new heroism

New Heroism: a paradoxical model of success

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Today, the ideals of success cover multiple areas of society, such as work, cinema, and personal life. In his book Le Nouvel Héroïsme, Olivier Fournout, a sociologist and semiologist at Télécom Paris, analyzes the conditions that have allowed the emergence of a model of success that is riddled with paradoxes.

A hero is a someone capable of bravery; of feats that reveal extraordinary courage. That is the dictionary definition, in any case. Another dictionary entry defines a hero as an individual worthy of public esteem, for their strength of character, their genius, and total dedication to their work or cause. In terms of fiction, it relates to mythology; to legendary characters who accomplish great feats. The term can also refer to literary, dramatic and cinematographic works.

According to Olivier Fournout, a researcher in Sociology at Télécom Paris, the modern approach to the hero intersects all these definitions. In our society, a hero can be Arnaud Beltrame, the policeman who saved a hostage and defended republican values. At the singer’s funeral, Emmanuel Macron proclaimed that Johhny Hallyday was also a hero – a star who conveyed an imaginary of rebellion and freedom. It was Emmanuel Macron who then declared: “We must return to political heroism” in an interview in August 2017. “Right now, on the roads of France,” reports Olivier Fournout, “there are Carrefour delivery trucks with the slogan, ‘Thank you, heroes’ written on the side, and a photo of the supermarket’s employees”. For the sociologist, “the common use of the word hero to refer to such different people calls our most contemporary modernity into question”.

The matrix of heroism

The heroic model can be found in a myriad of paradoxical orders which seem appropriate to the present time, and are found in extremely diverse and heterogeneous fields. The whole imaginary of the tragic hero is found in paradoxes that abound today on a multitude of levels. According to the discourses and images in broad circulation, in order to be a hero today, one has to be both “with others and against others, respect the frameworks and shatter them, and to be good, both on the outside and in one’s inner dimension,” argues Olivier Fournout, based on numerous pieces of evidence. Individuals are pushed to strive for this ideal either by myths, or by examples with real people like bosses and artists.

The difficulty lies in having to be empathetic while also being in competition. The researcher illustrates this in his book Le Nouvel Héroïsme with a Nike advertisement that portrays a young hockey player who knocks over garbage cans in the street, slams doors in people’s faces, and destroys walls by hitting pucks at them. Yet he also carries a disabled person up the stairs. Here we see both violence and a concern for others in everyday life. “This must be seen both as a notion of empowerment, that can be positive for individuals, and an endangerment. This duality that characterizes the complexity of the matrix of heroism is what I analyze in my book,” explains Olivier Fournout.

“The pressure on individuals to succeed and to constantly surpass themselves can give rise to psychosocial risks such as burnout or depression,” says the sociologist. To strive for this heroic model that is presented as an ideal, a person can overwork themself. The difficulty in managing paradoxes like cooperation and competition with those in one’s milieu can lead an individual to endure psychological or cognitive stress. The discourse of surpassing oneself creates difficulties for people. Furthermore, the pressure weighing on each person is accompanied by a call for training or self-training, with the promise of an “increase in skills of self-expression, of creativity, and of management of social relations,” Olivier Fournout believes.  

To describe the matrix of heroism, which he also calls the “matrix of paradoxical injunctions”, the sociologist used more than 200 treaties on management and personal growth, advertisements, news articles portraying bosses, and a corpus of 500 Hollywood-style movies. The goal was to show the common structure of these extremely diverse fields. “Even though the word hero comes from cinema, I have seen it used by professors and consultants in the United States to illustrate management theories,” says the researcher.

Establishing an imaginary

In his book, Olivier Fournout indicates that the establishment of a dominant imaginary in our media spaces must first be incarnated into as wide a range of characters as possible. In the case of new heroism, this could be Arnaud Beltrame or Johnny Hallyday, but could also be representatives of Generation Z or the Start-up Nation, activists, or even a Sunday mountain biker. This imaginary must then be placed in a game of distorting mirrors in very heterogeneous universes, such as the world of work, individuals’ privacy, and great Hollywood myths. Thirdly, the matrix must be stabilized in the dominant editorial forms. In the end, the imaginary must pass through ‘portrait galleries’, i.e. role models conveyed in the press or in the world of management. These could be soccer players, artists, big bosses, or everyday heroes.   

Olivier Fournout uses a theatrical metaphor to articulate this. He speaks of scenes and counter-scenes to illustrate the succession of public and private moments, of great, exceptional feats, and heroism for everyone in everyday life. He thus highlights its heterogeneity, which forms part of the foundation of the heroic model. The sociologist uses the example of Shakespeare’s theater, which, in its historical plays, invites the spectator to observe the great official parades of power and to take a look behind the scenes. Some scenes portray the grand speeches of the future King Henry V, while others draw the spectator into the life of this Prince who, before becoming King, lived in taverns with thieves. “What I call counter-scenes are the gray areas, the sequences that are less official than those that take place in the spotlight,” says the researcher.

Applied to the professional world, counter-scenes refer to the personal investment in one’s work, everything related to, for example, passion, sweat, or emotions such as fear in the face of risks or changes. The scenes, on the other hand, portray the performance in social roles with a control over the outward signals that one conveys. “Another metaphor that can illustrate this heterogeneity of the scenes and counter-scenes is that of forging and counter-forging. When blacksmiths forge, they strike the metals to shape them, but they also hold back their blows at times to regain momentum, which they call counter-forging,” says Olivier Fournout.

A model that covers different spheres

 “In my corpus, there are management books written by professors from Harvard and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). These universities have a great power of dissemination that facilitates the propagation of an imaginary such as that of new heroism,” says the researcher. These universities also have a porosity with the world of consultants who participate in the writing of bestsellers in this field.

But universities and businesses are not the only environments covered by the heroic model. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Camille Étienne, an environmental activist, made a clip in which she referred to citizens as ‘heroes in pyjamas’, regarding the reduction in pollution. The matrix of success is highly malleable and is able to prepare for the world of tomorrow. This power of metamorphosis has been theorized by sociologists Ève Chiapello and Luc Boltanski in their work Le Nouvel Esprit du Capitalisme (The New Spirit of Capitalism). The strength of capitalism is to incorporate criticism in order to remain in a state of constant innovation. This could also apply to the model of new heroism. “Among the paradoxical orders of the modern hero is the lesson to follow rules and to break them. A bestselling management book advises: ‘Firstly, break all the rules’ – but of course, when you look closely, it is not all the rules. The art of the hero is there, hanging in a precarious balance, which can border on the tragic in times of crisis,” concludes Olivier Fournout.

Rémy Fauvel

All aboard for security

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With France’s rail transport market opening up to competition, the SNCF’s security work is also becoming a service. This transformation raises questions on how security as an activity is organized. Florent Castagnino, Sociology researcher at IMT Atlantique, has studied how this service can adapt.  

2021 saw private train companies newly authorized to operate on French rails, previously monopolized by the SNCF. As well as opening its rail system to the competition, the state-owned company plans to offer security services to other companies. In the railway sector, “security is defined as the prevention of antisocial acts such as theft, fraud, attacks and assaults, whereas safety relates to the prevention of accidents such as issues with points or signals,” indicates Florent Castagnino, sociology researcher at IMT Atlantique.

