UPR 7542 - LCC- Culture and Communication Laboratory

Activities

The Culture and Communication Laboratory specialises in the communicative approach to cultural facts and conducts research on cultural institutions, practices and audiences.

The originality of his approach is that he does not start from organisations, devices or audiences alone, but considers interaction phenomena from the point of view of groups of individuals engaged in exit practices whose motive and structuring element is a cultural object.

The unit is composed of university professors, lecturers, doctoral students, post-doctoral students and visiting researchers. Since its creation in 1997, the team has produced numerous reception surveys and has developed a recognised expertise on cultural audiences through numerous institutional partnerships.

Thanks to its experience and its network, the unit is now recognised at the national level as a pilot unit in the field of reception surveys, through the numerous study reports, audience surveys, temporary or longitudinal observatories, produced at the request of cultural institutions. Also recognised for a long time by its discipline (CNU 71°), the team pursues its work around the communicational study of cultural facts by conducting its research on the institutions, productions, practices and audiences of culture. At the heart of the identity axis "culture, heritage, digital societies" of the University of Avignon, it is not only a question of carrying out research on the arts and techniques of the public, but also of carrying out innovative themes that question the worlds of culture: How to think about artistic and cultural education? How to question the question of cultural governance? How can we consider the emerging media practices of cultural and communicational objects?

Many of the laboratory's research projects are linked to the training courses of the Department of Information and Communication Sciences. Indeed, students occupy an essential place in the scientific concerns of the team: from the point of view of their cultural practices and the construction of their cultural identity. The interest shown in these student audiences is reflected in the production of various works that address in a plural manner the questions of representations, cultural construction, and domestic or mobile outings. Finally, the study of students as a cultural audience provides a prism for analysing the dynamics of transmission, uses and practices linked to digital technology in the circulation of cultural objects, devices and equipment.

At the heart of the Information and Communication SciencesThe research of the Culture and Communication laboratory is articulated through four programmes which are not designated as differentiated axes but rather as sequences which are both federative and transversal.

ORGANISATION

Direction
Virginie Spies

Secretary
Sophie Taillan

Members of the laboratory :

  • Virginie Spies - Senior Lecturer in Information and Communication Sciences
  • Natalie Petiteau - Professor of Contemporary History
  • Émilie Pamart - Lecturer in Information and Communication Sciences
  • Marie-Hélène Poggi - Lecturer in Information and Communication Sciences
  • Louis Basco - School teacher, teacher-researcher
  • Joëlle Richetta - Lecturer in Information and Communication Sciences
  • Jean-Christophe Vilatte - Senior Lecturer in Education Sciences
  • Poli Marie-Sylvie - Professor Emeritus
  • Pascal Quidu - Teacher, IUT Avignon University
  • Christel Brun-Franc - Teacher, IUT Avignon University

Associated researchers :

  • Céline Schall, Education and Training Officer, Culture Department Esch sur Alzette, Luxembourg
  • Joël Chapron, Head of Central and Eastern European countries at Unifrance
  • Sophie Marino, Project Manager and teacher Beaux-Arts de Paris

Not mentioned are ATERs and PhD students.

Courses offered

Master's Degree in Culture and Communication

  • course Arts and Techniques for the Public
  • Technical Director course (ISTS)
  • Mediation, Museums, Heritage course

Research activities

Audience Arts and Techniques

Since 1994, the questions of the constitution of cultural audiences and the study of cultural practices "out and about" have been part of the research programmes that founded the original reputation and notoriety of the research team in information and communication sciences of the University of Avignon. The major studies carried out in conjunction with the Ministry of Culture on festivals and international cultural events, regular cultural practices and practices related to culture observed in the context of field surveys based mainly on quantitative data analysis have enabled the deployment of recognised scientific expertise, supported by widely referenced publications.
The study of the publics of culture is formalised around the formula "Arts and Techniques of the Public", which the accreditation campaign for the 2016-2017 masters degrees has reaffirmed. The notion of the Arts of publics can find its origin in the project of "restoring their logical and cultural legitimacy to the everyday practices of mass marginality" (Michel de Certeau). It is a question of recognising the capacity of these audiences, even consumers who are neither fooled nor broken to divert what the cultural industries offer them, to be autonomous and free. This approach is updated with that of "oblique attentions", "eclipsing adhesions" (Richard Hoggart) and "weak receptions" (Jean-Claude Passeron). "Technique" and "art" describe a relationship to oneself that is achieved through practices, a way of life, a way of conducting one's own existence (Michel Foucault). The notion of Techniques of the public also refers to tools that allow for the knowledge of the public, their practices and the uses they make of the objects they consume or the places and devices they frequent. These techniques are used by sociologists and specialists in information and communication sciences in fields that question cultural practices and the uses of symbolic forms by the public: surveys, observations, interviews, questionnaires and production of quantitative data for statistical analysis.

Objects Festivals, Cinemas, Cultural audiences (events and regular cultural practices), Spectator careers, Performing arts technicians, Seasonal cultural events (seasons and temporary exhibitions).

Artistic and Cultural Education, heteronomous places and times of transmission

Festivals, new cinemas, the development of digital offerings, playful arts, video games, parks aimed at a new approach to the natural world, amusement parks and museums devoted to the sciences, temporary exhibitions, cultural dynamics today tend to specialise thematically as much as they individualise economically. However, beyond these specialisations and individualisations, it is new collectives that are gradually being built and defining the practices of emancipation through and via culture and the arts, through and via original political organisations of space and time.
For their part, schools and cultural institutions in France have not ceased to place the issue of EAC at the heart of each young person's pathway, with effects that remain complex to evaluate without understanding the heteronomy that defines the differentiated links that allow each individual to shape his or her cultural personality.

