The fabrication of the leader. What media coverage does to an egalitarian organisation?

The influence of the media on the repertoire of protest action has long been studied. In contrast, the sociology of contentious politics and the sociology of the media have paid little attention to the fact that media coverage also changes relations within activist organisations themselves. Based on an ethnography carried out within a French anti-globalization collective, this article shows how media coverage of the organisation contributed to the emergence of a charismatic leader who shared the social properties of journalists. Despite the egalitarian values of the members of the collective, the omnipresence of journalists also promoted the domination of employees over volunteers.

This article focuses on the role of leaders within social movements. The central issue concerns the factors which favour the emergence of a leader within an organisation which claims to be egalitarian. In his research on the civil rights movement, Aldon Morris (1984) has shown that spokespersons of the black community have played a key role in the development of the movement. Indeed, they made it possible to rally religious institutions and financial support to the cause of the African American community. However, in their study of the social movements of poor Americans, published at the same time, the sociologists Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward (1979) show that leaders are sometimes more interested in the preservation of their own privileges than in the transformation of the world. In this sense, Pierre Bourdieu (1984) highlighted the paradoxical nature of any delegation. The paradox is that the mobilised group needs delegates to exist, but delegates tend to dispossess the individuals on whose behalf they speak.

The lack of representativeness of social leaders is a well-known phenomenon. The mobilizations are often led by white, middle-aged men who are well endowed with economic capital (Chabanet, Dufour, & Royall, 2011). The unequal distribution of individual resources gives rise to an unequal division of militant labour. The ‘new social movements’ of the 1970s attempted to stem this phenomenon by adopting participatory and rhizomatic forms of organisation, in which ‘leadership is not concentrated but diffuse and limited to specific objectives’ (Melucci, 1983, p. 14). But, as Francesca Polletta (2002) shows in her history of American social movements, recourse to horizontal forms of association is nothing new. From the end of the nineteenth century, the anarchists put forward the principles of autonomy and local initiative. Still, attempts at achieving a horizontal organisation have faced numerous challenges arising from the objective pursued, the adversary's strategy and the balance of power (Tilly, 2004). But the literature devoted to the role of leaders in social movements has paid very little attention to the role of the media (Rucht, 2012). This article intends to fill this void by relying on a case study which reveals how media logics can influence the emergence of leaders.

Research on media driven politics has developed considerably over the past fifteen years (Hepp, 2013; Hjavard, 2008; Krotz, 2009). This work has shown how the mainstream media are gradually imposing constraints – not without resistance – in different fields and, in particular, in the political field. Despite a certain tendency to substantialise journalistic activity (Frisque, 2002), to homogenise the media world (Couldry, 2008) and to overestimate the power of the media (Le Grignou, 2003), these works shed light on the processes by which the development of mass media led to a reconfiguration of political activities, professions, and strategies.

Part of this research (Gamson & Wolfsfeld, 1993; McCarthy, McPhail, & Smith, 1996) focuses on the effects of media coverage on the space of social movements. Lilian Mathieu (2012) has shown that, in the case of France, this space enjoys relative autonomy with regard to the political field. The universe of practices and meanings in which the actors of social movements operate is governed by its own rules. Therefore, what holds for political parties and leaders does not necessarily apply to non-partisan activists and contentious politics.

For its part, the sociology of social movements has long been interested in interactions with the field of media. This body of research has attempted to analyse the influence of the media on collective protest; either to underline the extent to which the media determines the modalities of activists’ action (Champagne, 1984) or, on the contrary, to illustrate the independence and leeway enjoyed by protesters (Cardon & Granjon, 2005; Oberschall, 1993; Rubin, 1971). However, in the majority of cases, this research has focused on the repertoires of collective action (Tilly, 1995, p. 26) and neglects the relationship between the media and social movements (McCarthy & Zald, 1977, p. 1215) as well as their internal structure. From the perspective adopted here, the media coverage of a movement does not result so much from the explicit political will of journalists or their employers, nor entirely from the operating logic of large economic structures (press groups, dominant media), but a more complex, less intentional and less rigid process, made up of the iterative process of interaction in media work (Neveu, 2011, p. 110). Defined in this way, media coverage manifests itself above all in the day-to-day activities of professionals working within the field of journalism, as well as in the relationships they have with each other and with other actors. Just as media coverage is approached as the product of paid, organised and regulated work, activism will be approached as work, admittedly not always paid, but whose tasks and interactions move in a network of norms and obligations (Nicourd, 2009, p. 13).