While security is a preventive activity, it is also a commercial one. With the market opening up to competition, security services are sure to also become a profitable venture. This raises the question of whether a company prepared to pay more than another could obtain better security provision for its journeys and routes. Furthermore, with security guards in train stations, a company will not only regulate acts of malevolence but also reassure passengers. “Even if the trains are secure, a company may wish for agents to patrol the platform or on the train to enhance its brand image,” states Castagnino.

However the sale of security services to competing companies is a challenge for the distribution of agents across France. While certain stations or regional train lines may wish to purchase such services, they might not have access if there is too much demand from other companies or in other regions. Even if the SNCF security department is one of the departments that increases its workforce most regularly, “the question arises of how decisions will be made,” explains the researcher.

Representing complex problems

The distribution of personnel across the country represents a challenge due to the limited number of agents, but it also shows that delinquency is handled purely geographically. Analysis of databases of police reports and calls to emergency services from railway patrols and workers reveals the frequency of malicious acts, their nature and the place in which they occur. Using this information, patrols are sent to stations with the highest number of criminal acts reported.

Typically, if there are more malicious acts reported on line A than line B, more agents will be sent to line A. In this case, database analysis automatically ignores the multiple, complex origins of delinquency, focusing only on the phenomenon’s geographic aspect. As causes of delinquency are considered external to railway companies, they cannot take action as easily as for safety issues, which often have causes considered internal. This means that they are simpler to identify and resolve.

For Castagnino, making use of “databases for delinquency prevention means we imitate the way we handle accidental problems”. From the 90s, “there was a desire to make security more concrete, partly by using a model for the way in which we manage accidents,” continues the researcher.“This can be explained by the decision to apply the methods that work in one area, here safety, to another, in this case, security,” he adds. In the case of safety, if a technical fault such as a signaling failure is regularly reported on a certain kind of equipment, maintenance agents will be sent to repair the traffic lights on the railways concerned, and a general servicing of the equipment may be ordered. For security, if there is a station with many incidents reported, agents from the security department may be sent to the site to address the delinquency problem.

Regulatory surveillance

Most of the time, agents perform rounds to control delinquency. Their simple presence is generally enough to calm potentially disruptive groups. In train stations, “security guards self-regulate and expect social groups to do the same,” explains Castagnino. In a way, they serve as an anchor for groups to control themselves. If that does not work, the security forces can intervene to regulate them. The young researcher calls this process ‘regulatory surveillance’.

If for example, in a station, one or several individuals from a group start to bother someone, the other members of the group will often return them to order, in particular to maintain their collective right to remain in the station, which is seen as an important relational link. Regulatory surveillance also concerns military security forces. They sometimes operate in the same stations regularly, which means they get to know the groups that hang around inside. If a new agent is tempted to act aggressively without a clear reason, their colleagues (who know the place) can dissuade them, explaining that their intentions are disproportionate in relation to the group’s actions. This kind of relationship makes it possible to preserve good relations between agents and civilians.

In recent decades, several terrorist attacks in trains (Madrid in 2004, London in 2005, Thalys in 2015) have raised the question of introducing airport safety measures to the rail system. In particular, SNCF has brought in certain practices used in airports, such as the use of metal detectors in certain stations (particularly for Thalys trains). France’s national railway company is constantly working on an approach to the objectification of security threats, and seeking to make use of advantages provided by new technological tools.

Rémy Fauvel

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Improving surveillance through automatic recognition?

Projects are currently underway to equip surveillance cameras with automatic image processing software. This would allow them to recognize suspicious behavior. “For now, these techniques are sub-optimal,” points out Castagnino. Certain cameras “don’t work or don’t have good video quality, specifically because they are too old,” indicates the researcher. To implement this technology, the camera fleet will therefore need to be updated.

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Challenges to the SNCF in the 21st century

Castagnino’s research on rail systems is published in “La SNCF à l’épreuve du XXIe siècle”, a collective work that discusses shifts in the French railway system and its recent evolution from a historic perspective.

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France’s elderly care system on the brink of crisis

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In his book Les Fossoyeurs (The Gravediggers), independent journalist Victor Castanet challenges the management of the private elderly care facilities of world leader Orpea, reopening the debate around the economic model – whether for-profit or not – of these structures. Ilona Delouette and Laura Nirello, Health Economics researchers at IMT Nord Europe, have investigated the consequences of public (de)regulation in the elderly care sector. Here, we decode a system that is currently on the brink of crisis.

The Orpea scandal has been at the center of public debate for several weeks. Rationing medications and food, a system of kickback bribes, cutting corners on tasks and detrimental working conditions are all practices that Orpea group is accused of by Victor Castenet in his book,”Les Fossoyeurs”. Through this abuse in private facilities is currently casting aspersions on the entire sector, professionals, families, NGOs, journalists and researchers have been denouncing such dysfunction for several years.

Ilona Delouette and Laura Nirello, Health Economics researchers at IMT Nord Europe, have been studying public regulation in the elderly care sector since 2015. During their inquiries, the two researchers have met policy makers, directors and employees of these structures. They came to the same conclusion for all the various kinds of establishments: “in this sector, the challenging burden of funding is now omnipresent, and working conditions and services provided have been continuously deteriorating,” emphasizes Laura Nirello. For the researchers, these new revelations about the Orpea group reveal a basic trend more than anything else: the progressive competition between these establishments and cost-cutting imperatives has put more and more distance between them and their original missions.

From providing care for dependents…

In 1997, to deal with the growth in the number of dependent elderly, the category of nursing homes known as ‘Ehpad’ was created. “Since the 1960s, there has been debate around providing care for the elderly with decreasing autonomy from the public budget. In 1997, the decision was made to remove loss of autonomy from the social security system; it became the responsibility of the departments,” explained Delouette. From then on, public organizations, such as those in the social and solidarity-based economy (SSE), entered into competition with private, for-profit establishments.  25 years later, out of the 7,400 nursing homes in France that house a little less than 600,000 residents, nearly 50% of them are public, around 30% are private, not-for-profit (SSE) and around 25% are private and for-profit.

The (complex) funding of these structures, regulated by regional health agencies (ARS) and departmental councils, is organized into three sections: the ‘care’ section (nursing personnel, medical material, etc.) handled by the French public health insurance body Assurance Maladie; the ‘dependence’ section (daily life assistance, carers, etc.) managed by the departments via the personal autonomy benefit (APA); and the final section, accommodation fees, which covers lodgings, activities and catering, at the charge of residents and their family.

“Public funding is identical for all structures, whether private — for-profit or not-for-profit — or public. It’s often the cost of accommodation, which is less regulated, that receives media coverage, as it can run to several thousand euros,” emphasizes Nirello. “And it is mainly on this point that we see major disparities, justified by the private for-profit sector by higher real estate costs in urban areas. But it’s mainly because half of these places are owned by companies listed on the stock market, with the profitability demands that this involves,” she continues. And while companies are facing a rise in dependence and need for care from their residents, funding is frozen.

