1. National Geography
‘French’ websites are defined as those that
(1) carry a French ‘.fr’ URL (greenpeace.fr, categorized as International, is the only exception).
(2) address the issue of shale gas with direct, constant reference to the French context, even if their URL is not specifically French.
Language was rejected as a defining factor because of the risk of confusion with the numerous Canadian websites also involved in the shale gas debate. Non-French websites were added to the map if they were referenced directly by French websites (the only exception are oil-company websites, which were added for illustrative purposes though they are almost never connected).
Staying within the sphere of French websites as defined above was much easier than originally expected. In spite of the international scale of the issue, French websites almost systematically link to each other rather than to international websites.
While language may be an issue (websites in French may be created by non-bilinguals, who would only read and thus link to other French websites), the lack of outreach to many very active and popular francophone-canadian websites suggests otherwise.
One possible reason: French website owners, particularly individual bloggers and NGOs, prefer to link to actors who they also know outside of the web, e.g. other NGOs, the French press, French institutions and political actors. They would thus tend to turn their online network into a replication of their real-life networks.
2. Type of Actor
Most of the actors involved in the controversy are also represented online, but their influence and number is very assymetrical.
|
Anti-shale |
NGO Shale Gas Forum Individual blogger |
|
Pro-shale |
Oil Industry |
| Sources of Legitimacy
|
Press & Media Government Institution |
| Periphery | Political Parties Science/Research |
NGO refers to blogs of specific, typically local non-governmental organisations (collectifs)
Shale Gas Forum refers to websites that operate as collective online for these same actors but that are not necessarily attached to any specific association. This includes shared blogs as well as online message boards and online petitions against shale gas.
Individual Bloggers are unique opinion leaders who communicate on a range of issues on their personal blogs, among which shale gas
Oil Industry includes the corporate website of the different oil companies involved in Shale Gas exploitation and exploration in France , as well as the local oil lobby (Union Française de l’Industrie Petrolière) and a few trade-union websites.
Press and Media are websites that generally act as ‘sources’ for the abovementioned NGOs. Due to technical limitations of the the Webcrawler, the ‘high-layer’ websites (e.g. newspaper portals) themselves were recorded rather than the specific articles being referenced.
Government Institutions refers to sites that are clearly owned or managed by state or parastatal bodies, such as online repositories for various policy, and legal reports found on ministry websites
Science and Research websites are owned by research institutions, universities and other French scientific bodies invested in shale gas and peripheral research.
Political Parties, as the name suggests, are websites managed or owned by registered French political parties.
Non-governmental organisations and local collectifs clearly overwhelm the network online by sheer number and connectivity. Altogether, they form the backbone of the network, holding it together into a tight structure in which the other actors try to nestle themselves. The four highest-ranking website in the corpus by incoming links all fall within these two categories.
Even though the Oil Industry who best represents the pro-shale side of the argument should logically be important to the debate, they are largely unreferenced online. Their websites are isolated from other actors and from one another. When they are, in fact, referenced (e.g. by http://nongazdeschiste.fr), they are already framed in very negative terms (e.g. “Qui sont les vampires?”).
Therefore, there does not seem to be much conversation between the two sides of the debate online. Arguments are expressed in a mostly unilateral manner; anti-shale groups remain within their own circles, while pro-shale groups resort to static, non-interactive statements.
The Press and Media are often used as sources of legitimacy by NGOs online. As a result, many of the publications referenced in the network are those with a clear environmental/altermondialista editorial approach (e.g. Novethic.fr, or the Editions Les Liens Qui Libèrent, publisher of Le vrai scandale des gaz de schiste issue), or those generally percieved as anti-establishment (Rue89, Owni.fr).
The dominant anti-shale side of the controversy clearly also looks to Government Institutions and sources as a way of asserting their legitimacy on the issue; even the most unprofessional-looking blogs link to and try to benefit from the perceived expertise of state and parastatal bodies, many of which actually discuss legislation rather than science, which another critical battleground of the controversy.
Scientific research on shale gas, is mostly undertaken outside of France and hosted on International websites, none of which are part of the network. The few websites represented in this category are university websites (ENS Lyon and Montpellier 2 for instance), as well as geology/energy research institutions (BRGM, IFPEN) that carry out research that is linked but often peripheral to the debate. Most of the other actors, notably the anti-shale side, do not appear to refer often to scientific literature as a source of legitimacy to support their arguments.
Political Parties are woefully under-represented in the debate, and seem unwilling to enter the controversy online. None of the main French parties (UMP, PS) have built a coherent presence on this issue online. The only strictly political actor to be represented and referenced online is Europe-Ecologie/Les Verts, which is coherent with its green (and thus anti-shale) positioning. Still, this party remains on the periphery of the network, which is dominated by local collectifs. This absence of political parties may be due to their unwillingness to discuss this polarizing issue until the end of the 2012 presidential campaign.