With the exception of the inaugural work that Todd Gitlin (1980) devoted to the radical student organisation Students for a Democratic Society, the sociology of the media and the sociology of contentious politics has generally ignored the fact that media coverage interacts with the militant division of labour and with the relationships formed between members of the same organisation. In order to remedy this shortcoming, this article takes an ethnographic approach to studying one of the main French ‘collectives’¹ of civil disobedience: the Disobedients.

The ethnographic approach is particularly suited to our research interests, since it allows us to directly observe the interaction between media and activists. Moreover, ‘informal leadership’, as Belinda Robnett (1996) calls it, is a phenomenon that is difficult to identify through quantitative or archival methods. A daily and prolonged presence with activists is the easiest way to analyse the emergence of these kinds of leaders.

The investigation was carried out in the open and my overtly academic motivations were made clear from the start. When I made contact (by e-mail) with the collective and then at my first physical meeting (in a café) with the leader-founder of the collective and two of his comrades, I introduced myself as a ‘PhD student in sociology’ wishing to ‘concretely observe the practice of civil disobedience’. My request (‘to observe the functioning of your collective while participating fully in your activities’) was immediately accepted and it was agreed that I could stay as long as necessary. I campaigned with the Disobedients daily for a year and a half, taking part in their activities like the other members. During the first three months, I focused my attention on the relationship between the Disobedients and their adversaries (political and economic leaders, law enforcement). Gradually my gaze shifted to the relationships between the members of the collective and the journalists covering their actions.

The eighteen-month participant observation (October 2012–March 2014) was supplemented by a series of semi-structured individual interviews with ten hard-core members. Lasting an average of two hours, they were carried out during the last four months of the study and, for the most part, at the homes of activists. These interviews were an opportunity to discuss their practices and ideas in a more focused manner. In particular, I took the opportunity to compare my observations on the ground with the perception that activists had of their organisation. To supplement the data, four semi-structured interviews were conducted with journalists – two working for national daily newspapers and two others from television channels.

The semi-structured interviews carried out with the four journalists shed light on the professional constraints to which journalists are subject. One interviewee, a 25-year-old freelance journalist who graduated from a leading journalism school and was still financially dependent on parental support, is paid according to the number of articles he manages to get published. Similarly, a 42-year-old documentary filmmaker, who describes his current situation as ‘precarious’, points out that his remuneration depends on his ability to convince a producer to finance his documentary projects. The economic imperatives weighing on these two journalists encourage them to move towards activist organisations and leaders already recognised by the rest of the profession. The Disobedients fully meet this criterion. The other two journalists, on permanent contracts (one in the print media and the other in television), claim to have addressed the subject of the Disobedients without being censored by their superiors. But, in this area, the words of the interviewees do not constitute sufficient material. A long-term ethnography of press companies would usefully complete the data on which this study is based and allow a rigorous analysis of the control of journalists by their editorial staff as well as the impact of the editorial line on the media treatment of social movements.

In this case, the omnipresence of journalists is one factor among others (unequal distribution of militant capital, gender and age domination, professionalisation of activism) that reinforces the hierarchy of the organisation by consolidating the domination of a leader over the rest of the group and by fuelling the gap between employees and volunteers. In addition, the media coverage of the organisation contributes to its personalisation. Because of the cultural capital and social properties he shares with the reporters covering their protests, the leader of the Disobedients receives media attention. This informal promotion to the status of permanent spokesperson provides a set of symbolic and material rewards.

The Disobedients is an organisation of around fifty regular activists, including a hard core of twenty members who campaign on average ten hours a week, and eight part-time employees. Each year, these activists organise around ten training courses in civil disobedience which take place across France, lasting an average of two days. The collective has two websites and has published fifteen books devoted to the history and techniques of nonviolent direct action. To compensate for the relative weakness of its militant workforce (compared to big environmental NGOs such as Greenpeace), the collective relies on the production of spectacular public demonstrations which are capable of capturing media attention; blocking a rail convoy carrying nuclear fuel, invading the arena of a bullfight or a football pitch during a professional match, occupying an embassy or the head office of a multinational company, graffitiing the billboards of subway stations, etc. This strategy has borne fruit, with almost all of the forty demonstrations carried out each year receiving coverage in the major audio-visual media outlets (in 2013, the collective appeared on the television channels TF1, France 2, Canal +, M6 and Arte, as well as on the radios France Inter and France Info) and in the national press (articles devoted to the work of the collective appeared in three main national daily newspapers: Le Figaro, Le Monde and Liberation).