…to the financialization of the elderly

A structure’s resources are determined by its residents’ average level of dependency, transposed to working time. This is evaluated according to the AGGIR table (“Autonomie Gérontologie Groupes Iso-Ressources” or Autonomy Gerontology Iso-Resource Groups): GIR 1 and 2 correspond to a state of total or severe dependence, GIR 6 to people who are completely independent. Nearly half of nursing home residents belong to GIR 1 and 2, and more than a third to GIR 3 and 4. “While for-profit homes are positioned for very high dependence, public and SSE establishments seek to have a more balanced mix. They are often older and have difficulties investing in new, adapted facilities to handle highly dependent residents,” indicates Nirello. Paradoxically, the rate of assistants to residents is very different according to a nursing home’s status: 67% for public homes, 53% for private not-for-profit and 49% for private for-profit.

In the context of tightening public purse strings, this goes alongside a phenomenon of extreme corner-cutting for treatment, with each operation charged for. “Elderly care nurses need time to take care of residents: autonomy is fundamentally connected to social interaction,” insists Delouette. The Hospital, Patients, Health, Territories law strengthened competition between the various structures: from 2009, new authorizations for nursing home creation and extension were established based on calls for project issued by ARSs. For the researcher, “this system once again places groups of establishments in competition for new locations, as funding is awarded to the best option in terms of price and service quality, no matter its status. We know who wins: 20% public, and 40-40 for private for-profit/not-for-profit. What we don’t know is who responds to these calls for project. With tightened budgets, is the public sector no longer responding or is this a choice by regulators in the field?”

What is the future for nursing homes?

“Funding, cutting corners, a managerial view of caring for dependents: the entire system needs to be redesigned. We don’t have solutions, we are making observations,” emphasizes Nirello.But despite promises, reform has been delayed too long.The Elderly and Autonomy law, the most recent effort in this area, was announced by the current government and buried in late 2019, despite two parliamentary reports highlighting the serious aged care crisis (the mission for nursing homes in March 2018 and the Libault report in March 2019).

In 2030, Insee estimates that there will be 108,000 more dependent elderly people; 4 million in total in 2050. How can we prepare for this demographic evolution, currently underway? Just to cover the increased costs of caring for the elderly with loss of autonomy, it would take €9 billion every year until 2030. “We can always increase funding; the question is how we fund establishments. If we continue to try to cut corners on care and tasks, this goes against the social mission of these structures. Should vulnerable people be sources of profit? Is society prepared to invest more in taking care of dependent people?” asks Delouette. “This is society’s choice.” The two researchers are currently working on the management of the pandemic in nursing homes. For them, there is still a positive side to all this: the state of elderly care has never been such a hot topic.

Anne-Sophie Boutaud

Also read on I’MTech:

In French nursing homes, the Covid-19 crisis has revealed the detrimental effects of austerity policies
privacy, data protection regulation

Privacy as a business model

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The original version of this article (in French) was published in quarterly newletter no 22 (October 2021) from the Chair “Values and Policies of Personal Information”.

The usual approach

The GDPR is the most visible text on this topic. It is not the oldest, but it is at the forefront for a simple reason: it includes huge sanctions (up to 4% of consolidated international group turnover for companies). Consequently, this regulation is often treated as a threat. We seek to protect ourselves from legal risk.

The approach is always the same: list all data processed, then find a legal framework that allows you to keep to the same old habits. This is what produces the long, dry texts that the end-user is asked to agree to with a click, most often without reading. And abracadabra, a legal magic trick – you’ve got the user’s consent, you can continue as before.

This way of doing things poses various problems.

  1. It implies that privacy is a costly position, a risk, that it is undesirable. Communication around the topic can create a disastrous impression. The message on screen says one thing (in general, “we value your privacy”), while reality says the opposite (“sign the 73-page-long contract now, without reading it”). The user knows very well when signing that everyone is lying. No, they haven’t read it. And no, nobody is respecting their privacy. It is a phony contract signed between liars.
  2. The user is positioned as an enemy. Someone who you need to get to sign a document, more or less forced, in which they undertake not to sue, is an enemy. It creates a relationship of distrust with the user.

But we could see these texts with a completely different perspective if we just decided to change our point of view.

Placing the user at the center

The first approach means satisfying the legal team (avoiding lawsuits) and the IT department (a few banners and buttons to add, but in reality nothing changes). What about trying to satisfy the end user?

Let us consider that privacy is desirable, preferable. Imagine that we are there to serve users, rather than trying to protect ourselves from them.

We are providing a service to users, and in so doing, we process their personal data. Not everything that is available to us, but only what is needed for said service. Needed to satisfy the user, not to satisfy the service provider.

And since we have data about the user, we may as well show it to them, and allow them to take action. By displaying things in an understandable way, we create a phenomenon of trust. By giving power back to the user (to delete and correct, for example) we give them a more comfortable position.

You can guess what is coming: by placing the user back in the center, we fall naturally and logically back in line with GDPR obligations.

And yet, this part of the legislation is far too often misunderstood. The GDPR allows for a certain number of cases under which it is authorized to manipulate personal user data. Firstly, upon their request, to provide the service that is being sought. Secondly, for a whole range of legal obligations. Thirdly, for a few well-defined exceptions (research, police, law, absolute emergency, etc.). And finally, if there really is no good reason, you have to ask explicit consent from the user.

If we are asking the user’s consent, it is because we are in the process of damaging their privacy in a way that is not serving them. Consent is not the first condition of all personal data processing. On the contrary, it is the last. If there really is no legitimate motive, permission must be asked before processing the data.

Once this point has been raised, the key objection remains: the entire economic model of the digital world involves pillaging people’s private lives, to model and profile them, sell targeted advertising for as much money as possible, and predict user behavior. In short, if you want to exist online, you have to follow the American model.

Protectionism

Let us try another approach. Consider that the GDPR is a text that protects Europeans, imposing our values (like respect of privacy) in a world that ignores them. The legislation tells us that companies that do not respect these values are not welcome in the European Single Market. From this point of view, the GDPR has a clear protectionist effect: European companies respect the GDPR, while others do not. A European digital ecosystem can come into being with protected access to the most profitable market in the world.

From this perspective, privacy is seen as a positive thing for both companies and users. A bit like how a restaurant owner handles hygiene standards: a meticulous, serious approach is needed, but it is important to do so to protect customers, and it is in their interest to have an exemplary reputation. Furthermore, it is better if it is mandatory, so that the bottom-feeders who don’t respect the most basic rules disappear from the market.

And here, it is exactly the same mechanism. Consider that users are allies and put them back in the center of the game. If we have data on them, we may as well tell them, show them, and so on.

Here, a key element enters in play. Because, as long as Europe’s digital industry remains stuck on the American model and rejects the GDPR, it is in the opposite position. The business world does not like to comply with standards when it does not understand their utility. It debates with inspecting authorities to request softer rules, delays, adjustments, exceptions, etc. And so, it asks that the weapon created to protect European companies be disarmed and left on standby.

It is a Nash equilibrium. It is in the interest of all European companies to use the GDPR’s protectionist aspect to their advantage, but each believes that if they are the first, then they will lose out to those who do not respect the standards. Normally, to get out of this kind of toxic equilibrium, it takes a market regulation initiative. Ideally, a concerted effort to stimulate movement in the right direction. For now, the closest thing to a regulatory initiative are the increasingly high sanctions being dealt out all over Europe.

