Les réseaux sociaux PRÉSENTATION DU THÈME FIGURES

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1 1 Les réseaux sociaux Présentation du thème David Fincher s movie The Social Network, which came out in 2010, explains how and why the main character, Mark Zuckerberg, a bright Harvard undergraduate student with middle-class origins, created the most famous true online social network. In the film, the Winklevoss twins, two upper-class WASP Harvard students, claim they had come up with the original idea, and that it was stolen from them by Zuckerberg who felt slighted when he was refused access to one of Harvard s elite student clubs, the Porcellian Club. Facebook therefore has much to do with openness, and the refusal of social exclusion, helping members connect on an equal footing, favoring equality of opportunity. It has taken the place held by pubs and clubs in the past. Cultural evolution, together with changes in people s lifestyle, and their instinctive sociability, explain the success of modern social networking, which has turned information technology into an extraordinary, almost limitless, and highly influential, communication, cooperation and interaction tool. FIGURES According to data collected in 2011 by Aaron Smith for the Pew Research Center (a nonpartisan project), 47% of American adults use a social network, women even more than men, with a majority of people under 50, whatever their ethnic origins, their incomes, their educational levels, or their locations. Two-thirds use MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter on a regular basis. Members declare they use social networks first and foremost to keep in touch with their family and friends, or to communicate with people who share the same hobby, rather than to make new relationships. Alexa an Amazon subsidiary concerned with web traffic lists hundreds of social networks, ranking them according to user traffic and indicating the number of registered users. Some number a few thousand members (often groups sharing a hobby), others boast millions of users, with Facebook and its 900 million members ranking first. These staggering numbers reveal the universal appeal of social media ; that is why one should be aware of the societal, economic and political impact of today s networking. PRÉSENTATION DU THÈME Chapitre 1 Les réseaux sociaux 37

2 PRÉSENTATION DU THÈME THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL NETWORKING ON SOCIETY In our time-strapped world, keeping in touch has become increasingly difficult, so instant messaging is the best solution for many. Ironically enough, people spend more and more time surfing on social networks. Having and making friends, fitting in, has always been considered as a bonus. Most people feel stronger and less isolated, develop a sense of belonging, when they count many Facebook friends. Since these sites publicize members advice and opinions, their likes and dislikes, a taste for active participation has grown from online interaction; it has developed citizenship, civil activism and horizontal communication. Users also crave for authenticity, real content, on a par with TV reality talk shows, where guests disclose their private lives and make public confessions, or the man in the street interviews where passers-by give reporters a piece of their minds. Networking widens users horizon, encourages them to voice their ideas, comment on their experiences, evaluate products. For instance, thanks to crowdsourcing a word coined from outsourcing, which means obtaining a product from an outside company you may ask online users to help you find a solution to a particular problem. Likewise, networking exposes people to a wide range of unofficial sources of information rather than a limited number of official data bases. New spheres of influence have arisen; the vox populi has been provided with a unique platform. It has also invented a new language, an incredibly dynamic and creative lingo, the lingua franca of the net, words like phishing, blog, podcast, twitterism and many others you can find on wordspy.com. There even exists a French Twitter dictionary called Le Petit Twitter illustré. With the net, and social networks in particular, many people come up with surprising, never-heard-of ideas. It is a new form of creativity; could this be called the Tenth Art, after photography, radio, and television? Even if online networks have many advantages, they also have downsides. Privacy has diminished, as most people post photos, videos or messages, revealing who they are acquainted with, what they do, what they think. Because these consumers are no longer anonymous, companies can target them more efficiently, encroaching on their freedom of choice, which raises questions in the US about First Amendment protection. There are other dark sides, like various forms of manipulation, such as the manipulation of information or profiles. New forms of anxiety stem from this personal exposure, when members regret posting something ( mis-tweets), or are afraid of public judgment, for example. This syndrome has even got a name, Social Network Anxiety: once you have posted something, it is in the public domain, and can scarcely be erased. Living in a digitized world, Facebook users have grown very wary of their lack of control over their personal data and contributions. At first, everyone felt so free that nothing was kept in check, as if computer-written words and digital images were insubstantial because they were immaterial. What is more, 38 Chapitre 1