The political-spectacle logic (Marques, 2013; Tolson, 2001) is one of the keys to the success of this collective. This logic manifests itself at two levels. Firstly, in the causes on the activist agenda. Secondly in their repertoires of action. Regarding the first level, the Disobedients take care to adapt their agenda to the causes most linked to national and international news. In the weeks following the Fukushima nuclear accident, activists devoted most of their time to denouncing the dangers of nuclear energy. Beyond the question of their agenda, the concern for creating a spectacle is perceptible in the repertoires of action which they adopt. For example, they often plan acts of civil disobedience to take place on weekdays. This complicates the arrival of activists, because many are at work at this time. It does, however, correspond to the daily schedule of journalists, who are usually busy during the afternoon and off on weekends. The chosen target must accommodate the cameras and provide a good visual image. The action must be short and dramatic in order to match the television format. Its unfolding is theatrical. They might block the entrance into a building (which they did during a protest at French Basketball Federation building), but they will only do so after journalists have set up their cameras and have given the green light. During the action, the activists ensure that the group's positioning and movement (stopping in front of the institution's logo, standing in a circle, etc.) correspond to the journalists’ expectations. At regular intervals, they ask the cameraman: ‘Are you ok with the images?’, ‘Do you want us to stop for a wide shot?’, ‘Do you want us to go under this painting?’. Certain sequences are staged by journalists, who place the activists in the space and tell them how to act (‘crouch in front of the door’, ‘unfold the banner at this window’). This ‘hypertrophy of self-presentation strategies’ (Champagne, 1984, p. 24) sometimes leads activists to replay a scene when the cameraman judges that the first take was unsuccessful. From start to finish, the action is shaped to match the journalistic format.

The history of civil disobedience is inextricably linked with that of mass media. Although this aspect of their personality has remained little studied, Gandhi and Martin Luther King were both great communicators, handling with virtuosity the rules and logics of the media field (Markovits, 2000, pp. 221–224; Branch, 1988). The success of the civil rights movement, as Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow (2008, p. 45) have argued, is closely linked to television and the images of police beating peace activists that were broadcast at the time. Civil disobedience is based on the belief that their success depends on their media coverage (Martin & Varney, 2003). It is through the mainstream media that these movements seek to attract public opinion to their cause (Juhem, 1999; Molotch, 1979). ‘Media as much as possible by your own means and through the dominant press’, ‘always warn trusted journalists who will protect you and relay the action’, ‘the press is essential for the smooth running of the operation’, ‘political battles are image battles and communication battles’, write the Disobedients in the manual they distribute to newcomers. Like most environmental organisations practicing civil disobedience, members of the Disobedients earnestly seek to publicise their cause because they are convinced that if the general public becomes aware of an injustice, then things will change (Ollitrault, 1999).

Given the low number of activists, the media coverage of the Disobedients is considerable. The media interest in such a small organisation belies the idea that the resource of ‘numbers’ would be a major asset in the hands of social movements (Champagne, 2004; De Nardo, 1985). If this observation is valid for demonstrations (Fillieule & Péchu, 1993, pp. 184–185), it is not for the spectacular and non-routine protests which characterise civil disobedience (Rochon, 1988). The success of the Disobedients in attracting media attention is linked to the composition of the group and, more particularly, to the strong cultural capital of its members and the social capital of its leader, Xavier Renou. The circle of eight employees is heavily male, with only two female employees, while the hard core – the twenty activists most involved – is equal in terms of gender. The overwhelming majority of the core membership say they are atheists but of Catholic culture, vote for parties to the left of the Socialist Party, but they are not members of any party or union, nor have they ever been. For sixteen of them, involvement with the Disobedients was the first step in their activist careers. Five adjectives come up regularly when I ask them to define their commitment: alter-globalization, anti-capitalist, revolutionary, environmentalist, non-violent. Most of them are students or recent graduates between the ages of 20 and 30. The students all have a job (usually part-time) in parallel with their education. Young workers are in a precarious economic situation (unemployment, temporary work, internships) and have only personal savings to form the basis of their economic capital. On the other hand, all of them have a high level of cultural capital objectified by a university degree (acquired or in the process of being acquired) in social sciences – with the exception of one engineer in the movement. A third have joined, or attempted to integrate into an Institute of Political Studies. Usually in couples but without children, they rent studios in the city centre or in the inner suburbs – the collective and its members are based in Paris, where most of their activities take place. Their parents do not belong to any political party, but vote on the left and exercise professions within national education, the health sector or culture (teacher, librarian, nurse, osteopath, child psychologist, climbing teacher, etc.).

Culturally privileged but threatened by economic decline, these activists have a profile which confirms the diagnosis made by Lilian Mathieu about this type of collective, namely that they recruit

Their sociological profile (young people, students or part-time employees, without children) ensures them biographical availability for employment. As Doug McAdam (1986) has shown, people are all the more likely to be involved in activism if they are not exercising family or professional responsibilities.