Objects International festivals, Territories of the EAC (Cities 100% EAC), Lifetimes and the EAC, Cinema(s), The place of play in transmission devices, Digital media of the EAC.

Cultural governance


Objects
Cultural policies, film and audiovisual policies, local contracts and departmental schemes for artistic and cultural education, observatories, festival historiography, communication of cultural organisations, strategies for building audience loyalty/renewal, cultural diplomacy, local authorities, audience training.

Researchers in information and communication sciences interested in cultural practices question in this programme the communication processes and strategic stakes between territorial and international cultural actors, audiences and prescribers, decision makers and users. This programme focuses on the dynamics of cultural, audiovisual and digital policies, considered through their instruments, their territorial inscription, their circulation, and their evaluation.

Media approaches to cultural and communicational objects

This programme proposes to approach audio-visual media objects in a renewed conception within the Information and Communication Sciences, both in musical and television practices. In addition to questions of production, the programme aims to grasp the current issues concerning the digital mutation of supports and uses as well as the emerging practices that underlie them. The aim is to consider the material dimension of the circulation of discourses as well as objects, to describe the transformations, both technical and societal, that these circulations generate in terms of uses that are also linked to the dynamics of patrimonialisation. This programme will also focus on questions of the stage and the public, and more generally on cultural forms such as the festival.

Objects Web videos, television, music scenes, sound media, festivals.

Partnerships

Audience Arts and Techniques

Festival d'Avignon, Avignon le OFF, Edinburgh Napier University, the Chorégies d'Orange, the Théâtre National de Nice, the Rencontres Trans Musicales de Rennes, Art-Ludique Le Musée, the Haut Conseil de l'Éducation Artistique et Culturelle, the MuCEM (Musée des Civilisations de l'Europe et de la Méditerranée), the Centre National des Écritures du Spectacle de la Chartreuse, the Maison Jean Vilar, Avignon tourisme, the Collection Lambert, the Festival de Cannes, the Festival Lumière de Lyon Cinémas du Sud, Rencontres cinématographiques du Sud, Utopia cinema, Théâtre d'Arles, Institut Supérieur des Techniques du Spectacle (ISTS), MK2 cinemas, Cannes Film Market, Ministry of Culture, Radio France, StudioCanal, City of Paris, Pierre Bergé / Yves Saint Laurent Foundation, Walt Disney Company Europe, Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles PACA, Campus des Métiers et des Qualifications du Développement Culturel en Région Sud-PACA.

Artistic and Cultural Education, heteronomous places and times of transmission

High Council for Artistic and Cultural Education (Ministry of Culture + Minister of Education: the research programme will be presented in the HCEAC session of 7 December 2018), INHA (National Institute of Art History), Festivals of Avignon, Cannes, Transmusicales, "100% EAC" cities (Cannes, Saint-Brieuc, Guingamp, Metz, La Courneuve, Carros, Quimper,.), South-PACA, Ile de France and Brittany regions, the Campus des métiers et des qualifications du Développement Culturel in the South-PACA region.

Cultural governance

Comité d'histoire du ministère de la Culture; Comité d'histoire de la télévision (CHTV); Comité d'Histoire de la Radiodiffusion (CHR); Festival d'Avignon, Haut Conseil de l'Éducation Artistique et Culturelle; Conseil supérieur de l'Audiovisuel, Observatoire européen de l'Audiovisuel, FIPA (Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels); MIF (International Film Market), National Archives, Compagnie Alexis Grüss, Pôle d'Action Culturelle Equestre, La Verrerie d'Alès - Pôle National Cirque Occitanie, Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles PACA, Campus des métiers et des qualifications du Développement Culturel en région Sud-PACA, Ville de Marseille, Institut supérieur des techniques du spectacle (ISTS), Fédélima, Commission Paritaire Emploi-Formation Spectacle Vivant (CPNEF-SV), Institut Méditerranéen des Métiers du Spectacle.

Media approaches to cultural and communicational objects

Comité d'histoire du ministère de la Culture ; Comité d'histoire de la télévision (CHTV) ; Comité, Ajmi, AJC, Orchestre de Provence ; 2PC (2 rooms kitchen SMAC du Blanc Mesnil ; Private collections : Fondation Panigel in Saint Rémy de Provence, collection J.P Ricard collection in Le Thor ; Recording places : Studio " La fabrique " in Saint Rémy de Provence ; Media and producers : Arte, France Télévisions, Pandora Création... ; Festivals : Frames Festival Avignon, Jazz à Junas, Avignon Jazz Festival, Transmusicales de Rennes... ; Laboratories : LAM (Laboratoire d'acoustique musicale de Jussieu), Laboratoire lorrain de sciences sociales, Laboratoire Pamal de l'École Supérieure d'Art d'Avignon, laboratoire de design sonore de l'École Supérieure d'Art de Valence, équipe " analyse des pratiques musicales " rattachée au laboratoire Sciences et technologies de la musique et du son (Unité Mixte de Recherche IRCAM UMR 9912); Professional organisations: UCMF (Union of Film Music Composers), Adami; Museums: Mupop de Montluçon, Musée de la musique (Halle de la Villette), Musée de la Sacem en ligne; Observatories of music and musical practices: Observatoire de la musique (Philharmonie de Paris - Cité de la Villette); Centre National de la Chanson des Variétés et du Jazz; the Campus des métiers et des qualifications du Développement Culturel in the Sud-PACA region.

Contacts

Address
Hannah Arendt Campus, Sainte Marthe site
North building - 1W60
74 rue Louis Pasteur, 84000 Avignon

Telephone
+33 (0)4 90 16 25 79

E-mails
lcc@univ-avignon.fr