3 Mark Zuckerberg s dream of an egalitarian and democratic virtual world has not entirely come true. Thus, some social networks have been developed that recreate social inequality, privilege and exclusion, giving access to the happy few: sites such as A Small World select their members as gentlemen s clubs did. In spite of the question whether the social media are a blessing or a curse, there is no denying that social networking has transformed human relationships, both favoring them and weakening them. It has spurred creativity, but run out of control, gradually raising everyone s awareness of the necessity of curbing the power of this new medium and educating the public, especially children and adolescents. Since information technology is now inescapable, e-literacy has to be developed in order to narrow the digital divide this new form of social gap called the social media gap. According to Michael Kempner, a US public relations expert, it is urgent to teach every student how to use and understand social media. In a September 2012 Huffingtonpost article, he criticizes the fact that 36% of America s 25 top business schools do not have a single social media class. As a result, these future managers might not be able to use social media in business, which he considers a core practice, or lead cross-platform social media programs. McMaster University, in Canada, already offers a Social Media Boot-Camp for Executives. Education is as fundamental to understanding and using social media, as social media are to educating people. The social media revolution was born in the USA: Twitter and Facebook, the two leading networks, are American-born, as well as LinkedIn and MySpace, their precursors. It epitomizes America s worldwide cultural influence and appeal or its hegemony. After World War Two, US pop culture, its music, movies, Coca-Cola and McDonald s seduced the world. English became the planet s lingua franca. America projected its values abroad: Human Rights, Democracy and Freedom. This appeal was named soft power by Joseph Nye. Today, the phenomenal spread of Facebook, which has seduced as many as one billion people worldwide, seems to be the epitome of the American cultural and societal model. Indeed, the Facebook model based on communication without borders, free relationships, free exchanges of information, equality between members, openness is the very expression of Americanness. When one reads Leo Marx s definition of Walt Whitman s Americanness Walt Whitman, who published his book of poetry Leaves of Grass in 1855, is an American icon in the preface of his essay entitled The Americanness of Walt Whitman, one finds the following definition: The native bias in Whitman has been identified with egalitarianism (both noble and vicious), democracy, expansiveness, egotism, a visionary bent, a taste for experiment, lack of refinement, hostility to traditional forms, a symbol-making imagination, mindlessness. The same definition might easily be applied to Facebook and all it represents. Social networks have a universal appeal, and have now been adapted to many different cultures and languages, yet their American origin is significant. PRÉSENTATION DU THÈME Les réseaux sociaux 39

4 PRÉSENTATION DU THÈME THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL NETWORKING ON THE ECONOMY Facebook (founded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004), Twitter (founded by Jack Dorsey in 2006), LinkedIn (founded by Konstantin Guericke, Allen Blue and Reid Hoffman in 2003) or MySpace (founded by Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson in 2003) are very recent companies. One can log onto and access these social networks for free. However, their estimated value reaches billions of dollars. Facebook is valued at about $100 billion, Twitter claims it is worth about $8 billion, MySpace was rumored to be worth $5 to $10 billion a few years ago, LinkedIn s net worth is about $7.5 billion. Advertising A company s value depends on its revenue and profit margin. As far as social networks are concerned, revenue is derived from advertising and the sale of the information its members give away every time they post news, photos and videos or add friends. Their value thus directly depends on their membership and their traffic. They do not sell any products but are go-betweens, enabling companies to target customers much more effectively than in the past, by selling or sharing the data they own, opening their pages to online advertising based on text, displayads, pictures, banners, pop-ups, interactive ads. Thanks to the detailed information communicated by social networkers, companies can tailor products better, exchanging mass customization for more fine-tuned solutions. According to Jupiter Research, a US market intelligence company, online marketing expenses amounted to $34.5 billion in 2012, in the USA. With US total advertising revenue reaching about $171 billion that year (marketingcharts.com data), web advertising accounted for about 20% of the total, and this type of marketing expenditure had a 12% growth rate. However, TV advertising continued to lead. Samsung was the leading brand on Twitter while Coca-Cola ranked first on Facebook. With Social Media Advertising, companies or individuals pay for people to post articles, tweets, etc. on their behalf. In September 2012, one case hit the news, when the British award-winning novelist R.J. Ellory admitted to having posted tweets in his own favor, a practice of creating false identities to comment on your own work known as sock-puppeting! (According to a definition from wordspy.com, it means that a member of an Internet community speaks while pretending not to, like a puppeteer manipulating a hand puppet). Is online advertising more efficient or more cost-effective than traditional sources of revenue? Although social media present great opportunities for brands, riskmanagers are afraid they are also more likely to damage a brand s reputation, make it harder to protect intellectual property, and are liable to legal complaints, for example because of the disclosure of the personal data they rely on. According 40 Chapitre 1