The ability to capture the attention of journalists is enhanced by the media and activist capital of the leader of the collective. Xavier Renou, founder and spokesperson for the Disobedients, is a graduate of the Institut d´Etudes Politiques of Paris, where most of the French political and journalist elites are trained. He has been an intensive and uninterrupted activist since the mid-1990s, has joined more than a dozen organisations and has collaborated with most progressive and environmental parties, unions and associations. He has been interviewed on several occasions by the main French newspapers and television channels. Thanks to his network and his savoir-faire, Xavier Renou has built up a sizeable address book, which guarantees the regular presence of journalists at his protests. These events are designed to meet the expectations of journalists (i.e. quickly produced action to meet the urgency of journalistic work and spectacular actions to satisfy the audience requirement).

In the sociology of social movements, the notion of success (and failure) raises many difficulties of definition and method (Giugni, 1998). Success can be defined in three different ways: procedural success (the movement is recognised as a legitimate interlocutor by public authorities), substantial success (the movement obtains a change in law or public policies) or structural success (the movement succeeds in changing the context in which it operates, for example by bringing down a government) (Kitschelt, 1986). If we take these three definitions of success, then the Disobedients are failing in the vast majority of projects they undertake. However, as I have repeatedly said that media coverage contributes to the success of protests. We must understand success here in a fourth sense: in the eyes of the actors, an action of civil disobedience is seen as a success when it attracts the attention of the media, and is therefore brought to the attention of the general public. Success is therefore synonymous with public visibility and, in particular, media visibility.

At first glance, the presence of the media is therefore a service to the Disobedients, since it allows their cause to gain visibility. But the interactions between journalists and activists are more complex than they appear. To account for this complexity, Erik Neveu proposed the concept of ‘associate-rivals’ (1999, p. 39), emphasising that the interests of one and the other can conflict. This point is also underlined by Sarah Sobieraj (2011, pp. 68–105) about activism in the United States. In the case of the Disobedients, this contradiction manifests itself in the internal structuring of the organisation. While activists profess a decidedly egalitarian ideal, praising ‘direct democracy’ and the ‘network’, the work of journalists is facilitated by the existence of a leader. In a circular fashion, the media presence promotes the leader's ascension.

A preliminary clarification is necessary, the asymmetries of power between the members of the Disobedients do not proceed from a hypothetical iron law of oligarchy (Michels, 1971/1914) but are the result – temporary and unstable – of multiple factors, such as the unequal distribution of militant capital and seniority, the pervasiveness of gender and age domination in relationships, the professionalisation of activism – employees are subordinate to their employer, Xavier – and, finally, the media coverage of the actions of civil disobedience carried out by the collective. These different factors interact and there would be no sense in trying to disentangle them. Consequently, if the analysis provided here intends to show how media coverage contributes to verticalising the activist space, this does not mean that the weight of the media is the only vector of verticalization, nor that it is the most determinant.

Having made this clarification, my study is content to show how the media coverage of the organisation contributes to its verticalization. By focusing their attention on the de facto leader, journalists elevate him above the rest of the group. In addition, media coverage promotes the process of the professionalisation of activism and therefore a gap between employees and volunteers.

Media constraints strongly shape the repertoire of protest actions. But these constraints also weigh on the internal structure of organisations. Relations between activists are affected by the propensity to publicise their actions. In particular, the presence of journalists helps to ‘certify’ the leaders of the movement and brings them to stardom (Gitlin, 1980). This point is particularly salient in the case of the Disobedients, where the media coverage promotes a leader with a vocation to embody the organisation. ‘Xavier Renou is the Disobedients’, repeat supporters of the collective.

In an interview, a 22-year-old activist, a student at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, observed that ‘the deepest problem is that the media only contact Xavier. They don't want to have someone else’. I ask him if the logic is to bring out a good speaker and he replies: ‘That's exactly it’. Suddenly, I even think that Xavier can do nothing about it, except to withdraw completely, as Besancenot did to the NPA.² Journalists focus on the personhood of the leader. A journalist from Le Monde said in an interview:

Like the ‘circular circulation of information’ (Bourdieu, 1996, p. 22), the media notoriety of an individual increases exponentially: an activist already solicited by certain journalists is immediately deemed worthy of interest by the rest of the profession.

