily lives and imaginations. The analysis is based on the traces left by female audiences in the cultural press and in four specialized periodicals. It draws on the work of researchers who have studied women’s reception of cinema, as well as on approaches from cultural studies and press analysis. After examining the sections that attest to the presence and significance of women’s engagement with cinema, the article is structured in two parts. It first presents the discourses seeking to discourage or regulate certain practices among women moviegoers; it then highlights their participatory actions, revealing their active engagement with film culture and their appropriation of the world of cinema.
While it is generally accepted that newspapers serve as both a symbol and an agent of change in the public sphere, we must also consider the press as reflecting lived experience, an approach that would allow us to better understand the relationships of complicity, proximity and co-construction of practices and discourses that print media maintain with their audiences and cultural life. The study of celebrity journalism sheds light on our understanding of the strategies and media spaces used by popular culture, as well as the formation of networks of meaning and practices of admiration or disdain for public figures within the pages of periodicals. This article analyzes three journalistic spaces that serve as in situ archives of popular and media practices in Quebec. Selected from a period spanning the post-war era to the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, these three spaces share the common feature of directly soliciting readers’ participation in the construction of a narrative framework structured around the acclamation of stars: popularity contests and rankings; letters to the editor; and a column on fan club news.
This article analyzes the influence of popular culture on tourist sites commemorating World War II in Normandy and the Hauts-de-France region. Using a geographic and cultural approach grounded in cultural studies, it demonstrates how media productions shape representations of the conflict, guide the development of tourist offerings and itineraries, and influence visitor behaviour. These traces, whether direct or indirect, contribute to the hierarchization of collective memories and to the sacralization of certain sites.
Perjuangan dalam memastikan terpenuhinya hak-hak perempuan sebagai kelompok yang rentan terus dilakukan oleh berbagai pihak. Selain kewajiban pemerintah, perusahaan juga memiliki tanggung jawab untuk menangani isu ini melalui Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). L’Oréal Indonesia merupakan salah satu perusahaan yang memiliki kepedulian tinggi untuk mempromosikan pemberdayaan perempuan melalui program-program CSR-nya seperti For Women in Science (FWIS), Beauty for a Better Life (BFBL), dan Beauty That Moves (BTM). Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis strategi komunikasi CSR yang diterapkan oleh L’Oréal Indonesia dalam pemberdayaan perempuan melalui pendekatan PENCILS Strategy. Menggunakan metode deskriptif kualitatif dengan teknik studi literatur dan wawancara dengan Konsultan PR L’Oréal Indonesia, penelitian ini menemukan bahwa perusahaan menerapkan model komunikasi dua arah simetris yang menekankan transparansi, kolaborasi, dan partisipasi publik. Strategi komunikasi CSR L’Oréal Indonesia telah berkontribusi pada penguatan reputasi perusahaan, perluasan jangkauan pesan sosial, serta pembentukan citra sebagai organisasi yang berkomitmen terhadap pemberdayaan perempuan. Hasil penelitian ini menegaskan bahwa penerapan PENCILS Strategy tidak hanya berfungsi sebagai alat komunikasi taktis, tetapi juga sebagai kerangka strategis yang mengintegrasikan nilai etika, tanggung jawab sosial, dan keberlanjutan dalam praktik komunikasi korporasi.
