22/05/2026
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Early History of a Francophone Bi-Science
“Information and Communication Sciences”
and its Society in France
Yves-François Le Coadic
ABSTRACT
As new academic disciplines, information and communication sciences, like any new discipline, have faced
difficulties integrating into the broader scientific community. In France, they have ultimately settled into the
category of interdisciplinary fields. Their binary structure — information science and communication
science—has proven to be somewhat unequal. The scientific community and the journal that represents
them also reflect this perception.
Journal: Boston Research Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities
Keywords: NA
Accepted: 19 March 2026
Published: 22 May 2026
ISSN: Online ISSN: 2834-4863 | Print ISSN: 2834-4855
Language: English
Research ID: 9b7fc850-7280-4f56-a5e7-8513728bee2c
Type: Peer-Reviewed Research Article (Open Access)
The authors declare that no competing interests exist. The authors contributed equally to this work.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License as an open-access article.
CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Read Online: https://rebrand.ly/e4otthr
Author: δ - Honorary professor of information science - CNAM - Paris | [email protected]
I. INTRODUCTION
In the seventies, in their academic expression,
information and communication sciences were
classified by the French Ministry of Education, for
the purposes of recruiting and promoting
academics, within the Humanities group of the
National Council of Universities (CNU). Information
and communication thus became, on the margins
of the humanities, two still somewhat vague
concepts, predominantly physical and social
sciences. Despite a bleak past in the camps of
Political oppression exercised by the French
Ministry of Information (sic) until 1974 and in those
of the psychoanalytic diktats of communication
gurus, the new potentials held by these concepts
were beginning to be perceived.
They relied on the formidable rise of media
and information databases, a new field of
application for computer science and
telecommunications. But an academic discipline
encompassing them found little favor with literary
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Early History of a Francophone Bi-Science “Information and Communication Sciences” and its Society in France 15
Boston Research Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities . Volume 6 . Issue 2
specialists and little place among the traditional
disciplines. In 1982, thanks to the political upheaval
brought about by progressive forces, academic
disciplines were also shaken. And alongside the
monolithic blocks of traditional, less open-minded
disciplines (Cf. hierarchy of sciences of the
philosopher Auguste COMTE), the new group of
interdisciplinary disciplines emerged. It was within
this group that we managed to place “information
and communication sciences” alongside “education
and training sciences”, “epistemology and history of
science and technology”, “regional cultures and
languages”, and “sciences and techniques of
physical and sporting activities”. “Scandal!”
exclaimed some. And it took the tenacity of the
Ministry of Education to calm everyone, angry at
having to leave the fold of the Humanities. But it
was not possible to create, as is customary in other
academic departments, a sub-section of
information science and a sub-section of
communication science that would have taken into
account the specific nature of the two fields. The
quantitative dominance exerted by communication
professionals and the scientific invisibility of
documentation professionals prevented a balanced
development of activities in information science. It
is worth recalling, for example, that within the
French Society for Information and Communication
Sciences (SFSIC), during national congresses,
information science was allotted a brief session at
the end of the congress, valiantly organized by the
head of the cancer information database,
"Cancernet." The dual statute of the discipline “
Information and Communication Sciences (SIC)” is
therefore an anomaly in the global scientific
landscape. Everywhere else, and especially in the
English-speaking world, information science and
communication science are distinct.
II. RESEARCH
Thus, it is the "info-com" specialists, experts
in communication, who have dominated and
continue to dominate the field. The "info-doc"
specialists, experts in information systems and
documentation, have received little attention,
probably due to their decidedly professional and
less scientific approach. Consequently, the creation
of the Info-Doc master's programs in 1990 did not
generate much enthusiasm within the Info-Com
community. It took the proactive policy of the
Ministry of Education to stimulate, within the
framework of research programs, the creation of
research teams, the organization of summer
schools and Anglo-French forums in information
science, the support for the organization of
conferences, and the launch in 1985 of the first
electronic journal in information science, the
“Journal-Revue de Science de l’information”.