Even more explicitly, the director of a 52-minute documentary on civil disobedience broadcast on the television channel La chaine parlementaire, says:

Also during our interview, a few minutes later, the director clarified his thoughts: ‘The problem of the Disobedients is that the leader has a speech that is clear, clean and square, but for example, during the actions against the famous Round Up [Monsanto pesticide³], the speech of most people who participated in this kind of demonstration is clearly limited. Politically I don't mean to say that they are leftovers, but that is not far from it. I weigh my words and I assume’. I ask him what he means by ‘political leftovers’. He sarcastically mimics his discussions with the activists: Benoît, the journalist from Le Monde, went further, saying of Xavier: His caring, sympathetic, amiable and cultivated attitude is emphasised in all of the articles devoted to him by the print media. It is a testament to the personal closeness between Xavier and the journalists who follow him. In a forty-page brochure he wrote on how to recruit new activists, Xavier advises members of the Disobedients to maintain ‘a close and friendly relationship’ with journalists. This friendship goes beyond the mere convergence of political opinions. It stems from a social affinity. Xavier talks to journalists, calls them by their first names and invites them to dinner. They share the same language, the same qualifications, the same attitudes and the same cultural references.

The proximity between his social dispositions and those of journalists makes him more desirable than other members of the organisation. The chances of entering the media field are unevenly distributed. As Patrick Champagne underlines, ‘there is not a space which would be open to all those who want it, but agents who decide, according to the specific operating laws of the journalistic field, what deserves or not to be carried to the knowledge of audiences’ (Champagne, 2004, p. 243). What deserves to be included in this field refers to topical issues, social movements (Gans, 1979; Tuchman, 1978), but also individuals. Thus, it is clear that, de facto, certain categories of the population enter into the journalistic field less easily than others. As a result, the organisation’s media coverage focuses on one of its members, the best endowed with capital. As Lilian Mathieu notes,

This notoriety is accompanied by an invisibilization of the tasks performed by other activists. One of them, present in the group for a year and a half, remarks on this during our interview: In 2010, the notoriety of the leader produced the collective departure of a dozen activists, overwhelmed by this ‘excessive personalization’, to use the expression employed by one of the activists who left during an interview (Marion, 30 years old, mathematics teacher, member of the Disobedients between 2008 and 2010). During my fieldwork, several activists voiced recurring criticism of the excessive importance their collective places on the media. For example, when writing a leaflet, the first line reads: ‘The Disobedients offer training courses to learn how to best manage the media’. An activist sent an e-mail to the rest of the hard core with a request to withdraw this passage, justifying the e-mail by saying: ‘We feel the influence of Xavier, who proposes actions according to the Greenpeace method, therefore necessarily media actions. Perhaps we could also invent other forms of action?’.

Beyond the thorny question of the leader, the media coverage of the organisation is a vector for the professionalisation of activism. The presence of cameras requires the organisation to show professionalism. The ‘amateur posture is no longer sufficient’, remarks Sylvie Ollitrault (1999, p. 177). To prepare the logistics of actions, guarantee their success, write press releases and ensure everyone's safety, the leader decides, from January 2013, to pay 8 of the 20 hard-core members, who work on average about ten hours per week for the Disobedients. The money for this salary comes from registration fees for training courses in non-violent action organised by the Disobedients, as well as products (books, T-shirts, DVDs) that they market on their website. Employee compensation is intended to slow the departures, which were numerous in the previous year. Xavier Renou considers that paying activists makes it possible to slow down their disengagement (Fillieule, 2005), which weakens the ‘human resources’ of the organisation. But the organisation does not have the resources to pay everyone. According to criteria not explained to the rest of the group, Xavier therefore decides to pay eight activists. The recourse to salaried work coincides with the appearance of a gap between salaried members and volunteer members. The former are called upon by their employer to participate in certain decision-making tasks while the latter remain confined to subordinate functions. Moreover, the salary allows those who benefit from it to devote more time to the organisation. In doing so, they acquire a surplus of information, legitimacy and authority. In July 2013, six months after the introduction of the wage system, the homogeneity of the hard core is broken. The activists are now split into two groups. Employees have their voice in the choice of actions, demands, and slogans. On the other hand, the advice of volunteers is rarely taken into account. They are relegated to logistical tasks, such as making signs, transporting equipment or tidying up the premises.

