20 YEARS OF CONTRAST - THE FRENCH AND BRITISH PRESS DURING THE INTERWAR PERIOD

The purpose of this paper is to explain the causes of the contrast bet ween the evolution of the French and British press during the inter-wa r period. The most visible sign of this difference was the commercial success of the British press and the stagnation of the French press. F rom a historical perspective, the most general factor was that market mechanism has a much more determining influence on the British rather than on the French press. While these decades were marked in Great Bri tain by a circulation war, competition was neutralised in France by th e anti-competitive agreement reached among Parisian newspapers. mechan isms also influenced the development of different patterns of newspape r ownership in the two nations. Stiff competition and a rational mode of newspaper ownership forced British journalists to develop journalis tic practices and discursive strategies more commercially oriented tha n those of their French counterparts. These strategies, which constitu te the primary cause of the commercial success of the British press, a re illustrated by the phenomenon of depoliticisation.