Media and urban identity : the social constructions of the idea of modernity in african urban areas through the press : the case of Senegal
This study explores the relationship between Medias, city and modernity. The corpus analysed is provided by newspapers and the ground of the research is the Senegalese city. These last years, most of academic studies carried on Senegalese Medias are mainly focused on political issues: human rights, democratic governance, and competitive elections whereas others deal with ICT or Internet issues. This doctoral research wants to find originality in approaching urban dynamics over time, using communication and information science tools. The premise of the study is that the city is the place where Medias are generated and this fact is to be considered in the rating of the urbanity of different types of media (radio, TV, newspapers, internet). This relationship began in the nineteenth century in the city of Saint-Louis, in a colonial context where the first newspapers were raised by the colonial power (France). The city planning led by the colonizer as a vector of modernization and domination, causes clashes with indigenous people. The city in its ability to produce new ways of life (urbanity), as demonstrated by Chicago School, has emerged as the emblem of modernity. In fact urban diversity induces three types of pluralism: urban, political and media pluralism that fit in complex with implications in information gathering and production. The media strive to get free from their original context of emergence and become a lieu of city and town planning. This is noticeable through the journalistic uses of the term modernity or through representations of urban space. The City and the Media can be considered as elements of a single body that significantly contribute in the adventure of modernity in Senegal. Concepts as spatiogenesis, urban semiosphere, and urban territoriality, are used to account for these phenomena. The Constructivism as a methodology is used to highlight the Media capacity of building the reality. The thesis provides theoretical tools for understanding the relationship between Communication and information Science, territoriality and urban modernity; it is most importantly an endeavour in the analysis of the press and media dynamics on one hand and a step up in Senegalese Media Studies from the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries on the other.