5 to a study published by marketingcharts.com, Facebook, Twitter are risk-management minefields. Besides, most companies agree that, even if measuring the return on investment is capital, it is hard to process the mass of information available on Facebook for example, or measure social media s impact on companies sales, and many companies fail to do it rationally. They mostly observe traffic and count the clicks on their ads, or look for product feed-back in members reviews and comments on Internet forums. Not only have they lost their control over the way their products are presented to customers, but also the precise assessment of their return on investment. Membership Another source of social media revenue is friend-acquisition. For companies and organizations hoping to be seen by large numbers of people, expanding their network of friends is the best solution. The more friends you have, the more likely you are that your site will be recommended by word-of-mouth, which helps your site to stand out. Friend building, a time-consuming activity, has thus become a business: web-design. Specialists help you develop your profile to attract the most active and well-positioned members; you must also keep your page active by adding interesting, attractive content regularly. Whenever you update your profile, your name crops up! On the Internet, some developers offer customized friends at a price of $5 per person. PRÉSENTATION DU THÈME Weaknesses In spite of its huge economic weight, the social networking economy is fragile. After refusing for years to go public, Mark Zuckerberg finally decided to allow Facebook to become a public company. It was one of the biggest market flotations ever. For its initial public offering (IPO) in May 2012, the offering price of its shares was $38. But even though Facebook sold 82 million shares out of 421 million within a few minutes, share value dropped immediately afterwards and it reached a low at $17 four months later. As more shares were being sold, principal shareholders, big investment firms like Goldman Sachs that had invested in Facebook prior to the IPO, were selling their stock, pushing its value further down. Another issue is Facebook s long term prospects. Although it remains as popular as ever, questions are being raised, worries uttered: it used to be a social tool but has now become a business opportunity, with members feeling harassed by requests, business ads and updates. In a Huffingtonpost article of 21 February 2012, Louisa Leontiades said Facebook has lost its direction, its heart and its humanity. Users are also worried about the implementation of a timeline making them traceable, so people are turning to Twitter or other, smaller, platforms. One of them, Pinterest, is an online bookmarking site, or pinboard, helping people, Les réseaux sociaux 41

6 PRÉSENTATION DU THÈME as it says, organize and share things [they] love, a network where users post photos of their favorite activities, for instance. In the USA, it is one of the fastest growing social networks, just after Twitter. To compensate for its dwindling number of active users, Facebook is trying to become more profitable, which explains why users are flooded with ever more requests, which in turn discourages more users. On fidgety stock markets, where confidence comes first, Facebook shares are considered by professionals a risky investment. Over the past months, thousands of articles have come out, discussing the decline of Facebook, or of social media in general. Analysts believe that offering free services is not an appropriate business model, since it does not give the company a steady income it can build on. Besides, Internet users are fickle and will turn, at a click s notice, to sites that better suit them. Facebook will have to take all this into account to survive in the long run. Working life The impact of social networks on the economy goes beyond their own value. Social media economics studies investigate their spillover on employment and wages for example. A careerbuilder.com survey found out that nearly two in five companies (37%) use social networking sites to research job candidates. In like manner, many jobseekers and personnel managers use LinkedIn (a directory of professionals and companies) to find a job or a new staff member, respectively. Your wages may also depend on who you know; old boys usually get a better salary. Product adoption decisions, which used to be made by individuals, are growingly made by groups of consumers sharing and passing on information on social networks. Companies, which are well aware of this phenomenon, bet on similar internal groups in order to improve their productivity: thanks to Internal Social Communication, their employees can communicate on their company s social platform. This can be a powerful tool to increase efficiency in an organization. Social networking has changed the way employees work together; as many are now used to communicating information and knowledge, team work has improved. Cooperation used to be rewarded by management, but individuals assessed its costs and benefits differently, retaining part of the information out of self-interest. Today, many value cooperation higher: on a private level, they have learned to appreciate the sense of welfare it brings; in the professional field, they value its efficiency, since it maximizes global results. In an article published in 1996, Julia Porter Liebeskind (University of Southern California) wrote that, thanks to the social media, scientists in general and biotechnology firms in particular increase both their learning and their flexibility in ways that would not be possible within a self-contained hierarchical organization. Indeed, they allow scientific groups to share discoveries and theories which, otherwise, would have been isolated and irrelevant. Innovation, too, benefits from social networking. Companies do not only collect feedback on product quality, they read consumers suggestions and 42 Chapitre 1

7 ideas: Swarovski, a world famous crystal company, makes jewels designed by its customers. Some Facebook users have also helped a US water company create a new soft drink called Connect. Many marketers and advertisers have tried to evaluate the real impact that social networking has on sales and realized that it is limited because only 64% of online buyers use social networks to make purchases, while only 50% of companies sell online (emarketers data). Moreover, purchasing power and consumer confidence play a larger role in buyers decisions than the pressure from advertising and marketing. Still, its global economic impact is manifold and less visible. It relies on reciprocal influences between producers and consumers: the marketing revolution initiated by social networks is just beginning. THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL NETWORKING ON POLITICS Social media have played from the start a visible role in the political sphere, wielding influence on public opinion and elections, serving as a polling tool, or even taking part in historical events. Mark Zuckerberg himself believes that the power of democracy is in these systems (World News interview, 2010). In 2008 a Guardian article entitled Obama s win means future elections must be fought online, remarked that Barack Obama s campaign team understood the potential of social media to communicate and to raise funds. Four years after the creation of Facebook, they had been the first to do so. This Guardian journalist believed that the US president owed his landmark victory to the Internet, appealing more specifically to the Facebook generation (70% of the youth vote), with accounts, podcasts and mobile messages on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Ding, etc. Facebook had likewise opened discussion forums during the 2008 US presidential election campaign. This innovation has revolutionized politicians links to the rank-and-file, favoring grassroots political organizations and individual citizens rather than party heavyweights or business donors. Candidate Obama gave a very personal and accessible image of himself on his profile, and voters felt all the closer to him as they could like the program on his wall. As a result he had over two million online supporters in the USA. On Twitter, too, his followers could tweet their support. In 2012, Twitter had over 175 million subscribers worldwide. Today, in every democracy, the social media play an active role. David Cameron has his own web page to advertise his policy. For instance, on 16 September 2012, 171,000 likes appeared on his page. Citizens can also submit questions directly, and feel in touch with their political representatives. This online participation has been named netroot s (a combination of networks and grassroots ). PRÉSENTATION DU THÈME Les réseaux sociaux 43