“Info-Com” studies benefited from the aura
of a number of gurus and the vogue for
“communication.” These were philosophers, political
scientists, sociologists, economists, etc., who were
highly visible in the media and carried a strong
ideological weight
1 In a prolific body of work,
ranging in quality from popular science books to
scholarly articles, one can observe the
epistemological contortions of those who advocate
combining the words "Info" and "Com." For example,
those who suggested that it was appropriate to
henceforth use the phrase
"Information-Communication" with a dash (-) and
not a hyphen (—). What an audacious
conceptualization of the epistemological status of
the concept info-com! Ten years later, they still
lamented that the use of the hyphen was far from
widespread, the confusion with the hyphen
persisting. Other contortions of sociologists lacking
technical expertise and fearful of communication
technologies include those concerning "social use,"
a redundant concept, a pretext for verbose
literature. Why not simply "use"? Since use is always
a social construct, as they themselves
acknowledge.
III. TRAINING
What about professional training in both
sectors? Librarian and information specialist
training remained very traditional. Let's not forget
that the librarian is called a “conservateur”.
Information science has little influence, as it was
ignored by educational leaders, who were first
trained in cataloging at an old school named ENSB
(Ecole Nationale des Bibliothèques). We
encountered some lengthy difficulties in
1 The National Council of Universities decides
on individual measures relating to the qualification,
recruitment, and career of university professors and
lecturers. The elections of its members are held on
union lists strongly politicized on the left
(SNESUP-FSU, SGEN-CFDT) and on the right
(INTERSYNDICALE SUP’RECHERCHE, Qualité de la
Science Française). In addition, there are members
appointed by the government.
16
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Early History of a Francophone Bi-Science “Information and Communication Sciences” and its Society in France
Boston Research Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities . Volume 6 . Issue 2
incorporating information science (SI) into its name
and curriculum. From ENSB, it became ENSSIB, the
National School of Information Science and
Libraries. In France, libraries, documentation
centers, and museums are still not as well-regarded
for their accessibility as Anglo-Saxon libraries and
museums (perhaps a lingering memory of the
nightmarish library in "The Name of the Rose" by
Umberto Eco). As for journalism training, fourteen
programs are recognized by the profession. Their
model is quite technical, “the medium is the
message,” and the theoretical component is too
limited.
IV. LEARNED SOCIETY
Let's now leave the academic sphere and turn
our attention to the learned society that represents
information and communication sciences: the
French Society for Information and Communication
Sciences (SFSIC). Founded in France in the 1970s by
three academics, it aimed to represent this new
scientific field within the Humanities. Since 1974, it
has brought together those involved in teaching
and research in Information and Communication
Sciences (SIC). As an association and learned
society, it supports and promotes the work of this
scientific community through its scientific events,
publications, and its support for initiatives
developed within the disciplines of Information
Science and Communication Science.
While admittedly very literary in its early
days, it was also quite conservative. The highly
militaristic hierarchy of the academic ranks, some
first-class, others second-class, was replicated
identically in the learned society. At the annual
congress, the elections of the Society's officers
were conducted according to this framework.
Hence, the astonishment of new members, such as
those from disciplines where scientific democracy
was practiced and where scientific expertise
transcended hierarchical barriers. This provided a
striking example of the university mandarin-like
disciplines still at work in the French academic
world. And at work also in an institute like CELSA
and, of course, in the CNU (National Council of
Universities), both headed, in the eighties, by a
reserve officer.
The congresses were the Society's primary
scientific activity. Since 1978, eighteen congresses
have been held. Being francophone and therefore
regional, their international impact has remained
limited. The Society also published, for many years,
since 1978, a newsletter, “La Lettre d’inforcom,”
which has since become “Les Cahiers de la SFSIC.”
Before finally launching, in 2012, 34 years after its
founding moments, a scientific journal, the “Revue
Française des Sciences de l’Information et de la
Communication,” in French. A small, regional journal,
like the science of the same name.
V. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, in France, no major information
science, no major communication science, no
international journal in information science, and no
International Journal of Communication Science. But
rather, “provincial” sciences and a “provincial”
journal, as Eugene Garfield, president of the
“Institute for Scientific Information,” pointed out in
1976 in the journal “La Recherche,” in a provocative
article concerning French science, “Is French
Science Too Provincial?”
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Early History of a Francophone Bi-Science “Information and Communication Sciences” and its Society in France 17
Boston Research Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities . Volume 6 . Issue 2
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© Copyright 2026 Boston Research Journals
Early History of a Francophone Bi-Science “Information and Communication Sciences” and its Society in France
As new academic disciplines, information and communication sciences, like any new discipline, have faced difficulties integrating into the broader scientific community. In France, they have ultimately settled into the category of interdisciplinary fields. Their binary structure—information science...