Standing out from the crowd

Of course, the digital reality of today is often not that simple. Data travels, changes hands, collected in one place but exploited in another. To successfully show users the processing of their data, often many things need to be reworked. The process needs to be focused on the end user rather than on the activity.

And even so, there are some cases where this kind of transparent approach is impossible. For example, the data that is collected to be used for targeted ad profiling. This data is nearly always transmitted to third parties, to be used in ways that are not in direct connection with the service that the user subscribed to. This is the typical use-case for which we try to obtain user consent (without which the processing is illegal) but where it is clear that transparency is impossible and informed consent is unlikely.

Two major categories are taking shape. The first includes digital services that can place the user at the center, and present themselves as allies, demonstrating a very high level of transparency. And the second represents digital services that are incapable of presenting themselves as allies.

So clearly, a company’s position on the question of privacy can be a positive feature that sets them apart. By aiming to defend user interests, we improve compliance with regulation, instead of trying to comply without understanding. We form an alliance with the user. And that is precisely what changes everything.

Benjamin Bayart

livreurs de plateformes

Delivery riders seeking social protection

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Cynthia Srnec, Sciences Po and Cédric Gossart, Institut Mines-Télécom Business School

“In the ideal world of the delivery platforms, we would say nothing, just smile politely, “Hello, sir”, “Goodbye”, get on our bikes, make our deliveries, never fall, never have an accident, never make a complaint […]. We used to pay you €5, now it’s €2.60, what are you going to do about it? On you go, chop chop! Make sure the food stays hot, ignore red lights, and don’t die please!”

This testimony from a young delivery rider illustrates the subordination that is central to an ecosystem in which algorithms call all the shots.

What needs to be done for these workers, exposed to various different risks? What do they need in terms of social protection?

These questions are very much central to the debate around the planned finance law for social security for 2022. First proposed back in September, its aim is to improve social protection for self-employed workers, but the improvements put forward don’t seem to factor in the mishaps which can befall delivery riders.

We asked them about their needs and the difficulties they face via an online questionnaire. 219 delivery drivers active in France during the pandemic responded, 15 of whom were interviewed.

The delivery riders who responded to our questionnaire are young (3 out of 4 are under 30 years of age) and don’t earn very much: half of them make less than €900/month before tax. Although half are logged on between 20 and 40 hours a week, they don’t get paid for time spent waiting on orders, which prevents many of them from taking on another job (for 60% of them, this is their only source of work). Before working as delivery riders, 37% were unemployed, this group most likely to have done this work for more than 3 years.

Their preferred mode of transport is push bike (37%) followed by electric bike (26%). Riders on push bikes earn less than the others (22% earn less than €900/month), while the majority of delivery riders who use another mode of transport earn slightly more.

The risks of the job

“I was hit by a pedestrian and broke my hand. I didn’t realise I had broken anything, and so I kept working. […] there are a lot of delivery riders […] who keep working with broken bones because they have to for financial reasons, or because they don’t have any social security allowing them to take time off to recover.” (Interview n°3)

This account illustrates the physical and financial vulnerability which affects many delivery riders. Only 31% of them have never experienced health difficulties as a result of their work. 70% have issues with traffic and parking, 61% have significant issues because of time spent waiting to be allocated a route, and 68% have significant issues because of time spent waiting for orders to be prepared. We don’t know exactly how many accidents have befallen riders or how many have died, but the delivery rider community is starting to come together to take action.

Are delivery riders treated properly?

The vulnerability of delivery riders depends on the risks they are exposed to and what protections they have in place (e.g. a salary, family health insurance, etc.).

According to our survey, the most vulnerable delivery riders (V4) are the most exposed and have the least protection (the unemployed, illegal immigrants, long-term delivery riders, etc.). These highly vulnerable delivery riders are part of the 32% who told us they did not have any social security coverage, and aren’t aware of all of their rights (25% of delivery riders who responded to our questionnaire didn’t know if they had any social security coverage). They generally don’t inform their employer if they have any issues (57% didn’t make the company aware about accident or illness). Among those who did, 61% were given no assistance, and what was on offer didn’t compensate for the lack of income as a result of them being off work:

“There’s no point. I knew full well that the self-employment benefits would cover nothing or practically nothing. I knew that the top-up health coverage policies with the platforms are very low-cost contracts, even extremely low-cost, and I knew there would be no point making a claim.” (Interview n°2)

A “dirty job”

The variable geometry of the vulnerability of workers doing this “dirty job” have to face is down in no small part to the “paltry” social protection they get.

This legal and institutional void benefits platforms, some of whom have been taken to court for off-the-books work.

In Spain the law was changed in August 2021 to make it that every delivery rider is considered an employee. This resolution to the precarity brought about through the gig-economy, a pressing social issue of our times, has support in France from unions and collectives of delivery riders, but also from the EU Parliament:

“The coverage, suitability and formal and effective transparency of social protection must apply to all workers, including the self-employed.”

Bear in mind that 97% of the delivery riders who responded to our questionnaire were registered self-employed.

Morgane Le Guern from the MGEN Corporate Foundation for Public Health contributed to this article.

Cynthia Srnec, postdoctoral researcher, Sciences Po and Cédric Gossart, Professor (permanent, full-time), Institut Mines-Télécom Business School

This article has been republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Pharmaceutical industry

Caring for the population or one’s earnings? A dilemma for marketers in the pharmaceutical industry

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Loréa Baïada-Hirèche, Institut Mines-Télécom Business School ; Anne Sachet-Milliat, ISC Paris Business School et Bénédicte Bourcier-Béquaert, ESSCA École de Management

The pharmaceutical industry is rocked by scandals on a regular basis. Oxycodon, for example, has been massively distributed in the United States despite being a highly addictive opioid analgesic, and has been implicated in some 200,000 deaths by overdose in the United States since 1999.

Closer to home, it took more than 15 years for Servier Laboratories’ Mediator to be withdrawn from the market, even though its prescription as an appetite suppressant, outside its initial therapeutic indication, caused numerous victims, including 2,000 recorded deaths. The outcome of the trial in March 2021 highlighted not only the responsibility of doctors, but also that of the laboratories producing these drugs, as was also the case for Levothyrox, manufactured by Merck.

These different scandals are merely the visible manifestation of the constant tension generated in this sector between the pursuit of profit and its fundamental health mission. The marketing professionals who are responsible for promoting medicines to patients and doctors seem particularly concerned by this ethical conflict which can cause them to question their real mission: is it treating or selling?

In the course of our research, we set out to discover how marketers in the pharmaceutical sector perceive this quandary and how they deal with it.

Economic interest but a health mission

The ethical conflicts encountered can lead marketers into situations of “moral dissonance”. This refers to occasions when people’s behaviors or decisions conflict with their moral values. Because it brings into play elements which are central to people’s identity such as their values, moral dissonance can generate significant psychological discomfort, giving rise to guilt and affecting self-esteem.

The people affected will then engage in strategies designed to reduce this state of dissonance, which are mainly based on the use of self-justification mechanisms but may also include changing their behavior or seeking social support.