8 PRÉSENTATION DU THÈME In the brave-new-world of e-politics, words can have nasty consequences. When French President François Hollande s live-in partner publicized her endorsement of Ségolène Royal s opponent in the 2012 general elections in a famous mistweet a regrettable and embarrassing Twitter message, she was accused of overreaching her role and damaging the newly elected president s image. Twitter had already been in the limelight in France, during the presidential electoral campaign a year before. It hit the news when Dominique Strauss Kahn was arrested in New York. Twitter was the first to break the news, long before traditional press agencies had heard about it. Thanks to this exposure, Twitter, which used to be seen as an opportunity to tune in to the latest gossip, has turned into a powerful information medium. Within four years, it has become a major societal feature. With public figures and journalists tweeting a piece of their minds in 140-character-long messages, news spread like wildfire at the far side of word-of-mouth communication. Thanks to hashtag s, Twitter keywords, you can read thousands of tweets on any topic you call up. (For instance, #FF or #followfriday is a Twitter hashtag by which you recommend following a particular user s tweets). Public life and events can now be judged according to the Twitter traffic they generate. Twitter has its own political index. During the 2012 US party conventions, after party delegates had chosen their official candidates, Twitter traffic thus revealed that Barack Obama s speech had prompted twice as many tweets as Mitt Romney s acceptance speech. A Newport Television report posted in August 2012 explained how pollsters were using social media to gauge the two US presidential candidates popularity. It was the first time in polling history that the Twitter index had been considered by experts as a tool to evaluate voters approval rating in real time. Eight percent of US adults are already used to expressing their political opinions on social networks. Twitter may be changing politics. During speeches, the impact of every sentence can be traced, so real-time feedback urges candidates to fulfill people s expectations at a minute s notice. The downside is that those who tweet are not representative of the population at large: according to Jakob Nielsen, a US computer engineer, a specialist of web page design and usability, in most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action. Tweets are replacing scoops, anonymous voices have as much weight as experts, and the pace of public life is speeding up, with temptations to superficiality, and the risk of decisions made without due reflection. So, are tweets good for democracy? This is one of the questions asked by John H. Parmelee and Shannon L. Richard in Politics and the Twitter Revolution, a study which came out in Tweets and other social media can be a threat to less democratic countries which are afraid of the unchecked information spreading through the net. China found it wiser to create its own Facebook, Renren, which can be monitored better. During 44 Chapitre 1

9 the 2011 Arab Spring, Facebook helped Egyptian youths gather on Tahrir Square in Cairo and overthrow the autocratic regime. On that occasion, people power and social networks went hand in hand, but such rallies can turn into violent demonstrations, and Facebook be misused by thugs or extremists. Besides, due to the fact that a tiny minority of frequent contributors post most tweets and comments whether they be political or commercial their influence is all the greater. According to Wikipedia s about page, it has only 68,000 active contributor s, which is 0.2% of the 32 million unique visitors it has in the U.S. alone (data collected by useit.com). This general participation inequality gives community members biased views. As a result, on the marketing level, customer feed-back for products and services is grossly unrepresentative. Likewise, the most active online citizens are usually either right-wing or left-wing extremists who thus dominate the public debate with hardcore opinions that leaders had better ignore. Other activists swamp serious discussion groups and political opponents forums with trash to stifle them. The loudest voices and the most numerous comments are obviously not the most representative ones. All things considered, this underrepresentation of the silent majority makes it easy to distort or willfully attack e-democracy. The best remedy is to increase the number of participants or rank contributions according to their quality level. In its 2009 recommendations on e-democracy to the European Council, the European Union Committee of Ministers explained there were necessary efforts and precautions to be taken for the promotion and protection of pluralist democracy. In the face of the new challenges arising from the information society, the committee considered that the Internet can strengthen democracy and therefore that it should be enhanced. It also stressed the fact that it should be monitored, and that member states should introduce, develop or review e-democracy policies and practice in the light of the principles of the European Constitution, by developing standards that uphold human rights, democracy and the rule of law, whereby making sure that it respects fundamental freedom s. PRÉSENTATION DU THÈME CONCLUSION Mark Zuckerberg has talked about his social mission : to connect the world, to give everyone a voice, to give people the power to transform many of our core institutions and industries. Personal relationships are the fundamental unit of our society. Relationships are how we discover new ideas, understand our world and ultimately derive long-term happiness, he wrote in February 2012, when he was filing his company for its IPO. Les réseaux sociaux 45

