Media and Information Education (MIE)

Delegated Thinking

Why intellectuals suspend their critical thinking on certain topics.

An intellectual person close to me asserts to me one day, as an established fact, what she has read on the cover of Le Monde: that the newly elected far-right mayors are already “uninhibited.” She has not read the article itself. I had seen that (…)

“I Am Not an Activist, I Am Engaged”

Denis Robert and the Trap of Rationality.

On 14 April 2026, Denis Robert, founder of the independent media outlet Blast, was heard, alongside Ivan du Roy (Basta!) and Johan Weisz (StreetPress), by the French Senate’s information mission on the “grey zones of information”. He attempts to (…)

Attestational Dramaturgy

A concept for understanding the journalistic staging of reality, in dialogue with Bourdieu, Debord, Baudrillard, Chomsky, Colon, Deleuze, Watkins and Virilio.

Journalism traditionally presents itself as privileged access to reality. Its everyday practice, however, very often consists of summoning the real as an illustration of narratives decided in advance. How can we name, with some precision, this (…)

Banning social media for under-15s

The symptom of adult domination, or how to deal with it.

The law banning social media for minors under 15 was passed by France’s National Assembly on the night of January 26–27, 2026. Rather than simply deploring it, I propose here to understand it as a symptom — that of adult domination — and to draw (…)

The Lies of Experts

When authoritative speech replaces the scientific method.

The media expert does not formulate hypotheses: they assert truths. This methodological inversion reveals a mechanism of symbolic domination that threatens the democratic exercise of critical thinking. The Imposture of Media ExpertiseOn (…)

The Mythology of Truth

For an Ethnological Critique of the Journalistic Claim to Objectivity.

When journalists speak of truth, they often confuse their professional method with access to reality. This confusion, far from being anecdotal, reveals a fundamental anthropological mechanism that deserves to be explored. The Confusion Between (…)

Attention Reinvented

Ending the myth of the attentional deficit.

The prevailing discourse laments a “crisis of attention” caused by digital technology. But what if this reading overlooks a deeper transformation: the emergence of a new demand among citizens who have become creators? Attention: what are we (…)

Media Reassurance

When a barometer on youth trust mainly reveals journalism’s blind spots.

The magazine L’Étudiant publishes a study claiming that 83% of young people trust traditional media. But behind these reassuring figures lies a troubling absence of methodological rigour. A barometer published for a professional trade showOn 4 (…)

INSERM’s Anti-Fake News Campaign

When public health adopts the methods of propaganda.

In October 2025, an advertising campaign by INSERM against “health fake news” illustrates, in my view, the dead ends of public communication that, by reproducing propaganda techniques—even when done ironically—betrays its goals of critical (…)

Ethnographic Collection as a Tool for Media Education

Learning to listen in order to learn to see: a method of gathering speech radically different from journalism.

Ethnographic collection offers a powerful alternative to journalistic interviewing. Rather than confirming what we think we already know, it opens us to the discovery of worlds that are foreign to us. Here is a practical guide, informed by field (…)

Are Polls and Surveys Objective?

Toward a Sociological Critique of Information Production Devices.

Presented as objective data, polls nonetheless shape the reality they claim to measure. An analysis of the mechanisms at work. The Illusion of Media ObjectivityStudies, surveys, projections, and polls are almost always presented as objective (…)

The Journalist and His Mirror

An Epistemological Critique of Media Literacy Education by Those Who Produce Media.

Media and Information Literacy (MIL) entrusted to journalists poses a structural problem that media sociology has documented: how could those who produce information be its lucid critics? Reflections after attending three hours of training by a (…)

Training Eyes in the Age of AI: A Day to Rethink Image Education

Account of a professional training day where teachers, librarians, and young people in civic service explored the challenges of artificial intelligence through creation and critical debate.

On November 26, 2025, in Reims, around sixty education professionals gathered for a training day entitled “Training Eyes in the Age of AI.” I contributed to its design and led an afternoon conference and workshop to enrich critical thinking (…)

Creativity as a political weapon against the society of the spectacle

Toward an Emancipatory Media Education Through Artistic Practice.

Media education cannot be limited to decoding messages. It must enable people to create, experiment, and think for themselves in the face of the spectacular flow that colonizes our consciousness. The Media Spectacle as a Totalizing SystemWhen (…)

Media and ai education through creativity

Account of a training session: when artificial intelligence becomes a pedagogical tool for developing critical thinking.

What if artificial intelligence became a tool for developing critical thinking? Account of a training sequence that proposes to rethink media education through creativity, humility, and collective experimentation. A reimagined training for (…)

The paradox of digital criticism

When intellectual posturing masks our own contradictions.

Critics of digital technology abound: Airbnb is destroying city centers, instant access to everything is destroying our relationship with time, consumption is spiraling out of control. Yet these same critics massively use what they denounce. This (…)

Screens and Economy

GDP as a Disoriented Compass.

Faced with alarmist projections about the economic impact of screens, I question the relevance of measuring our collective future solely through GDP, which forgets the essential: human well-being and the ecology of attention. Hilarity in the Face (…)

A Study Here, A Study There

The illusion of objectivity in the era of “fact-checking.”

