Despite the Internet, the French continue to leave
Claire Bommelaer
A report establishes our cultural habits in the digital age. The cinema is king, the exhibitions and the theater are doing well, but the reading is declining.
Who goes out and where? Has television been dethroned by the computer? What proportion of French reads? Since 1973, the Ministry of Culture is surveying French homes to establish an overview of cultural practices.
The latest survey was from 1997, when we were still buying CDs, where there was no YouTube, no Google, and just the cell phone. Twelve years later, the landscape has changed drastically. Video recorders have disappeared, the computer has been invited into over 80% of families, and multimedia phones allow you to navigate between culture, entertainment and personal communication.
However, while "the rise of screen culture" has changed the cultural landscape, it has not stifled the practice. Thus, attendance at a movie theater, theater, museum or even reading increases with the frequency of Internet connections. To a certain degree, at four hours a day, the more you are on your screen, the more you go out!
• Less television and radio for young people
The average time spent in front of the television is stable at twenty-one hours a week. But between the Internet and television, there is a phenomenon of communicating vessels. The more time you spend in front of your video games - like the 15-24 years and men - the less you watch TV. More than 45 years, and a fortiori more than 60 years, less concerned by the advent of digital, they spend more and more time in front of television programs.
On the radio side, the generational gap is growing year by year. The part of the 15-24 years who listen to the radio every day or almost has drastically decreased, in favor of listening online. On the other hand, the 65 years and more are more and more numerous to be faithful to their post.
• New musical preferences
The population "now lives in a more or less permanent musical bath". But, again, there is a gap between generations: the younger we are, the more the preference for the Anglo-Saxon music, r'n'b, techno in mind, is marked. The classic is pale and loses ground, ignored less than 45 years. Social classes clash; rock, which has considerably modified the "contours of the melomania", has its nobility among the graduates, but not in the workers circles.
• The cinema federates
57% of French people have gone to the cinema at least once in the last twelve months, 90% of them have a VCR or a DVD player. All age groups and social backgrounds are concerned. Comic films always come top of favorite genres (44%), followed by action movies, and then crime movies. The less than 35 years clearly favor the American films, while the heart of more than 45 years strongly leans in favor of the French production.
• Museums, concerts and theaters appeal to Parisians
For the past 12 years, outings and cultural visits have been stable. Parisians intramural, spoiled by a very abundant offer, are the first to go to the cinema, in a museum or theater (60%). They are also the only ones to make themselves more often in a museum (65 30% against%) and theater (56 19% against%) in 2008 than they did in 1997. This last genre, which was thought to be broken, resists: 13% of French more than 15 years went once or twice to the theater in the year, against 9% twelve years ago. The success of one-man-show and comedy would be important.
• The book loses points
More and more French do not read any book in the year. The proportion of "non-readers" reaches 30%, and those who read little read fewer and fewer books. In fact, each generation reads less than the previous one. The book's honor is saved in part by women (34% have read ten or more books in the last twelve months). The logical consequence of the decline in reading: libraries suffer.
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