Are we really bowling alone? Putnam warned us against the crumbling social fabric of America and its effects potentially devastating effects on democracy. He wrote at length about America’s ‘social capital’ defined as “social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them”. It is the idea of anomie with which I am, as a student of sociology educated in France, the most familiar. French sociologist Émile Drukheim defined social integration as the ways in which an individual’s actions are matched with a commonly accepted system of social norms, practices and beliefs. When there is a systematic mismatch, he calls it “anomie” Thus, a society with too much rigidity and little individual discretion could also produce perpetual anomie.

If we are, now, to believe Putnam, then we must acknowledge the fact that we are living in a society of anomic misanthropes. I do not agree. There might have some truth to this claim true when Putnam wrote his first article on the subject in 1995. Meanwhile, however, the social networks, Facebook, Twitter, P2P have astoundingly intruded our lives. I would argue that communities were not annihilated. Their form simply changed.

It is true that we do not bowl together anymore. We Skype, we couch surf, we like each other’s profile picture, we share Ubers.

Would Robert Putnam write the same book today? It is questionable.

Taking a look at his publication list, I noticed a growing concentration on religious social network nowadaus. It is an interesting subject but in the case of American remarkably “twentieth century”. Some would say, maliciously, that the professor carefully avoided the subject that threatened to undermine the argument of his magnum opus.

Twenty years ago and without the ever-growing significance of social networks, such concepts as « Sharing/ collaborative economy » would have been readily dismissed as utterly inapplicable. Zipcar, Air BnB, and Uber have since then quietly intruded our everyday life. The sharing economy is defined “ a new socio-economic ecosystem built around the sharing of human and physical resources. It includes the shared creation, production, distribution, trade and consumption of goods and services by different people and organizations.” Collaborative economy is in essence horizontal and de-institutionalized. It is a new and alternative socio-economic system that embeds relationships sharing and collaboration at its heart – across all aspects of social and economic life.

In this system, economy shifts back from estranging institutions to the people. It restores a polyvalence of competence that would have pleased Hannah Arendt when she wrote “Vita Activa”. People are comsumers and at the same time also suppliers of goods and services : they create, collaborate, produce, co-produce distribute and re-distribute. Micro-entrepreneurship is celebrated, trade is completed peer-to-peer (P2P). Within the business structures, people ‘human(e) capital’ are highly valued. Their opinions and ideas are respected and integrated as far as possible in the production proccess

The concept of collaborative economy might seem utterly anachronistic. We know of a sharing economy from 1800 Massachusetts in A Midwife’s Tale (Laurel Thatcher Ulrich) and other accounts of economic structures in pre-industrial societies. Yet we do good to instill at least a little bit of ‘pre industrial anarchy’ into our highly institutionalized consumption-based societies. Sharing economy bring a fresh attempt at a solution to today’s most pressing issues: climate change, waste, fragile social cohesion.

If I share a car with my floormates, I will consume more self consciously and responsibly. I will have to interact with my neighbors. I will produce less waste and learn to wait, to moderate and to plan ahead. To me this sounds like a good thing, doesn’t it?

This is why I admire the website Ouishare, that promotes such initiatives.

The perks of a collaborative system http://www.collaborativeconsumption.com/2014/12/01/collaborative-economy-innovation-framework/

An important result of the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks in France was a major debate about liberty of expression that took place in the aftermath of the shootings. Altogether, French united in defense of the cherished value of freedom of expression. Even those who disagreed with the provocative stance of Charlie Hebdo “were Charlie”. In many place could you read the following quote, mistakenly attributed to Voltaire but which gets the point across quite neatly: „I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it »

If the spirit of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment makes every French(wo)man enormously proud, there has however been a discordant note in these debates. Discussing what journalists can and should say necessarily derived into the debate about what they actually do say. The more disturbing question was: „Is what they say true?”

Through the great narrative of France’s defense of liberty runs a disturbing fault line. The French media landscape is mined by scandals. A few years ago, „Les Nouveaux de chiens de Garde“ , a film both terribly threatening and masterly researched disclosed the intervowenness of the media with big business magnates and high-ranking politicians.

The film depicted a power network that consistently works against bringing undesirable truths to light. To name but one example: in 2012 radioactive substances leaked from a nuclear power plant in Western France. The problem was quickly resolved. Expertise showed that the cement used fort he construction and supplied by a certain company called Bouygues was at the origin of the issue… This very company happens to own the biggest new channel in the country, TF1. And so it happened that the incident never made it to the headlines.

Carte du Parti de la presse et de l’argent in: Les Nouveaux Chiens de Garde.
http://a54.idata.over-blog.com/1/30/37/13/Novembre-2011/Carte-du-Parti-de-la-Presse-et-de-l-Argent.jpg

The above-mentioned considerations show why citizens’ journalism is necessary.

Citizens’ journalism is a new kind of journalism that makes inventive use new tools of communication – website, blogs, new social media, forum- by millions of individuals in an interconnected world the means of creation, expression and information. This implies a fundamental change in the way information and perceptions are created and shared. The Citizen, from simple receiver turns into the creator/transmitter for information to a worldwide audience. He himself becomes a media. This evolution has incited grass-root journalism and civic engagement. This is, perhaps, the closest we have ever been to the ideal of democracy and the enlightened citizen, to Aristotle’s definition of citizenship as the participation of every citizen in power to deliberate, to judge and to command.

When asked why people do not read anymore, Zadie Smith answered that the premise of the question was mislead. People read more than ever, they just do not read the same way. We read what comes up on our Facebook newsfeed, on Buzzfeed and on the blogs. This is not a bad development and for me the institutions, such as the European Union, who do not grasp and take advantage of this new form of public discussion are mislead. We stand at the beginning of a new era of information gathering.

Of course there is a discrepancy of qualification between a well-trained journalist and a blogger. Is the information found on the Internet as accurate as it is in the newspapers? Can we trust the anonymous blogger? Does he tell the truth?

But do the journalists make a better job at it?

If truths are as plentiful as falsehoods then my feeling is that we should seek the truths that count the most. Accessible, independent and diverse grassroots journalism seems a good start for this.

My personal favorite is the French website Mediapart.

Its manifesto of November 2008 begins as follows: « the freedom of the press is not a privilege of the journalists, but a right of the citizens. »

In practice, Mediapart is a website with two different sources of contributions: The “Journal”, written by professional journalists, and The Club, enlivened by. Mediapart intertwines articles of the newspapers and the contributions of the readers and the moderation made according to a principle of individual and collective responsibility. The site is therefore bi-cephalous, and this is a warrant for its independence, it is the true newspaper of its readers. It played a key role in uncovering corruption scandals in France. At a time where there were hot debates around the question of an alleged national identity impermeable to North African culture in France, Mediapart took a strong stance for tolerance and equality and refused to debate such a notion.