In 2022, the media, particularly the print press, published numerous articles on delinquency in Nantes, a subject that seems to have become a major public safety issue in the conurbation. Indeed, in recent months, several incidents of delinquency have taken place in the area, leading to an increase in publications on the subject, as well as protests from the local population.
The aim of this project is to carry out a textual analysis of press articles in relation to their political orientation, using the EuroPresse database. To achieve this, a classification of newspapers will be carried out to better understand their political leanings and thus classify them into right, center and left. This classification will help to understand how the press approaches the subject of delinquency in Nantes in general, and also to check whether there are any differences in the approach to this subject with regard to the political leanings of each newspaper.
From this classification, three corpora will be managed, one for each political orientation, which will be used for textual analysis in the Voyant tools tool. In the end, with the development of data visualizations, we’ll be able to strengthen the comparison and analysis of the subject.
Mindmap
For all the publications selected from the Europress platform, we will give context to these 5 main terms:
- People, crime, government, media and context.
As part of our analysis of texts related to our theme of “Crime in Nantes according to the press“, we selected 20 press articles for our corpus from various media, categorized according to their political orientation or editorial line.
Although the problem of delinquency in Nantes and France is present due to various factors, a ranking of insecurity by a Serbian portal called Numbeo, which placed Nantes in 47th place among the least safe cities in the world, just ahead of Bogota (48th), was widely circulated on social networks on the weekend of September 24 and 25, 2022. Particularly on social accounts marked on the right and far right of politics.
This publication, plus a case of rape near the city center in October provoked reactions from the media in France and Internet users on a large scale, where for some it sparked outrage and for others (politicians and influencers) a source of controversy for the current government.This ranking is based on Numbeo, a Serbian database that describes itself as “global”. It combines Internet users’ opinions on how safe they feel in cities, whether or not they live there. Due to the small number of records and the way the information is collected, it cannot be a viable source for such a sensitive subject.
Normally, depending on their ownership, each media outlet has an orientation that pursues certain interests in the way it informs the public. To avoid being biased, media outlets don’t usually advertise their orientation as a synonym for transparency.
However, thanks to various articles and references on the web, we can build up a media database that will help us filter our research.
We will analyze the texts of print media articles extracted and assembled in the 3 corpora by individual (Center, Left and Right).
To study them, we’ll be using Voyant Tools, an open-source text-mining web application that lets us insert all kinds of files containing text.
Research articles
We’ll start by analyzing the corpus containing press articles from right-wing political media. After importing the text file into the Voyant Tools application, we remove any empty terms or words to visualize our first word cloud. The size of the terms that appear indicates their frequency in the corpus.
This first corpus contains 11 press articles from 6 newspapers, 7621 words and 2142 unique verb forms.
- Vocabulary density: 0.281
- Readability Index: 10.686
- Average words per sentence: 24.8
The term with the most occurrences will always be the place of the event: “Nantes” with 77 occurrences, followed by “Ville” with 35 occurrences and the country of origin: “France” with 26 occurrences.
It’s interesting to note the context of the word “France“, which focuses on the idea of “immigration” as a fundamental problem, whereas the word “Nantes” is linked to specific cases and the way it affects all its inhabitants.
Using a StreamGraph from Voyant Tools, we can observe that behavior in the flow of the first 5 words throughout the text decreases in term usage, showing the highest relativity peak for “delinquency” at the beginning of the document.
The second word cloud is built from the analysis of the corpus containing press articles from left-wing political media.
This corpus contains 7 press articles from 5 newspapers, 9204 words and 2554 unique verb forms.
- Vocabulary density: 0.277
- Readability Index: 10.564
- Average words per sentence: 22.1
We can see that in addition to the first two terms “Nantes” (71) and “ville” (55) being repeated from the first corpus in the same positions, we’re starting to see differences in other words, content and contexts. The term “police” (38) appears in third position with 38 occurrences, and some other relevant words such as “center” (20), “inhabitants” (17), “town hall” (14) stand out.