To understand the attitudes of pharmaceutical marketing professionals, we conducted in-depth interviews with 18 of them, which revealed that these individuals are beset by ethical conflicts of varying severity, most of which relate to decisions that are of economic interest but lead to their failure to fulfill their health mission. This may involve potential harm to patients, infringements of regulations or breaches of professional ethics. Conflicts seem to affect people more intensely when the choices have major impacts on patients’ health.

The Servier affair – a turning point

Our series of interviews revealed that three strategies are employed in an effort to resolve this conflict. The first strategy is to minimize the ethically sensitive nature of the issue, which means burying one’s head in the sand, ignoring the conflict or forgetting about it as quickly as possible.

For example, one respondent explains:

“I wouldn’t say that pharmaceutical industry is whiter than white, either. There have been cases like Servier, of people who were dishonest. But that’s not the case for most people who work in the industry. They are happy to work in an industry that has made a positive contribution to society.”

According to these professionals, there is no conflict between the health and economic missions: making a profit is a way to finance medical research. This perspective makes pharmaceutical companies out to be “the main investors in health”.

In addition, they point out that their practices are very tightly regulated by law. Several respondents point out that Mediator was a landmark case:

“There is no longer a problem because everything has been regulated. Problems caused by conflicts of interest such as the Servier case are over, they can’t happen anymore. There truly was a before and after Mediator, it really changed things.”

Unable to ignore the media-driven attacks on the pharmaceutical industry, they defend themselves by denouncing the media’s role in stirring up controversy, the headlines that seek to “create a buzz” and the “journalists who don’t have anything better to write about”.

In contrast, other respondents are well aware of the risks that the marketed product poses to patients. However, they claim to be taking these risks precisely for patient’s sake. This is how the rationale for doubling the doses recommended under the regulations for children with serious pathologies is justified:

Like heroes

“Even if it’s a product that is dangerous, potentially dangerous, and on which you don’t have too much hindsight, you tell yourself that you can decide, with the chief scientist, to support the doctors doubling the doses because there’s a therapeutic benefit.”

The emphasis on acting in the patient’s interest is disturbing because it leads marketers to conceal the economic dimension of their activity and to present it as a secondary concern. However, doubling the doses does indeed increase the sales of the product.

Paradoxically, referring to the patient’s well-being in this way can actually serve to endorse unethical acts, while sometimes enabling the marketers to present themselves as heroes who work miracles for their patients. One of them justifies his actions in this way:

“Our product was very beneficial to patients; everyone was grateful to us… First there were the health professionals who told us ‘Our patients are delighted, their cholesterol levels are really low, it’s great’ and then there were the patients who testified that ‘My doctor had been forcing me to take cholesterol-lowering drugs for the past three years and I was always in pain everywhere… I’ve been taking your products for two months now and not only is my cholesterol level low, but above all, I’m no longer in any pain whatsoever.’”

Their way of presenting their profession sometimes even makes them out to be acting as caregivers.

In the final strategy, some respondents note that the notion of profitability takes precedence over the health mission, and express their mistrust of the discourse developed by other sales professionals:

“Money has become so important these days, and I get the impression there is hardly any concern for ethics in the organizations and people marketing the products.”

The disillusionment of these marketers is such that, in contrast to the cases mentioned above, they can no longer find arguments to justify their marketing actions and reduce their malaise.

“I was not very comfortable because I felt like I was selling something that could possibly hurt people or even be fatal in certain cases. I was feeling a little guilty actually… I was thinking that I would have preferred to have been marketing clothes, or at least untainted products.”

The only way out of their dissonance seems to be to avoid problematic practices by changing jobs, companies, or even leaving the pharmaceutical industry altogether.

Training and regulatory affairs

What is the solution? It seems difficult to make recommendations to pharmaceutical manufacturers in light of the doubts about the real willingness of top management to prevent unethical behavior by their employees when such behavior is adopted in their economic interest.

However, highlighting the existence of moral dissonance and the psychological suffering it inflicts upon workers should cause them concern. Studies show that these phenomena have negative consequences such as loss of commitment to work and increased staff turnover.

This is especially true in the pharmaceutical industry, which is involved in a noble cause – health – to which the respondents generally remain strongly attached.

Externally, an ethical dimension should be more systematically integrated into marketing training, especially in specialized health marketing courses.

Moreover, although the law has been tightened up, particularly after the Mediator affair, this has not prevented the emergence of new scandals, particularly in new markets such as implants. To protect citizens, the public authorities should therefore be paying more attention to para-medical products, which are currently subject to less restrictive regulations.

Loréa Baïada-Hirèche, Senior Lecturer in Human Resources Management, Institut Mines-Télécom Business School; Anne Sachet-Milliat, Lecturer and Researcher in Business Ethics, ISC Paris Business School and Bénédicte Bourcier-Béquaert, Lecturer and Researcher in Marketing, ESSCA École de Management

This article has been republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article (in French).

gestion des déchets, waste management

Waste management: decentralizing for better management

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Reducing the environmental impact of waste and encouraging its reuse calls for a new approach to its management. This requires the modeling of circuits on a territorial scale, and the improvement of collaboration between public and private actors.

Territorial waste management is one of the fundamental aspects of the circular economy. Audrey Tanguy,1 a researcher at Mines Saint-Étienne, is devoting some of her research to this subject by focusing on the development of approaches to enable the optimal management of waste according to its type and the characteristics of different territories. “The principle is to characterize renewable and local resources in order to define how they can be processed directly on the territory,” explains Audrey Tanguy. Organic waste, for example, should be processed using the shortest possible circuits because it degrades quickly. Current approaches tend to centralize as much waste as possible with a view to its processing, while circular approaches tend towards more local, decentralized circuits. Decentralization can be supported by low-tech technologies, which optimize local recycling or composting in the case of organic waste, especially in the urban environment.

The research associated with waste processing therefore aims to find ways to relocate these flows. Modeling tools can help to spatialize these flows and then provide guidance for decision-makers on how to accommodate local channels. “Traditional waste-processing impact assessment tools assess centralized industrial systems, so we need to regionalize them,” explains Audrey Tanguy. These tools must take the territorial distribution of resources into account, regardless of whether they are reusable. In other words, they must determine which are the main flows that can be engaged in order to recover and transform materials. “It is therefore a question of using the appropriate method to prioritize the collection of materials, and to this end, an inventory of the emission and consumption flows needs to be drawn up within the territory,” states the researcher.

Implementation of strategies in the territories

In order to implement circular economy strategies on a territorial scale, the collaboration of different types of local actors is essential. Beyond the tools required, researchers and the organizations in place can also play an important role by helping the decision-makers to carry out more in-depth investigations of the various activities present in the chosen territory. This enables the definition of collaborative strategies in which certain central stakeholders galvanize the actions of the other actors. For example, business associations or local public-private partnership associations promote policies that support industrial strategies. A good illustration is the involvement of the Macéo association, in partnership with Mines Saint-Étienne, in the implementation of strategies for the recycling and recovery of plastic waste in the Massif Central region. It acts as a central player in this territory and coordinates the various actions by implementing collaborative projects between companies and communities.