10 PRÉSENTATION DU THÈME All things considered, the social media have obviously revolutionized citizens interpersonal relationship s and their commitment to public life, companies marketing strategies and political leaders communication, forever. They have changed the way people live, the way they work together, the choices they make, the things they buy, what they think about people and events. They have created an open culture. They have encouraged the liberty of expression and enabled people to interact with one another both horizontally and vertically, on a global scale. Communication has grown easier and much faster. A huge new business branch has developed, helping the economy. However, they carry new risks, and may endanger our civil rights and our property rights, make us, our lives and friends virtual or fake, influence our choices without our knowing it, thus curtailing our liberty, and enable criminal groups to organize more efficiently. Their economic weight could also collapse overnight if users confidence vanished, if they became more of a marketing tool than a social tool, more of an influence medium than a communication medium. 46 Chapitre 1

11 Entraînement LES SUJETS Version (IENA CCIP LV2 2009) Bit by Bit, Finding New Ways to Profit Do you remember what it was like back in the old days when we had a New Economy? In the 1990s, jobs were abundant, oil was cheap and information technology was about to change everything. Then the technology bubble popped. Many highly touted New Economy companies, it turned out, were better at promoting their images than at making money although some of them did pioneer new forms of accounting fraud. After that came the oil shock and the food shock, grim reminders that we re still living in a material world. So much, then, for the digital revolution. Not so fast. The predictions of 90s technology gurus are coming true more slowly than enthusiasts expected but the future they envisioned is still on the march. In 1994, one of those gurus, Esther Dyson, made a striking prediction: that the ease with which digital content can be copied and disseminated would eventually force businesses to sell the results of creative activity cheaply, or even give it away. Whatever the product software, books, music, movies the cost of creation would have to be recouped indirectly: businesses would have to distribute intellectual property free in order to sell services and relationships. Her most compelling illustration of how you can make money by giving stuff away was that of the Grateful Dead, who encouraged people to tape live performances because enough of the people who copy and listen to Grateful Dead tapes end up paying for hats, T-shirts and performance tickets. In the new era, the ancillary market is the market. [ ] Downloads are steadily undermining record sales but today s rock bands, the magazine reports, are finding other sources of income. Even if record sales are modest, bands can convert airplay and YouTube views into financial success indirectly, making money through publishing, touring, merchandising and licensing. What other creative activities will become mainly ways to promote side businesses; How about writing books? [ ] Now, e-books have been the coming, but somehow not yet arrived, thing for a very long time. But we may finally have reached the point at which e-books are about to become a widely used alternative to paper and ink. [ ] How will this affect the publishing business? Right now, publishers make as much from a Kindle download as they do from the sale of a physical book. But ENTRAÎNEMENT Les réseaux sociaux 47

12 ENTRAÎNEMENT the experience of the music industry suggests that this won t last: once digital downloads of books become standard, it will be hard for publishers to keep charging traditional prices. Indeed, if e-books become the norm, the publishing industry as we know it may wither away. Books may end up serving mainly as promotional material for authors other activities, such as live readings with paid admission. The New York Times, June 16, 2008 Traduire le texte ci-dessus à partir de «Now, e-books» jusqu à «paid admission.» Thème (ESC LV1 2011) Réseau social cherche «business model» ami Transformer les profils en outils marketing de pointe. Des centaines de millions d abonnés qui rendent leur vie transparente? C est le rêve de tout annonceur. Surtout lorsque ces internautes visitent le site deux fois par jour et qu ils y passent plusieurs heures par mois. Seul hic : quand ils surfent sur les réseaux sociaux, les internautes ne sont pas là pour faire des emplettes, mais pour se divertir. «Les utilisateurs de réseaux sociaux sont des internautes avertis peu disposés à cliquer sur les bandeaux publicitaires qui apparaissent au milieu de l écran», assure Sophie Girieud, consultante à l Institut de l audiovisuel et des télécommunications. Pas étonnant si les taux de conversion publicitaires y sont plus bas que sur les portails ou les moteurs de recherche. Les réseaux sociaux l ont bien compris, Facebook en tête. Le site a imaginé un outil marketing à l intention des annonceurs qui utilise habilement les fonctionnalités du Web 2.0. Une stratégie redoutable opérée en deux temps. Le site a d abord mis à la disposition des internautes des applications permettant de commenter, de partager, de dire si l on aime ou pas un événement, une photo ou une vidéo postés par un de ses amis. Une fois adoptées, ces applications ont été mises au service des annonceurs. Les internautes sont désormais invités à réagir aux pubs qui apparaissent à l écran. Géraldine Meignan, 1 er juillet 2009, lexpansion.lexpress.fr Expression écrite 1. Question de compréhension du texte (150 mots ; +/ 10 %) How is the development of information technology changing the nature of intellectual property? 2. Question d expression personnelle (de 225 à 275 mots) (Sujet Ecricome 2011 LV1) How can the phenomenal success of social networking be explained? 48 Chapitre 1 Les réseaux sociaux