The media coverage of activism also strongly favours its personalisation. The penetration of media logics into the activist space confers more visibility, speaking time and therefore power onto the spokesperson than on other activists. It is for this reason that some activists are wary of their movement’s media coverage. Hugo, the director of the documentary La chaine parlementaire, interviewed members of the Brigade Activistes des Clowns (BAC) – another civil disobedience collective, which frequently collaborates with the Disobedients – and the occupants of the Zone to Defend (ZAD) of Notre-Dame-des-Landes who oppose an airport project. In both cases, he was faced with the same refusal. In an annoyed tone, he recounts these episodes to me in these terms:

Hugo, who nevertheless defines himself as an ‘anarchist’, does not understand the reluctance of these activists to bring out a figure. His anarchist sensibility here gives way to the demands of his profession as a journalist. Therefore, he excluded the Brigade Activiste des Clowns entirely from his documentary, and he said he would never again work with the ZAD again. On the other hand, a pyramidal organisation suits him more and, by his presence, the director encourages this type of operation. This is precisely what happened with the Disobedients. The existence of a competent and identified ‘chief’ (this is the French term – ‘chef’ – Hugo uses to designate Xavier) facilitates his work: to film the action, he only needs to obtain the authorisation of the leader, and to obtain good images, he knows straight away that he can count on Xavier.

By favouring the figure of Xavier, the media leads him towards embodying the organisation. His name and that of ‘his’ collective gradually become synonymous with one another. ‘This is my baby, we can’t deny it,’ said Xavier Renou in an interview. The other activists are relegated to anonymity. The leader participates in this personalisation process by holding a monopoly on visibility. During each act of disobedience, he immediately assumes the role of spokesperson while the other tasks are distributed following a collective discussion. When, exceptionally, other activists are interviewed, Xavier points out to them what is wrong: twitches in language, errors in argument, awkward attitudes, etc. For example, during a demonstration against a conference devoted to GMOs, Xavier criticised an activist who had just spoken with a journalist for giving answers that were too long for television. Another time, he criticised an activist for using terms that were too technical. These remarks are ambiguous: they are both advice for advancing and critiques participating in a process of inferiorization.

Xavier assumes this ‘hyper mediatization’ (the term he uses during our interview). Journalists ‘are in a hurry’, he writes in a public brochure, and ‘they need good clients, that is to say famous or likeable personalities, with which the viewer / reader / listener will be able to identify And who speaks clearly’. He adds that the function of a spokesperson must be fulfilled by the most politically competent and by the most skilled in front of the cameras; which, de facto, means it has to come back to him. ‘For all questions which are a little more specific, he writes, the activists refer the journalist to the spokesperson who is the most knowledgeable on the subject’.

The media coverage of the leader confers on him several symbolic and pecuniary privileges (Gaxie, 1977, pp. 126–139), which accentuate the internal hierarchy of the organisation. In terms of symbolic rewards, this position brings social recognition. Xavier Renou is aware of these effects. During an interview with an activist magazine, the interviewer asked him: ‘What did you expect from this portrait in Le Figaro?’. Xavier replies:

In order for his organisation to climb up the agenda of political authorities (Garraud, 2010; McCombs & Shaw, 1972), the leader therefore promotes media coverage from which he reaps most of the benefits.

Beyond the symbolic benefits, the rewards linked to the media field can be of an economic nature. In an interview, Xavier said:

Xavier criticises them for having poorly promoted and sold his book. This is how the Désobéir collection was born, which currently comprises fifteen titles. ‘Then after that, there were lots of other publishers, and I was no longer available’.

Thanks to his Manual (republished by Le Passager clandestin after having been exhausted by the Syllepses editions) and his position as collection director, Xavier Renou receives around 4,000 euros per year. This sum, which comes to him for personal use, pays for his personal work. But it is interesting to note that initially the opportunity to publish came from the media coverage of the collective. As this media coverage focuses on Xavier as a spokesperson, it is he who is personally approached by the publishing houses. A collective militant capital (objectified in the actions carried out by the group and the effects produced by these actions) is thus transformed into media capital which is half-individual (Xavier Renou is on television and makes a name for himself) half-collective (he intervenes in the media in the name of the Disobedients, who gain visibility through the figure of their spokesperson). Secondly, this half-individual, half-collective media capital becomes strictly individual economic capital since, following his television appearance, Xavier alone was solicited by several editors, who allowed him to become the author (of the Manual) and collection director (at Le Passager clandestin), and to receive income related to these functions. This remuneration corresponds to his personal work (writing texts, selecting book projects, rereading and correcting them, etc.) but it is only possible thanks to the initial collective militant capital, subsequently personally monopolised and converted into media capital then into economic capital.

As a spokesperson for the Disobedients, Xavier is also regularly invited abroad (Italy, Germany, South Africa, etc.), where he gives lectures, sometimes paid. Thus, for the leader, the symbolic (notoriety, various requests) and material (income, travel) rewards generated by the media coverage of his organisation are numerous.