The tools also provide access to quantitative data about the value of potential exchanges between companies and enable the comparison of different scenarios based on exchanges. This can be applied to aspects of the pooling of transport services, suppliers or infrastructure. Even if these strategies do not concern core industrial production activities, they lay the foundations for future strategies on a broader scale by establishing trust between different actors.

Reindustrialisation of territories

“We assume that in order to reduce our impacts, one of the strategies to be implemented is the reindustrialization of territories to promote shorter circuits,” explains Natacha Gondran,1 a researcher in environmental assessment at Mines Saint-Étienne. “This may involve trade-offs, such as sometimes accepting a degree of local degradation of the measured impacts in exchange for a greater reduction in the overall impact,” the researcher continues.

Reindustrializing territories is therefore likely to favor the implementation of circular dynamics. Collaboration between different actors at the local level could in this way provide appropriate responses to global issues concerning the pressure on resources and emissions linked to human activities. “This is one of the strategies to be put in place for the future, but it is also important to rethink our relationship with consumption in order to reduce it and embrace a more moderate approach,” concludes Natacha Gondran.

1 Audrey Tanguy and Natacha Gondran carry out their research in the framework of the Environment, City and Society Laboratory, a joint CNRS research unit composed of 7 members including Mines Saint-Étienne.

Antonin Counillon

This article is part of a 2-part mini-series on the circular economy.
Read the previous article:

Economics – dive in, there is so much to discover!
économie circulaire, impact environnemental

Economics – dive in, there is so much to discover!

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To effectively roll out circular economy policies within a territory, companies and decision-makers require access to evaluation and simulation tools. The design of these tools, still in the research phase, necessarily requires a more detailed consideration of the impact of human activities, both locally and globally.

“The circular economy enables optimization of the available resources in order to preserve them and reduce pressure on the environment,” explains Valérie Laforest,1 a researcher at Mines Saint-Étienne. Awareness of the need to protect the planet began to develop in earnest in the 1990s and was gradually accompanied by the introduction of various key regulations. For example, the 1996 IPPC (Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control) Directive, which Valérie Laforest helped to implement through her research, aims to prevent and reduce the different types of pollutant emissions. More recently, legislation such as the French Law on Energy Transition for Green Growth (2015) and the Anti-Waste Law for a Circular Economy (2021) have reflected the growing desire to take the environment into account when considering anthropic activities. However, to enable industries to adapt to these regulations, it is essential for them to have access to tools derived from in-depth research on the impacts of their activities.

Decision-support tools for actors

To enable actors to comply with the regulations and reduce their impacts on the environment, they need to be provided with tools adapted to issues that are both global and local. Part of the research on the circular economy therefore concerns the development of such tools. The aim is to design models that are precise enough to be able to characterize and evaluate a system on the scale of an individual territory, while also being general enough to be adapted to territories with other characteristics. Fairly general methodological frameworks can therefore be developed, within which it is possible to determine criteria and indicators specific to certain cases or sectors. These tools should provide decision-makers with the information they need to implement their infrastructures.

At Mines Saint-Étienne and in collaboration with Macéo, a team of researchers is focusing on the development of a tool called ADALIE, which aims to characterize the potential of territories. This tool creates maps of different geographical areas showing different criteria, such as the economic or environmental criteria of these territories, as well as the industries established in them and their impacts. Decision-makers can therefore use this mapping tool as the basis for choosing their priority activity areas. “The underlying issue is about being able to ensure that a territory possesses the dimensions required to implement circular economy strategies, and that they are successful,” Valerie Laforest tells us. In its next phase, the ADALIE program then aims to archive experiences of effective territorial practices in order to create databases.

For each territorial study, the research provides a huge volume of different types of information. This data generates models that can then be tested in other territories, which also enables the robustness of the models to be checked according to the chosen indicators. These types of tools help local stakeholders to make decisions on aspects of industrial and territorial economics. “This facilitates reflection on how to develop strategies that bring together several actors affected by different issues and problems within a given territory,” states Valérie Laforest. To this end, it is essential to have access to methodologies that enable the measurement of the different environmental impacts. Two main methods are available.

Measurements of impact on the circular economy

Life cycle analysis (LCA) aims to estimate environmental impacts spanning a large geographical and temporal scale, taking account of issues such as distance transported. LCA seeks to model all potential consumptions and emissions over the entire life span of a system. The models are developed by compiling data from other systems and can be used to compare different scenarios in order to determine the scenario that is likely to have the least impact.

Read more on I’MTech: What is life cycle analysis?

The other approach is the best available techniques (BAT) method. This practice was implemented under the European Industrial Emissions Directive (IPPC then IED) in 1996. It aims to help European companies achieve performance standards equivalent to benchmark values for their consumption and emission flows. These benchmarks are based on data from samples of European companies. The granting or refusal of an operating license depends on the comparison of their performance with the reference sample. BATs are therefore based on European standards and have a regulatory purpose.

BATs are related to companies’ performance in the use phase, i.e. the performance of techniques is closely scrutinized in relation to incoming and outgoing flows during the use phase. LCA, on the other hand, is based on real or modeled data including information from upstream and downstream of this use phase. The BAT and LCA approaches are therefore complementary and not exclusive. For example, between two BAT analyses of a system to ensure its compliance with the regulations, different models of the systems could be created by conducting LCAs in order to determine the technique that has the least impact throughout its entire life cycle.

Planetary boundaries

In addition to quantifying the flows generated by companies, impact measurements must also include the effects of these flows on the environment on a global scale.

To this end, research and practices also focus on the effects of activities in relation to the different planetary boundaries. These boundary levels reflect the capacity of the planet to absorb impacts, beyond which they are considered to have irreversible effects.

The work of Natacha Gondran1 at Mines Saint-Étienne is contributing to the development of methods for assessing absolute environmental sustainability, based on planetary boundaries. “We work on the basis of global limitations, defined in the literature, which correspond to categories of impacts that are subject to thresholds at the global level. If humanity exceeds these thresholds, the conditions of life on Earth will become less stable than they are today. We are trying to implement this in impact assessment tools on the scale of systems such as companies,” she explains. These impacts, such as greenhouse gas emissions, land use, and the eutrophication of water, are not directly visible. They must therefore be represented in order to identify the actions to be taken to reduce them.

Read more on I’MTech: Circular economy, environmental assessment and environmental budgeting

Planetary boundaries are defined at the global level by a community of scientists. Modeling tools enable these boundaries to be used to define ecological budgets that correspond, in a manner of speaking, to the maximum quantity of pollutants that can be emitted without exceeding these global limits. The next challenge is then to design different methods to allocate these planetary budgets to territories or production systems. This makes it possible to estimate the impact of industries or territories in relation to planetary boundaries. “Today, many industries are already exceeding these boundary levels, such as the agri-food industry associated with meat. The challenge is to find local systems that can act as alternatives to these circuits in order to drop below the boundary levels,” explains the researcher. For example, it would be wise to locate livestock production closer to truck farming sites, as livestock effluents could then be used as fertilizer for truck farming products. This could reduce the overall impact of the different agri-food chains on the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, as well as the impact of transport-related emissions, while improving waste management at the territorial level.

Together, these different tools provide an increasingly extensive methodological framework for ensuring the compatibility of human activities with the conservation of ecosystems.