13 Thème grammatical (ECRICOME 2003) 1. Je ne me sens pas capable de dire lequel des deux je préfère ; à mon sens, ils se valent. 2. Quelles sont les raisons économiques de ces crises? Le chômage augmente depuis des années, la consommation des ménages baisse. 3. Toute la famille est d avis que tu devrais prendre des vacances et te refaire une santé. 4. Jamais je n avais pensé que la crise aurait pu provoquer autant de faillites. 5. Bien que ce ne soit pas sa faute, il se peut qu il ait à réparer les dégâts. 6. Elle ne peut s en prendre qu à elle-même. Elle aurait dû être prévoyante. 7. Si tu n avais pas tant de meubles, on pourrait danser chez toi, parfois, le soir. 8. J ai d autant plus besoin de ta voiture que mes beaux-parents doivent arriver après-demain. 9. J ai enfermé le pauvre Médor dans la voiture de peur qu il ne morde nos invités. 10. Ce dont je ne me souviens plus, c est avec qui elle était mariée à l époque. ENTRAÎNEMENT LES CORRIGÉS Corrigé de la version Analyse du texte Style : le style de l auteur est assez élaboré, avec des incises, des phrases plutôt longues. Le traducteur devra rendre le texte avec une certaine élégance, et surtout chercher des tournures idiomatiques. Lexique : on parle de l industrie du livre et du numérique. Il s agit de bien trouver les termes équivalents en français, en évitant les anglicismes. Certains mots sont assez littéraires, comme wither away par exemple. Verbes : plusieurs temps sont employés ici (le present perfect, le futur et le présent) et on rencontre quelques modaux. Les réseaux sociaux 49

14 ENTRAÎNEMENT Proposition de traduction Or, le livre électronique, c est cette chose qui est en route depuis très longtemps et qui n en finit pas d arriver. Mais peut-être le temps est-il enfin venu pour le livre électronique de se substituer, sur une grande échelle, au papier et à l encre. [ ] Quel impact cela va-t-il avoir sur le monde de l édition? Pour l instant, les éditeurs gagnent autant d argent avec un téléchargement sur une liseuse Kindle que sur la vente d un livre papier. L expérience de l industrie du disque permet cependant de penser que cela ne durera pas : une fois que les téléchargements numériques de livres seront monnaie courante, les éditeurs auront du mal à maintenir les prix traditionnels. En effet, si le livre électronique devient la norme, l industrie du livre telle que nous la connaissons risque de disparaître progressivement, et les livres pourraient finalement devenir du matériel visant surtout à promouvoir d autres activités des auteurs, par exemple des séances de lectures publiques payantes. D après Paul Krugman, The New York Time, Juin 2008 Commentaires sur le corrigé now : «or». Il ne pouvait s agir de «maintenant» à cause du present perfect utilisé dans la phrase. have been the coming thing for a long time : «cette chose qui est en route». Cas typique de l emploi du present perfect pour exprimer la durée, et une situation commencée dans le passé qui se poursuit au présent. On traduit par un présent. The coming thing : difficile de traduire par «cette chose qui est en train de venir». e-books : «le livre électronique». Le français utilise volontiers le singulier pour le cas général we may have reached the point : «peut-être le temps est-il venu». Le modal a été repris par un adverbe, ce qui est fréquent en traduction. We n a pas le sens fort et plein d un «nous», au mieux d un «on», sinon on choisit une tournure impersonnelle. widely : «sur une grande échelle». Cela convient mieux que «largement». (to) affect : «avoir un impact». Changement de la nature du mot, sans changer le sens. make : gagnent (autant d argent). Il est sous-entendu make money. Kindle : «liseuse Kindle». Pour être sûr de se faire bien comprendre, on indique de quel objet il s agit, d autant que Kindle est une marque particulière de liseuse. 50 Chapitre 1 Les réseaux sociaux

