Sorignet, Pierre-Emmanuel

“We don’t understand anything” - 2012.


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For the past decade, the modernization of public broadcasting in both Western and Eastern Europe takes place in the context of a general adaptation to technological changes and a call for reducing public deficits. Boasting their experience in the private sector, consulting firms specializing in strategy and reorganization have actively contributed to the adoption of new management methods by public broadcasting companies. This paper draws on a survey conducted among employees of a large European media corporation and their representatives during the 2000s, in a context of corporate reorganization. Focusing the different perceptions of the reorganization project held by different stakeholders, it analyzes the real effects of the symbolic violence produced by the consulting firms and some high ranking managers of the public corporation, i.e. by the true instigators of the reform.