1 Valérie Laforest and Natacha Gondran carry out their research in the framework of the Environment, City and Society Laboratory, a joint CNRS research unit composed of 7 members including Mines Saint-Étienne.

Antonin Counillon

This article is part of a 2-part mini-series on the circular economy.
Read more:

Waste management: decentralizing for better management

soins, care

Hospitals put to the test by shocks

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Benoît Demil, I-site Université Lille Nord Europe (ULNE) and Geoffrey Leuridan, IMT Atlantique – Institut Mines-Télécom

The Covid-19 crisis has put lasting strain on the health care system, in France and around the world. Hospital staff have had to deal with increasing numbers of patients, often in challenging conditions in terms of equipment and space: a shortage of masks and protective equipment initially, then a lack of respirators and anesthetics, and more recently, overloaded intensive care units.

Adding to these difficulties, logistical problems have exacerbated shortage problems. Under these extreme conditions, and despite all the difficulties, the hospital system has withstood and absorbed the shock of the crisis. “The hospital system did not crack under pressure,” as stated by Étienne Minvielle and Hervé Dumez, co-authors of a report on the French hospital management system during the Covid-19 crisis.

While it is unclear how long such a feat can be maintained, and at what price, we may also ask questions about the resilience and reliability of the health care system. In other words, how can care capacity be maintained at a constant quality when the organization is under extreme pressure?

We sought to understand this in a study conducted over 14 months during a non-Covid period, with the staff of a critical care unit of a university hospital center.

High reliability organizations

The concepts of resilience and reliability, which have become buzzwords in the current crisis, have been studied extensively for over 30 years in organizational science research  – more particularly those focusing on High Reliability Organizations (HRO).

This research has offered insights into the mechanisms and factors that enable complex sociotechnical systems to maintain safety and a constant quality of service, although the risk of failure remains possible, with serious consequences.

The typical example of an HRO is an aircraft carrier. We know that deference to expertise and skills within a working group, permanent learning routines and training explain how it can ensure its primary mission over time. But much less is known about how the parties involved manage the resources required for their work, and how this management affects resilience and reliability.

Two kinds of situations

In a critical care unit, activity is continuous but irregular, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Some days are uneventful, with a low number of patients, common disorders and diseases, and care that does not present any particular difficulties. The risks of the patients’ health deteriorating are of course still present, but remain under control. This is the most frequently-observed context: 80 of the 92 intervention situations recorded and analyzed in our research relate to such a context.

At times, however, activity is significantly disrupted by a sudden influx of patients (for example, following a serious automobile accident), or by a rapid and sudden change in a patient’s condition. The tension becomes palpable within the unit, movements are quicker and more precise, conversations between health care workers are brief and focused on what is happening.

In both cases, observations show differentiated management of resources, whether human, technical or relating to space. To understand these differences, we must draw on a concept that has long existed in organizational theory: organizational slack, which was brought to light in 1963 by Richard Cyert and James March.

Slack for shocks

This important concept in the study of organizations refers to excess resources in relation to optimal operations. Organizations or their members accumulate this slack to handle multiple demands, which may be competing at times.

The life of organizations offers a multitude of opportunities for producing and using slack. Examples include the financial reserves a company keeps on hand “just in case”, the safety stock a production manager builds up, the redundancy of certain functions or suppliers, the few extra days allowed for a project, oversized budgets negotiated by a manager to meet his year-end targets etc. All of these practices, which are quite common in organizations, contribute to resilience in two ways.

First, they make it possible to avoid unpredictable shocks, such as the default of a subcontractor, an employee being out on sick leave,  an unforeseen event that affects a project or a machine breaking down. Moreover, in risk situations, they prevent the disruption of the sociotechnical system by maintaining it in a non-degraded environment.

Second, these practices absorb the adverse effects of shocks when they arise unexpectedly – whether due to a strike or the sudden arrival of patients in an emergency unit.

How do hospitals create slack?

Let us first note that in a critical care unit, the staff produces and uses slack all the time. It comes from negotiations that the head of the department has with the hospital administration to obtain and defend the spaces and staff required for the unit to operate as effectively as possible. These negotiations are far from the everyday care activity, but are crucial for the organization to run effectively.

At the operational level, health care workers also free up resources quickly, in particular in terms of available beds, to accommodate new patients who arrive unexpectedly.  The system for managing the order of priority for patients and their transfer is a method commonly used to ensure that there is always an excess of available resources.

In most cases, these practices of negotiation and rapid rotation of resources make it possible for the unit to handle situations that arise during its activity. At times, however, due to the very nature of the activity, such practices may not suffice. How do health care workers manage in such situations?

Constant juggling

Our observations show that other practices offset the temporary lack of resources.

Examples include calling in the unit’s day staff as well as night staff, or others from outside the unit to “lend a hand”, reconfiguring the space to create an additional bed with the necessary technical equipment or negotiating a rapid transfer of patients to other departments.  

This constant juggling allows health care workers to handle emergency situations that may otherwise overwhelm them and put patients lives in danger. For them, the goal is to make the best use of the resources available, but also to produce them locally and temporarily when required by emergency situations.

Are all costs allowed?

The existence of slack poses a fundamental problem for organizations – in particular those whose activity requires them to be resilient to ensure a high degree of reliability. Keeping unutilized resources on hand “just in case” goes against a managerial approach that seeks to optimize the use of resources, whether human, financial or equipment  – as called for by New Public Management since the 1980s, in an effort to lower the costs of public services.

This approach has had a clear impact on the health care system, and in particular on the French hospital system over the past two decades, as the recent example of problems with strategic stocks of masks at the beginning of the Covid pandemic unfortunately illustrated .

Beyond the hospital, military experts have recently made the same observation, noting that “economic concerns in terms of defense, meaning efficiency, are a very recent idea,” which “conflicts with the military notions of ‘reserve,’ ‘redundancy’ and ‘escalation of force,’ which are essential to operational effectiveness and to what is now referred to as resilience.”

Of course, this quest for optimization does not only apply to public organizations. But it often goes hand in hand with greater vulnerability of the sociotechnical systems involved. In any case, this was observed during the health crisis, in light of the optimization implemented at the global level to reduce costs in companies’ supply chains. 

To understand this, one only needs to look at the recent stranding of the Ever Given. Blocked for a week in the Suez Canal, this giant container paralyzed 10% of global trade for a week. What lessons can be learned  from this?

A phenomenon made invisible in emergencies

First of all, it is important for organizations aiming for high reliability to keep in mind that maintaining slack has a cost, and that that they must therefore identify the systems or sub-systems for which resilience must absolutely be ensured.  The difference between slack that means wasting resources and slack that allows for resilience is a very fine line.

Bearing this cost calls for education efforts, since it must not only be fully agreed to by all of the stakeholders, but also justified and defended.

Lastly, the study we conducted in a critical care unit showed that while slack is produced in part during action, it disappears once a situation has stabilized. 

This phenomenon is therefore largely invisible to managers of hospital facilities. While these micro-practices may not be measured by traditional performance indicators, they nevertheless contribute significantly: this might not be a new lesson, but it is worth repeating to ensure that it is not forgotten.