The close correlation between media coverage and personalisation has been demonstrated in the political arena (Davis & Seymour, 2014). ‘Theatricalization thus logically accompanies personalization. Politics is increasingly akin to a spectacle in the sense that it is reduced to a game of actors’ (Darras, 2008, p. 158). The case of the Disobedients suggests that the same correlation applies to social movements. Media constraints shape the nature of internal relations in an activist organisation. By socially and economically promoting certain activists rather than others, these logics help to make them leaders within their own organisation. Xavier's case is exemplary in this respect.

Unknown in 2007, he took up the role of spokesperson from the first demonstration held by the Disobedients, in November of the same year. On this occasion, he was not elected by the other activists and did not have any formal mandate. He acted as a spokesperson because, when the moment for choosing someone to speak to journalists arrived, he was the only one to volunteer. Thereafter, he never left this role and, gradually, he monopolised almost all of the media attention generated by the collective. ‘By the selection that they operate – all the more easily as a movement is poorly structured and centralised – on the interlocutors invited for a debate, journalists have a margin of action in the selection of leaders’, notes Erik Neveu. By way of example, he adds: ‘Even though he no longer held any mandate there, José Bové remained designated on television screens as ‘spokesperson for the Peasant Confederation “ … to the point that the latter reinstates him in his office in the hope of controlling him”’ (Neveu, 2010, pp. 249–250).

Xavier Renou's situation differs from that of José Bové in one important way. Both are promoted spokesperson less by the will of their militant partners than by that of journalists. On the other hand, while José Bové was reinstated in the leadership of the Confederation so that the agricultural union could better control its spokesperson, Xavier's power is denied by his own principals, he firmly refuses to recognise his role as leader, and he writes – in his Manual – that his organisation constitutes ‘a republic of equals’. Adhering to an ideal of ‘self-government’ and ‘direct democracy’, the other activists also deny that Xavier is the leader, despite his monopolisation of control over the website, the treasury, the writing of books and especially the agenda. The term ‘leader’ is taboo. It names an unspeakable reality: the unequal distribution of power between militants. However, the obfuscation of the domination of the leader contributes to its reinforcement. Because Xavier is not identified as a leader, the group deprives itself of the means to control him. They cannot hold him to account, since he is an activist ‘like the others’ and that, therefore, he is no more responsible for the state of affairs than any other grassroots activist. As Jo Freeman has argued in the case of the American feminist movement, a leader who is not clearly identified is particularly difficult to control (Freeman, 1972).

With this in mind, the role of the media is ambiguous. On the one hand, by focusing on Xavier, journalists reinforce his dominance. But, on the other hand, journalists mobilise interpretive frameworks (Snow, Rochford, Worden, & Benford, 1986) that reveal Xavier's real role. In fact, 58 of the 80 press articles analyzed (i.e. 73%) present Xavier as ‘leader’, ‘spokesperson’, ‘manager’ or ‘animator’ of the Disobedients. These qualifiers annoy Xavier, as they make visible his domination, which he tries to conceal. The case of the article on him published in Le Monde in 2010 is symptomatic. The article is titled: ‘Xavier Renou, Leader of the Disobedient’. As soon as the article appeared on Le Monde’s website, Xavier republished it on the collective's website, in the ‘They are talking about us’ section. But he accompanied the article with the following addition: ‘Note from the Disobedients: There is no “leader” among the Disobedients, this article does not really represent us’.

How does the collective react to such personalisation? The reactions are ambivalent. On the one hand, the members of the collective are satisfied to see that their efforts are being publicised. Their causes are thus brought to the attention of the general public. On the other hand, activists are aware that this media coverage is focused on their leader, and they regret it. Personalisation goes against their democratic and egalitarian values. The most severe criticisms come from the oldest activists of the collective. Young activists by contrast tend to be more tolerant of this personalisation, especially as many join the Disobedients under the spell of the leader. There is an element of charismatic domination at play here. As Max Weber has shown, charisma crumbles and becomes routine over time. But the criticisms of personalisation lead more to exit than to voice, to speak like Albert Hirschman. The leader is good at recruiting. He therefore easily replaces departures with new arrivals. And when I ask new activists how they got to know the Disobedients, almost half say ‘in the media’. The media coverage of the collective therefore does not decrease or increase the number of activists. It is above all the source of a high turnover.

