À l’heure où le modèle de l’autorégulation des médias connaît un succès grandissant en Europe, avec la multiplication du nombre de conseils de presse, mais aussi une remise en question fondamentale, suite à l’affaire anglo-saxonne de News of the World, ce travail de recherche tente de définir les bienfaits et les limites du modèle de l’autorégulation en matière de liberté des médias. D’une manière générale, cette recherche tente de montrer dans quelle mesure une responsabilisation collective des journalistes peut soutenir et promouvoir la liberté des journalistes. Pour le comprendre, cette recherche explore les liens entre liberté et responsabilité des médias. Elle montre que si l’État et les cours de justice, en tant que représentants démocratiques, peuvent être les mieux attribués pour définir les responsabilités de journalistes idéalement au service de l’intérêt public, d’autres considèrent qu’il faut laisser aux journalistes le soin de définir leurs responsabilités eux-mêmes pour limiter tant que possible les tentations étatiques de mettre sous contrôle les “chiens de garde” du système démocratique. Cette recherche nous enseigne que le juste équilibre entre régulation et autorégulation des médias dépend alors de la nature du régime politique en place ainsi que des traditions et cultures journalistiques. Elle montre qu’une responsabilisation collective des journalistes par l’autorégulation peut promouvoir et défendre la liberté des médias, lorsque des garde-fous existent pour limiter l’instrumentalisation du système. Elle montre aussi que l’autorégulation ne peut en aucun cas créer les conditions de la liberté des médias. Cette recherche souligne enfin les avantages de l’autorégulation des médias à l’heure du numérique. / At a time when the model of media self-regulation is becoming increasingly popular in Europe, with an increasing number of press councils, but also at a time when the model is being fundamentally questioned following the Anglo-Saxon scandal of the News of the World, this research attempts to define the benefits and limits of media self-regulation for media freedom. In general, this research tries to show how the collective accountability of journalists can support and promote media freedom. In other words, this research explores the relationship between media freedom and accountability. It shows that if the State and the courts, as democratic representatives, can be attributed to better define the responsibilities of journalists ideally serving the public interest, others consider that journalists should rather define their responsibilities themselves in order to limit as much as possible the temptation of state control of the "watchdogs" of the democratic system. This research tells us that the right balance between regulation and self-regulation of the media depends on the nature of the political regime and journalistic cultures and traditions. It shows that a collective journalists’ accountability can promote and defend media freedom when safeguards exist to limit the exploitation of the system. It also shows that media self-regulation can in no way create the conditions for media freedom. Finally, this research highlights the benefits of media self-regulation in the digital era.

Abstract: During the past decade, media researchers have intensified the study of media scandals and the role of journalism as an institution that holds social actors responsible for malfeasance and wrongdoings. On a micro level of analysis, the main attention has beendirected towards the journalistic interview and its use to promote the impression of guilt and journalistic neutrality. However, such studies have not been able to address the editing dimension of TV journalism that transforms conversation to another type of communicativepractice – that of communication through TV-flows composed of speech sequences, pictures,and sounds. This doctoral thesis develops a theoretical framework for analysis of the functions of editing inthe process of guilt attribution by journalistic TV-flows – e.g. investigative TV reporting. The purpose is also to contribute to an understanding of the relationship between the communicative competences of viewers and the contextualization of speech acts through the composition of TV-flows. The developed perspective consists of three parts: 1) A division of viewers’ reception of TV-flows in two types of interpersonal relations (to a speaker and to the composer) that involves six levels of cognitive activities. This division is based on the Habermasian notion of communicative rationality; 2) An intent-model, that lists communicative intentions expressed by the composer when speech sequences are merged and pictures are inserted; 3) A guilt-model, that encompasses guilt as a mental structure of ontologically separated elements (e.g. deed,intention, norm) and the associative relations that the viewer uses to create a meaningful whole– a fabula of guilt. The conveyed analysis of three cases of investigative reporting illustrates how the developed framework can be applied in the study of guilt attribution. The analyses also describe several compositional strategies by which the viewer is encouraged to make certain meaning, evaluate, and judge. The strategies concern the following areas: promotion of certain understanding of speech, promotion of certain evaluation of the validity claims, and promotion of certain understanding of the speaker’s intentions. Also strategies of positioning of the reporter in constructed discourses, that enhance the impression of her performances and argumentation, are explored. Furthermore, the composer’s strategies for masking intentions to interfere with the speech acts, by increasing intent ambiguity, are described. The guilt-model is used to understand the workings of the TV-flow on an overreaching level of meaning (the fabula level). Here, the analysis explains the interplay between portrayed intentions and acts, and the different ways in which condemning norms can be activated and highlighted. Furthermore, the model explores the possible employment of categorization in theprocess of guilt attribution (e.g. when properties of an individual are transferred to a group). In sum, this thesis contributes to a new way of understanding the reception of current affairs programs and TV journalism, as relation building between composer and viewer, by means of contextualization of speech acts.