15 a physical book : «un livre papier». «Un livre physique» ne convient pas du tout. En anglais, physical se rapproche de «corporel, charnel, matériel». On aurait pu dire un «livre imprimé». once (they) become : «une fois qu ils seront (deviendront)». On a besoin du futur ici, comme l indique le deuxième verbe de la phrase, will be. Once est alors équivalent à when, lequel est suivi d un présent en anglais et d un futur en français, dans la subordonnée de temps. it will be hard for publishers to : «les éditeurs auront du mal à». Il faut éviter de calquer la tournure anglaise avec «il sera difficile pour les éditeurs de». may wither away. Books may end up : risque de disparaître, [ ] et les livres pourraient finalement devenir Le modal may ayant ici un sens de probabilité, il a été traduit d abord par «risquer de», puis par «pourraient». On a relié les deux phrases par une virgule pour alléger le texte. wither away : «disparaître progressivement». To wither signifie «dépérir» et away ajoute une notion de durée, ce qui explique la traduction retenue. such as : «par exemple». Cette traduction se glisse mieux dans la phrase que «telles que». ENTRAÎNEMENT Corrigé du thème Analyse du texte Style : le style est sec et dense. Les phrases sont courtes. Certaines phrases sont juxtaposées les unes aux autres, sans proposition principale, ce qui est trop saccadé en anglais. Il faut donc adapter la syntaxe en reliant les parties de la phrase. (Par curiosité, on peut se référer à l Analyse Contrastive de la traduction du français vers l anglais du roman Vathek de William Beckford de Tamara This-Rogatcheva, disponible sur Internet. Cette analyse met en lumière les caractéristiques des deux langues.) On pourra aussi alléger les phrases pour respecter le style de l auteur, en employant des noms composés ou en utilisant plus de gérondifs que de pronoms relatifs. Dans tous les cas, on s efforcera de respecter les règles et habitudes de la syntaxe anglaise. Lexique : le lexique est factuel, technique et commercial. Le vocabulaire est concret, plutôt qu abstrait, donc on cherche des termes d origine anglo-saxonne plutôt que latine. Les réseaux sociaux 51

16 ENTRAÎNEMENT D une part, on traite des réseaux sociaux. Il faut essayer de retrouver le langage employé sur les sites Internet et lorsque l on se connecte à son ordinateur. Par chance, beaucoup de termes s utilisent couramment en anglais (surfer, browser, like, log in, net, web, pop up, application). D autre part, on parle d argent, de rentabilité, de publicité et de marketing. Proposition de traduction Social network in quest of friendly business model How to transform profiles into state-of-the art marketing tools. Users in the hundreds of millions making their lives transparent? This is every advertiser s dream, especially when these web surfers visit the site twice a day and are logged on for several hours a month. The only problem is that internet users do not go on social networks to shop, but to relax. Social networkers are well-informed internet goers who do not feel like clicking on the ad banners popping up in the middle of the screen, said Sophie Girieud, a consultant working at the Audiovisual and Telecommunication Institute. It is no surprise that advertising effectiveness rates are lower on social networks than on portals and browsers. Social networks in general, and Facebook in particular, are well aware of this problem. To serve advertisers, this website has come up with a new marketing tool making skillful use of Web 2.0. functionalities, a formidable two-step strategy: first, the website provided visitors with applications enabling them to make comments, share, and say whether they liked or disliked the events, photos and videos posted by their friends; then, once members had grown used to them, these applications were placed at advertisers service. Users are now invited to react to the ads displayed on the screen. Commentaires sur le corrigé Nous avons cherché des formulations concises et idiomatiques : complément du nom : «des centaines de millions d abonnés» : users in the hundreds of millions, «le rêve de tout annonceur» : every advertiser s dream, «les taux de conversion publicitaire» : advertising effectiveness rates, «les fonctionnalités du Web 2.0.» : Web 2.0. functionalities, «une stratégie redoutable opérée en deux temps» : a formidable two-step strategy ; 52 Chapitre 1 Les réseaux sociaux

17 pronoms relatifs gérondifs ou participes passés : «qui rendent» : making, «qui apparaissent» : popping up, «qui utilise habilement» : making skillful use, «qui apparaissent» : displayed ; expression simplifiée : «a mis à la disposition de» : provided (them) with. Nous avons adapté la syntaxe : soit en reliant des parties d une même phrase : «c est le rêve de tout annonceur. Surtout» : This is every advertiser s dream, especially, «Seul hic : quand ils surfent» : The only problem is that, «les fonctionnalités du Web 2.0. Une stratégie redoutable» : making skillful use of Web 2.0. functionalities, a formidable strategy ; soit en ajoutant le verbe ou le sujet absent : «Pas étonnant si» : It is no surprise that, «une fois adoptées, ces applications ont été mises au service des annonceurs» : once members had grown used to them, these applications were placed at advertisers service ; soit en changeant l ordre des éléments dans la phrase car le français aime placer le complément en relief, alors que l anglais opère moins souvent ce genre d inversion car il est plus «chronogique» et linéaire : «quand ils surfent sur les réseaux sociaux, les internautes ne sont pas là pour faire des emplettes» : internet users do not go on social networks to shop, «Les réseaux sociaux l ont bien compris, Facebook en tête.» : Social networks in general, and Facebook in particular, are well aware of this problem. ENTRAÎNEMENT Les réseaux sociaux 53