The trend graph showing the term “police” on the content of the second corpus confirms the left-wing media’s intention to focus on the local situation, the victims, the solutions and the measures to be taken.
The bubble line even shows that the term “police” has a higher frequency peak (9 occurrences) at the end of the text than the terms in the first two positions (Nantes, ville).
For our third corpus, corresponding to press articles from the center’s media, we can see that it contains 4 press articles from 2 newspapers, 2,635 words and 822 unique verb forms.
- Vocabulary density: 0.312
- Readability Index: 11.833
- Average words per sentence: 27.7
Most frequent words: nantes (30); men (16); facts (15); years (14); rape (11)
The first term in occurrences is still “Nantes” (30), “ville” and “police” have disappeared compared to the two previous corpora, and there’s an emphasis on the word “hommes“, which is linked by the context of the text as a whole to the criminal cases recorded in the press articles.
Conclusion
To implement this analysis, we began by defining the problem of delinquency in Nantes, but did not take into account the context provided by the political orientation of each media outlet. This research process and the unified investigation of their editorial line took longer than it should have, as the political position is unclear due to problems of journalistic transparency. Added to this is the post-pandemic crisis, which has provoked or heightened multiple social crises, including the one we’re dealing with here.
A key element of the process will always be the validation of information and sources, as consumers currently have a large amount of published data at their disposal. It was precisely the misuse of an unverified data source that triggered the proliferation of publications in the media and social networks, as having to rectify the situation with official figures and perception surveys, the authorities and government were forced to mobilize and provide explanations.
Thanks to the text mining tools we use, we are able to visualize trends and contexts in the way different media orient their content, the importance a piece of content may have according to its editorial line. Understanding media interest and purpose gives us more criteria for comparing information, not just consuming or validating the source.
After analysis, we can see that in the politically oriented right-wing media, there is a tendency to use terms that speak of place and facts, where the repetition of the words “crime (25), security (20), violence (17)” in the text of news articles gives the impression of taking a more general approach to the problem, initially in an informative way, giving context to the behavior of delinquency figures over previous years and months. We can also highlight topics such as the increase in population towards small towns after the Covid pandemic, the growth of the immigrant population and the economic slowdown that is expected in this post-pandemic era.
For the corpus containing articles from the left-wing media, there is a tendency to identify quick fixes and systemic shortcomings in terms of police presence, the safety of residents and the involvement of the mayor’s office as a local authority. In the central corpus, the mention of “men” stands out, making the link with the perpetrators of the problem of delinquency in general.
According to the corpus analysis, the media have varied tendencies as a source of information and opinion, and their political orientation marks their inclination to use language that effectively conveys their message. It confirms that delinquency is a complex problem involving social, economic and political factors. Certain measures have been taken in France to combat delinquency, such as strengthening the police and criminal justice systems, preventing delinquency and rehabilitating and reintegrating offenders: This includes treatment and support programs to help offenders reintegrate into society and prevent recidivism.
The solution won’t be to compare which city or country is the most dangerous, because every country and every situation is unique. The best thing is to be well informed and make the best decisions for the future.
This project was carried out as part of the Digital Humanities module of the Cnam's Master Mèga Donnèes et analyse sociale (MèDAS).
Bibliography
Bibliographic link to the Zotero analysis group
Press articles
Le Figaro – «J’ai peur pour moi et mes petits-enfants»: à Nantes, un millier de manifestants contre l’insécurité. Thibault Dumas – Publié le 1 octobre 2022.