We have to keep in mind that the phenomena studied in this article are located in the French context. Several elements seem specific to this national context. Indeed, analysing a set of 220 U.S. and international newspaper, Michael Boyle, Douglas McLeod and Cory Armstrong (2012) have shown that news coverage of protest groups that challenge the status quo treats them relatively critically. This research also shows that the group’s tactics (more than its goals) play a substantial role in affecting coverage. Carrying out theatrical, humorous and non-violent actions can partly explain why the Disobedients are well received by journalists. The ‘protest paradigm’ – the tendency for media to marginalise movements by drawing attention away from core concerns raised by such movements – has also been challenged by the emergence of cable TV (Weaver & Scacco, 2013). In the case of the Disobedients, it is remarkable that the major television channels (public and private, cable and satellite) provide positive coverage for their actions. This result confirms the observations made about the Indignados of Greece and Spain (Kyriakidou & Osuna, 2017): the media coverage of these protests adopted a more positive tone than what has been found by the ‘protest paradigm’, including the individual voices of the protesters and covering the performative aspects of the movement in positive terms. But, for the Greek and Spanish Indignados as for the French Disobedients, the protests were mainly reported as a mere expression of disaffection against the established order rather than as offering a solid alternative political project. In most television reports and press articles devoted to the Disobedients, this collective was presented sympathetically, but also as being essentially harmless.

However, certain trends observed here in the French context are also found in the Spanish context. The importance given to the ‘choreography’ of action is common to the 2011 demonstrators of Puerta del Sol in Madrid (Gerbaudo, 2012) and to French civil disobedience. The emergence of informal leaders and the tyranny of structurelessness is another common point between these two protests. Last but not least, a similar trend towards personalisation can be identified in the case of Podemos (Casero-Ripollès, Sintes-Olivella, & Franch, 2017) and the Disobedients. But there is a difference: in Podemos, this personalisation has been a strategic collective choice made in the 2014 congress of Vistalegre I, whereas for the Disobedients, the personalisation has never been explicitly discussed. As I tried to show in this article, the personalisation of the organisation ‘just happened’. We have every reason to think that these dynamics are not limited only to the French and Spanish cases either.

Another interesting singularity of the case of the Disobedient is the little importance given to social media networks. Most of the new social movements (occupations of public squares, civil disobedience, colour revolutions) have intensive recourse to Twitter and Facebook. During my study (October 2012–March 2014) the collective I studied did not have a Twitter account. They had a Facebook account, the password of which was held by the leader. But this account was largely inactive. This ‘anomaly’ is explained by the fact that, in the eyes of the founder of the collective, television constitutes the main channel of information for citizens, as he told me during the interview, when I asked him the question.

Media coverage of the Disobedients has important links with its internal structure. By investing in a strategy of media ubiquity, the Disobedients are developing logics of verticalization that enshrine the domination of the leader over the rest of the group and of the employees over the volunteers. Media coverage also reinforces the personalisation of the organisation. By focusing their attention on an activist – the best endowed with academic and cultural capital – journalists contribute to the emergence of a permanent spokesperson. Several individual privileges and rewards accompany this dominant position.

From this research, finally emerge several contributions for the sociological study of the relationship between media and contentious politics: theatricalisation of the repertoire of action; circular logic of leadership personalisation; disqualification of activists least able to respond to media requests; monopolisation of awards; strengthening of the militant division of labour; counterproductive effects of speech on acephaly; personal success ultimately due to collective work; contribution of press articles to the unveiling of the leader's domination.

During my two years of observation, no one has openly questioned this situation. The lack of open criticism can be explained by several factors. First, decisions are never taken in meetings. The Disobedients meet only to prepare for acts of civil disobedience and to take action. Second, the workers of the movement, often precarious young people, have no interest in questioning the authority of the leader. They depend on his will. As for those who are new to activism, they are generally under the spell of the leader, who exercises a sort of charismatic dominance. Finally, for activists unhappy with personalisation, it is easier to leave the Disobedients and go campaign elsewhere, than it is to try to change the situation from within.

What is the role of this paper for the collective it analyses? The analysis developed in this article were also present in the doctoral thesis that I defended in 2014. As had been agreed from the start with the respondents, I sent them my manuscript and I offered to discuss it. All the members of the hard core of the Disobedients therefore received the final text. Most of them never reacted. Only two wanted to discuss it. One of these two individuals told me, in summary: ‘Thank you for putting my feelings into words. I left the collective and you describe well the reasons which explain my departure’. The second person told me that she had learned a lot about her own organisation, and asked me for advice to improve the functioning of this collective. I suggested to organise formal and regular meetings in order to collectively make the necessary decisions, and to set up a rotation of tasks, concerning in particular the role of spokesperson. The last person is Xavier Renou. He never reacted to my text. But we ran into each other by chance two years later and he told me, laconically, that he had found my work interesting. In fact, I’m not sure he read it. This is ultimately my main astonishment. We often believe, as sociologists, that respondents will rush to what we have written about them. However, in reality, in my case, they attach little importance to it.

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).