Citing sources has become the new journalistic catechism, even though source confidentiality was once its cornerstone. This practice, far from guaranteeing truth, often masks a resignation of critical thinking in favor of conformism disguised as (…)

Inside the Mind of Conspiracy Theorists

Philosophical reflection on the political use of the word “conspiracy theorist” and its implications for democratic debate.

The term “conspiracy theorist” functions today as a defamatory label that prevents any critical discussion. I propose to explore how this word, born in a specific context, has become a tool of intellectual censorship that threatens the very (…)

Social media, mirror of our gaze

Rather than judging tools, let’s analyze what our perspective reveals about ourselves.

Social media, neither virtuous nor vicious. What if the real subject wasn’t these platforms, but the partial and subjective gaze we cast upon them? I invite nuance and introspection. The illusion of a single realityInstitutional discourse (…)

The Selfie, Mirror of Narcissus?

A Plea for Redefining Our Relationship to Images.

The omnipresence of the selfie raises questions: is it a sign of a narcissistic era? I argue, on the contrary, that this gesture, poorly understood, reveals a profound mutation in our relationship to the world, to time, and to others. The Social (…)

Critical analysis of journalistic treatment of a public health topic

How the press, believing it informs, constructs an oriented reality in service of economic interests.

The media construct our representation of the world, but this construction is never neutral. Through the analysis of an article from Le Monde on anti-obesity medications, I question the unconscious biases that orient journalistic discourse toward (…)

The fact-checking imposture

Why the pretension to objectivity is the greatest lie of modern information.

In our media universe saturated with information, “fact-checking” is sold to us as a lifesaver. A promise of pure, objective truth. But I don’t believe in it. It’s even, in my view, the worst thing that has happened to journalism, and here’s why. (…)

Cloud of Nuanced Screens

For an enlightened ecology of our digital lives.

Faced with screens, fear is a bad counselor. I propose substituting a nuanced approach for the ambient panic, one based on the distinction between the medium, the content, and the usage. The dead end of moral panicAs a parent or member of the (…)

Violence against openings

Understanding the mechanisms of collective rejection.

All openings, which are irruptions of novelty, provoke resistance and violence. Why do humans in society so fear what comes to disturb their certainties? I propose to understand this collective reflex, in order to preserve freedom, in other words (…)

Petite Poucette 2.0

In Praise of Social Networks Against the Moral Panic of the Elite.

What if, far from atrophying our minds, social networks were the new printing press? A revolution of thought that the powers that be are trying to demonize for their own survival. The digital witch trial: a sense of déjà vuI read and hear (…)

Media and Information Education: Rethinking the Role of Journalists

For a Critical Pedagogy Free from the Journalistic Lens.

Entrusting media education to journalists is like asking the manufacturer to evaluate their own product. This approach, which is widespread, constitutes a fundamental paradox that compromises the very objective of developing critical thinking. (…)

The evolution of law and symbolic power in the age of social networks

When traditional institutions lose their grip on new power players.

Faced with the emergence of new forms of authority, our democracies must rethink their relationship to dialogue and respect for otherness so as not to lose their legitimacy. The challenge of contested authorityDuring a National Assembly (…)

Artificial Intelligence and Creation” course for teachers

Podcast of a participatory conference by Benoît Labourdette.

Co-animation by Benoît Labourdette and Laura Schlenker (La fabrique média) of a one-day course for teachers on the theme of Artificial Intelligence and creation, organized by the Délégation Académique aux Arts et à la Culture of the Grenoble (…)

“China : window on blows” - Underneath the images - ARTE

Issued on February 8, 2023.

Decoding images of violence, a perilous exercise.The tv channel ARTE asked me to participate in one of the programs of the series “Le dessous des images”, on the question of amateur images filmed in contexts of state violence. I speak in the (…)

“Creative digital practices and critical thinking training”: conference by Benoît Labourdette

Atelier Canopé 86 - Poitiers. Study and training day “EAC at the service of the development of critical thinking”.

Participative conference to illustrate how the training of critical thinking can effectively pass by the means of artistic creation. To inaugurate the study and training day “EAC in the service of the development of critical thinking”, for (…)

“Infox Trackers”: device for media education through games

A device for media education through games: digital escape game, fun workshops, resource area... an innovative and rich educational tool. Project frameworkIsabelle Saussol, who for 13 years was responsible for the educational projects of the (…)

House of the image, Appointments of the image #6: “Intimacy, images, social networks. Existing and living together in the digital age”

Training day and co-construction of educational tools to work on self-image, designed in collaboration between theMaison de l’image (Noémie Rubat du Mérac, project manager) and Benoît Labourdette. April 26, 2018.Summary of the day on the (…)

Spirit Journal : article “Lives in Pictures”

I published the article “Lives in Pictures” in the June 2016 issue of the Spirit Journal on the theme “Power of Images”. Issue edited by Carole Desbarats. Presentation text of the article “Lives in Pictures”Smartphones and digital platforms (…)