Ouest-France – Pour dire stop à l’insécurité à Nantes, des centaines de personnes mobilisées. Consulté le 07/10/2022. Publié le 1 octobre 2022.
https://www.ouest-france.fr/pays-de-la-loire/nantes-44000/pour-dire-stop-a-l-insecurite-a-nantes-des-centaines-de-personnes-mobilisees-624e4afc-418c-11ed-9e76-0f8a26c6af68
Ouest-France – Pour les anciens de la PJ, « la famille est attaquée » 10 octobre 2022
Le Point – Entretien. Pourquoi la délinquance prospère-t-elle en France ? Les explications d’Anthony Borré, premier adjoint du maire de Nice, en pointe sur le sujet. -Publié 29 septembre 2022
Valeurs Actuelles – Depuis une dizaine d’années, la ville des ducs de Bretagne connaît une hausse spectaculaire de la délinquance – Publié 15 septembre 2022
Valeurs Actuelles – “Inaction coupable”, “violences diverses” : les Nantais se mobilisent contre l’insécurité – Publié le 27 septembre 2022
https://nouveau-europresse-com.proxybib-pp.cnam.fr/Link/CNAM/news%c2%b720220927%c2%b7VAB%c2%b7239135
Le Figaro – Les transports minés par la délinquance étrangère – Publié le 27 septembre.
Le Courrier de l’Ouest – La question du jour. Avez-vous une bonne image de Nantes malgré les affaires de violences ? – Publié le 30 septembre 2022
https://nouveau-europresse-com.proxybib-pp.cnam.fr/Link/CNAM/news%c2%b720220930%c2%b7OCW%c2%b72748fb76-40d5-11ed-89be-3116781a5058
Le Point – À Nantes, l’exaspération des habitants face aux « zones de non-droit » – Publié le 28 septembre 2022
Paris Match – Pour Bruno Retailleau, «Nantes est le symbole de l’échec des politiques de sécurité publique» – Publié le 30 septembre 2022
La Croix – Nantes est-elle en proie à une insécurité grandissante ? – Publié 29 de septembre 2022
Libération – Insécurité A Nantes, «on n’est pas non plus à Chicago» – Publié le 12 novembre 2022
https://nouveau-europresse-com.proxybib-pp.cnam.fr/Search/ResultMobile/0
L’Obs – Nantes, une ville sous tension – Publié le 1 novembre 2022
La Croix – Comment les cambriolages ont « nettement » baissé à Rezé – Publié le 16 novembre 2022
Le Monde – A Nantes, drogue et règlements de comptes – Publié le 18 octobre 2022
L’Obs – Johanna Rolland, maire de Nantes : « Etre de gauche, ce n’est pas fermer les yeux sur l’insécurité » – Publié le 1 novembre 2022
Le Télégramme – Un millier de manifestants dans les rues de Nantes pour dénoncer l’insécurité – Sophie Prévost – Consulté le 07/10/2022. Publié le 2 octobre 2022. Disponible sur:
Aujourd’hui en France – Photographiés par un « voisin vigilant », les deux cambrioleurs l’auraient tué – Publié le 18 octobre 2022
Aujourd’hui en France – Nantes veut retrouver la sérénité. Consulté le 07/10/2022. Publié le 1 octobre 2022. Disponible sur:
Le Parisien – Viol à Nantes : deux suspects, âgés de 17 et 27 ans, mis en examen et écroués – Publié le 26 septembre 2022
Le Parisien – Nantes : deux Soudanais présentés à un juge après le viol en réunion en plein centre-ville – Publié le 26 septembre 2022
Academic article
Courcelle, T. (2003). Le rôle de la presse quotidienne régionale bretonne dans la création d’une « identité bretonne » : étude comparative de Ouest-France et du Télégramme. Hérodote, 110, 129-148. https://doi.org/10.3917/her.110.0129
Links of interest:
- https://www.integrersciencespo.fr/comprendre-la-politique
- https://www.marianne.net/politique/la-couleur-politique-des-medias
- https://github.com/mdiplo/Medias_francais/blob/master/medias_francais.tsv
- https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/cartes/PPA
- https://www.acpm.fr/Les-chiffres/Diffusion-Presse/Presse-Payante/Presse-Quotidienne-Nationale
- https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/5763633