18 ENTRAÎNEMENT Corrigé de l expression écrite Corrigé de la question de compréhension du texte Rappel du sujet How is the development of information technology changing the nature of intellectual property? Analyse du sujet La question posée repose sur trois axes, la nature de la propriété intellectuelle, le développement d Internet et l impact des changements apportés par cette nouvelle technologie pour ce qui concerne la propriété intellectuelle. Dans l introduction, on rappelle en quoi consiste la propriété intellectuelle : c est à la fois un type de production humaine et la reconnaissance de droits de propriété sur cette production. Dans le développement, on reprend la démonstration exposée dans le texte : le changement a été annoncé dès les débuts de la révolution technologique. Les premiers concernés furent les groupes musicaux et leurs producteurs qui ont vu la vente de CD baisser rapidement et ont dû trouver de nouvelles sources de revenu. Dernièrement, ce sont les éditeurs qui ont vu leurs ventes baisser, obligeant les auteurs à suivre l exemple des musiciens. Dans la conclusion, on résume la nature du changement encouru par la propriété intellectuelle : perte du contrôle de la reproduction des œuvres, induisant des pertes financières et le développement de ressources dérivées grâce au marketing. Proposition de corrigé Intellectual property consists in all the creations of the mind, be it music live and recorded written or artistic production, design, movies and TV programs. Creators rights are recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and protected by copyright laws. However, as Dyson foresaw back in 1994, at the dawn of the IT revolution, the development of information technology made copying universally easy and affordable, and the protection of intellectual production impossible to enforce. Adapting to inevitable changes, more and more artists, especially musicians and singers, soon realized they would have to cash in on by-products rather than make money out of their actual production. Another example is e-books, which have already changed the way the publishing industry works, and risk forcing authors to spend more time promoting their writings. 54 Chapitre 1 Les réseaux sociaux

19 Thus, the development of IT has endangered intellectual production, and urged creators and authors, whose intellectual property rights are no longer guaranteed, to develop and conduct marketing activities. 160 mots Commentaires sur le corrigé La difficulté réside dans le devoir de concision (tout en reprenant tous les éléments pertinents du texte) et l interdiction de faire un commentaire personnel. Il faut donc : employer des mots et expressions courts tels que : be it : que ce soit (énumération), however : cependant (argumentation), thus : ainsi (conclusion) ; utiliser des couples d adjectifs ou de verbes les plus pertinents possibles : recognized and protected, easy and affordable, control and enforce, develop and conduct. ENTRAÎNEMENT On retiendra quelques mots de vocabulaire : live (en direct), to foresee, foresaw, foreseen (prévoir), back in 1994 (dès 1994), dawn (aube), to cash in (on sthg) = to make money (out of sthg) (tirer profit de), rather than (plutôt que [de]), by-products (les produits dérivés). Corrigé de la question d expression personnelle Rappel du sujet How can the phenomenal success of social networking be explained? Analyse du sujet Ce sujet repose sur les deux aspects d une même question. Après avoir constaté que les réseaux sociaux connaissent un très grand succès, on cherche les raisons d un tel phénomène. Vous devrez vous fonder sur votre connaissance de l histoire des réseaux sociaux en ligne d une part nés de la révolution des technologies de l information et, d autre part, en vous demandant ce qu est un réseau social au départ, réfléchir à la réalité sociétale d hier et d aujourd hui. Les réseaux sociaux 55

20 ENTRAÎNEMENT Sans attendre une opinion, comme dans les questions qui commencent par «Que pensez-vous de?», on vous demande d identifier plusieurs explications, sans vous guider de manière plus précise, ce qui ouvre tout un champ de possibilités dans la réponse. Proposition de corrigé Facebook boasts almost one billion members worldwide today. Many politicians and public figures have Twitter accounts: social networks are obviously massively successful! Men are social beings, so social networks belong to the essence of human life. But they have outgrown their usual limits. First there was a craving. Western societies are funded on the proclamation of human rights promoting the value of individuals in society, therefore supporting the notion of individualism as a principle. (It is not surprising that Facebook should have been born in the USA.) However, individualistic cultures do not fulfill people s social needs: social networking fills this expectation in a quick and convenient way; it is a form of digital tribalism. Then the time was ripe. Economic exchanges now take place on a global scale. Modern communication devices and the World Wide Web have made communication global too: societies are connected within a global village. Worldwide, people crave to exchange not only goods but knowledge and opinions, giving e-democracy a new dimension. Finally, social networking owes its success to itself. Indeed, its form fits the culture it was born into, a world where everything is mediatized. Stars are admired and their life stories fascinate the public; likewise, thanks to social networks, everyone can become a public figure too, which people yearn for because social capital is so highly valued. They want to belong. Socializing has always been part of our lives but two phenomena have changed both its dimension and its medium: we now live in a global world and the digital revolution has enabled us to connect with almost everyone on Earth, and there is no stopping this. 269 mots Commentaires sur le corrigé L introduction rappelle quelques faits témoignant du succès et de l expansion planétaire des réseaux sociaux en ligne, situation unique dans l histoire de l humanité. 56 Chapitre 1 Les réseaux sociaux