Translation in new independent online media: the case of Mediapart

ABSTRACT

This paper sets out to investigate the role that translation plays in new independent online media. These emerging forms of online journalism function in a communicative framework that is very different from traditional news media. The new online media encourage horizontal structures of plurality and democratic participation involving a new configuration of public space and communication. The implications of all of these transformations impact the role that translation has in the constant reshaping of global communication. This paper examines the case of Mediapart, an independent French online news medium and a prime example of these emerging forms of journalism. The site offers an English edition as well as a Spanish edition, Mediapart English and Mediapart Español, to facilitate the traffic of their news stories across these languages and cultures. This implies adapting to the informative circumstances demanded by the new relationship between the press and the public. These circumstances, which are not just limited to the cultural resistance that hinders intercultural understanding in journalistic translation, force these multilingual platforms to combine translation with other strategies to succeed in the new public space of online communication.

KEYWORDS:

• Journalistic translation
• news translation
• Mediapart
• communication
• independent online media

Notes on contributor

María José Hernández Guerrero is tenured lecturer in Translation Studies at the University of Málaga, Spain. She has worked as editor of TRANS: Revista de Traductología and as Co-Director of the Master’s degree in Traducción para el Mundo Editorial (Translation within publishing). Her studies focus on journalistic translation and literary translation. Among many other works, she is the author of Marcel Schowb: Escritor y traductor (Alfar, 2002) and Traducción y periodismo (Peter Lang, 2009), as well as co-editor of La traducción periodística (Un. de Castilla La Mancha, 2005) and La traducción, factor de cambio (Peter Lang, 2008).

ORCiD

María José Hernández Guerrero http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1099-0602