ABSTRACT
For over a century intellectuals have formed an integral part of French culture. Because of the nature of French political culture, intellectuals and their activities are so bound up with the country’s history that an explanation of this context is essential to an understanding of why intellectual culture is like it is today. Until the late 1970s, intellectual culture was based almost entirely on the written word. With the arrival of the mass medium of television, there was a gradual shift away from cultural practices based on the written word, a process analyzed by Regis Debray, a leading contemporary intellectual. Over the last 20 years, in France as elsewhere the impact of the ’new’ media, television, videos, satellites and now the Internet, on the production and dissemination of information and culture has radically changed the market conditions in which intellectuals operate.
