Participating to Go beyond Employee Status: Journalists Seeking Independence

Journalists form a salaried professional group while on the grounds of their contribution to democracy demanding autonomy in their daily activities. In order to resolve this ambivalence, journalists asked to be involved in defining the editorial stance and strategic priorities of their companies. The aim of this article is to show how participatory processes can be used by these employees to go beyond the very conditions of their employee status, by giving them control over their work and their companies to guarantee their independence. The relative failure of these participatory processes information producing companies highlights the contradictions of independent salaried employee status. (C) 2015 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.