SERVICE. Clash Boyard – Hanouna: “The audience is not a voice or credibility,” denounces the political communication specialist
The heated debate between C8 host Cyril Hanouna and ex-Touche pas à mon poste columnist MP Louis Boyard at the end of the week has left no public debate. Philippe Moreau-Chevrolet, expert in political communication, founder of MCBGConseil and lecturer at Sciences-Po, agreed to decipher this sequence for the readers of Dépêche du Midi.
The pace of political conflicts on television is accelerating.
Yes, it is accelerating, because they have realized that in order to exist, they have to create clashes, confrontations, and therefore radicalize their positions. This allows him to be known to people beyond his usual sympathizers. When they go on set with Cyril Hanouna, either as a columnist – as Louis Boyard used to do – or as a guest, they know that it’s a rule, you have to break, you have to be unexpected, you have to shock. So it completely changes the political grammar on television. We are no longer there to convince, to try to keep people on our side, but to prepare an audience.
Philippe Moreau-Chevrolet.
Yes, but this is communication, this is business. Is this politics?
This is a valid question. At what point do you destroy politics and destroy yourself by doing this? And is it mostly constructive? It seems the answer is still no. Especially when we look at Eric Zemmur’s route, we see that his logic was completely confrontational and confrontational until he had extremely hard positions. And we can clearly see that outside of social media, when it comes to voting in real life, voters can sanction this kind of behavior because they don’t find it credible. Voters may fear these types of profiles.
Not all voters. Others, as researcher Claire Sécail has demonstrated, voted more on the far right of the political spectrum than Zemmour and are heavily involved in Hanouna’s program. Plus, Bardella was there 3 days ago in a more polite tone. Doesn’t this reinforce Hanouna’s bias and question the strategy chosen by LFI?
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C8 clash with Louis Boyard: Does Cyril Hanouna support the far right?
Indeed, either because Hanouna is different from RN or because they have a different strategy, they do not produce the same thing. For example, the RN will not provoke. Louis Boyard is in a provocation compared to Hanouna and can expect quite a strong response from him. But this does not justify the completely reprehensible insults. But the point is that RN will never do that. He tries to make a deal with Hanouna and gain as much public sympathy as possible from the audience. This is different. RN is in seduction strategy while in Hanouna and LFI wants to be in confrontation strategy. I don’t know if Hanouna’s attitude will reinforce this one way or the other after that. He tells her no.
Is show politics on TV a threat to democracy?
There is a clear danger to democracy that there will be too much violence against politics and that politics will become pure entertainment. That is, we de-meaning politics to make it seem less important, something we watch for entertainment and not for thought. Finally, we can think that the country is not the people we can trust, but actors and comedians like others.
Under these circumstances, should politicians continue to go to Hanoun or not?
It’s one of the few places on TV where you can talk to the unemployed, the French in the RSA, the working classes as a whole. There is real interest for politicians. The problem is that it’s a trap. Once you’re in this format, you don’t control anything. Hanouna, he has to make an audience. He is constantly connected to social networks, while no other information channel conveys what is happening on social networks concretely, in any case politically. With that, Hanouna is a woolen sock.
Insults against the deputy of the republic remain. Should Hanoi be banned from the air?
No, antennas should not be banned, that would be the worst. But Arcom should move extremely strongly at the C8 level. The problem is that this is a precedent. Regardless of Hanouna’s quality, we cannot allow MPs to be insulted on air. Because that would result in Poutine. What worries me in this sequence is the trivialization of violence against politics. This means that in the long run, we will be able to insult the deputies in the programs, we will call them shit. We can deal with them very violently. This is not prudence. Simply put, elected officials should be treated with minimal respect. We must be able to build common goods. For me, what worries me is the drift towards violence. Whether we agree with him or not, a deputy is still a deputy. Hanouna apologized. But an apology is not a punishment. He mainly believes those who accuse him of not being a democrat and favoring the extreme right, preferring authoritarian solutions in the exercise of power. This is a real mistake on his part. He tells his time that I’m not on the far right, why not, but by doing this he is on the far right. This is what is dangerous for him and his channel. Arcom must react quickly. If not, what is the next limit?
What to think of Louis Boyard’s complaint against Cyril Hanouna?
It is gratifying and desirable that this complaint be filed so that symbolic violence against elected officials can be limited.
Now the LFI should be consistent and announce a boycott of the TPMP kit. Otherwise, we will encounter a binary language that is difficult to understand. Politicians must not forget that they must be elected. But he is Cyril Hanoun, he only tries to have the maximum audience. But we should learn from Zemmur: we can achieve 50% market share in TV market and 7% market share in elections. The audience is not a vote or trust.