Benoît Demil, professor of strategic management, I-site Université Lille Nord Europe (ULNE) and Geoffrey Leuridan, research professor, IMT Atlantique – Institut Mines-Télécom

This article has been republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the  original article (in French).

Fake News

A real way to look at fake news

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The SARS-CoV2 virus is not the only thing that has spread during the Covid-19 pandemic: fake news has also made its way around the world. Although it existed even before, the unprecedented crisis has paved the way for an explosion of fake news. Anuragini Shirish, a researcher at Institut Mines Télécom Business School, explains the factors at play in this trend and how it could be limited in the future.

Why has the pandemic been conducive to the emergence of fake news?

Anuragini Shirish: At the individual level, fear and uncertainty are psychological factors that have played an important role. People have several fears that pertain to safety of their lives and that of their families, jobs, resources leading to unexplained uncertainty about both the present and the future. As a response to this situation, people try to make sense of the situation and understand what’s going to happen to reassure themselves, from both the health  and economic point of views. To do so, they look for information, regardless of how truthful it is.

How do individuals seek guidance in an unpredictable situation?

AS: The main sources of guidance are institutional resources. One of the important resources is the freedom of the media. In countries like India, the media can be influenced by politicians and people tend not to trust it entirely. In Nordic countries, on the other hand, the media focuses on being as objective as possible and people are taught to adhere to objectivity. When trust in the traditional media is low, as may be the case in France, individuals tend to seek out alternative sources of information. Freedom of the media is therefore an institutional resource: if people have confidence in the strength and impartiality of their media, it tends to lower their level of fear and uncertainty.

Another important resource is the government’s measures to increase economic freedom perceptions. If individuals believe that the government can maintain job security and/or their sources of income throughout the pandemic, including periods of lockdown, this also helps reduce their fear and uncertainty. In countries such as Brazil, India and the United States, this has not been the case.

Lastly, there is the freedom of political expression, which gives individuals the opportunity to express and share their doubts publicly.  But in this case, it tends to foster the emergence of fake news. This is one of the findings of a study we conducted with Shirish Srivastava and Shalini Chandra from HEC Paris and the SP Jain School of Global Management.

How is the lack of confidence in institutions conducive to the emergence and dissemination of fake news?

AS : When people trust institutions, they are less likely to seek information from alternative sources. Conversely, when there is a low level of trust in institutions, people tend to react by seeking out all kinds of information on the internet.

Why and how has fake news spread to such an extent?

AS: In order to verify the information they obtain, people tend to share it with their acquaintances and close friends to get their feedback about the validity of the information. And due to their cognitive biases, people tend to consume and share ideas and beliefs they like, even when they’re aware that the information may be false. Fake news are generally structured to evoke a variety of emotions, leading to strong feelings such as anger, fear, sadness, which also helps it to spread more easily than information presented in a more rational or neutral way. 

Each country has its own characteristics when it comes to the emergence and dissemination of fake news, which also explains why an understanding of institutional resources is helpful to identify the factors that can explain the national level differences at play. The emergence  and dissemination of fake news vary widely from country to country: the inhabitants of a country are far more concerned about what’s happening in their own country. Fake news is therefore highly context-specific.

Where is most fake news found?

AS: The majority of fake news is found on social media. That’s where it spreads the quickest since it is extremely easy to share. Social media algorithms will also display the information that people like the most, therefore increasing their cognitive biases and their desire to share this information. And social media is the number-one media consumed by individuals, due to its ease of mobile access and connectivity available at several countries in the world.

Who creates fake news?

AS: It’s hard to understand the deeper motivations of each individual who creates fake news, since they don’t typically brag about it! Some may do so for economic reasons, by generating “clicks” and the revenue that comes with them. Almost half of fake news is generated for political reasons, to destabilize opposing parties. And sometimes it comes directly from political parties. Uncertain situations like pandemics polarize individuals in society, which facilitates this process. And then there are individuals who may just want to create general confusion, for no apparent economic or political motives.

How can we as individuals contribute to limiting the spread of fake news?

AS: When we aren’t sure about the validity of information, we must not act on it, or share it with others before finding out more. It’s a human tendency to try to verify the legitimacy of information by sharing it, but that’s a bad strategy at a larger scale.  

How can we tell if information may be false?

AS: : First of all, we must learn to think critically and not accept everything we see. We must critically examine the source or website that has posted the information and ask why. There is an especially high level of critical thinking in countries such as Finland or the Netherlands, since these skills are taught at high schools and universities, in particular through media studies classes. But in countries where people are not taught to think critically to the same extent, and trust in the media is low, paradoxically, people are more critical of information that comes from the institutional media than of that which comes from social media. Tools like Disinformation Index or Factcheck.org may be used to verify sources in order to check whether or not information is authentic.  

Is fake news dangerous?

AS: It depends on the news. During the pandemic, certain light-hearted fake news was spread. It didn’t help people solve their problems, but it provided entertainment for those who needed it. For example, there was a tweet that appeared in March 2020 saying that a group of elephants in the Yunnan province in China, had drunk corn wine and fallen asleep, amid the recommendations for social distancing.  This tweet was shared 264,000 times and got 915,500 likes and 5,000 comments. This tweet was later “debunked” (proven to be false) in an article that appeared in National Geographic. This kind of fake news does not have any harmful consequences.  

But other kinds of fake news have had far more serious consequences. First, political fake news generally reduces trust in institutional resources.  It doesn’t offer any solutions and creates more confusion. Paradoxically, this increases fear and uncertainty in individuals and facilitates the dissemination of more fake news, creating a vicious circle! Since it reduces institutional trust, government programs have less of an impact, which also has economic implications. During the pandemic, this has had a major impact on health. Not only because the vaccine campaigns have had less of an effect, but because people self-medicated  based on fake news and died as a result. People’s mental health has also suffered through prolonged exposure to uncertainty, at times leading to mental illness or even suicide. This is also why the term “infodemic” has appeared. 

Is social media trying to fight the spread of fake news?  

AS: During the pandemic, content regulation by the platforms has increased, in particular through  UN injunctions and the gradual implementation of the Digital Service Act. For example, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are trying to provide tools to inform their users which information may be inauthentic.  The platforms were not prepared for this kind of regulation, and they generated a lot of revenue from the large volume of information being shared, whether or not it was true.  This is changing – let’s hope that this continues over time!

Read more on I’MTech: Digital Service Act: Regulating the content of digital platforms Act 1

What are the levels of institutional control over fake news?

AS: Control over information must be carried out through various approaches since it affects many aspects of society. The government can increase its presence in the media and social media, and improve internet security. There are two ways of doing this: through the law, by punishing the perpetrator of fake news, but also by increasing collective awareness and providing programs to teach people how to verify information. It’s important to put this aspect in place ahead of time, in order to anticipate potential crises that may occur in the future and to monitor collective awareness levels . However, the goal is not to control the freedom of media, on the contrary,  this freedom increases the contribution of independent media, and signals to the citizens that the government seeks to be impartial.

How can we improve people’s relationship with information and institutions in general?

AS: Individuals’ behavior is difficult to change in the long term: new regulations are ultimately violated when people see them as meaningless. So, we must also help citizens find value in the rules of society that may be put in place by the government, in order for them to adhere to them.

By Antonin Counillon