Jean-Noël Jeanneney


Jean-Noël Jeanneney is a French historian and politician, born on 2 April 1942 in Grenoble. He is the son of Jean-Marcel Jeanneney and the grandson of Jules Jeanneney, both important figures in French politics.

Education

After his secondary schooling in Grenoble, Jeanneney studied in Paris. Beginning at the rue d'Ulm campus of the École Normale Supérieure, he later studied at the Institut d'études politiques de Paris . He earned his doctorate in letters and passed his agrégation in history.

Media studies

Jeanneney specialized in media history, an area which he helped pioneer. He took interest in the evolution of print media, of radio, and of television. He taught at the until 1977. He was also named maître de conférences, and then, in 1979, professeur des universités at the IEP. It was there that he oversaw research on the history of the press.

Involvement in radio and television

Jeanneney subsequently changed his focus, from external study to actual participation in mass media. Specifically, he was president and general manager of Radio France from 1982 to 1986 and afterwards worked in television, in particular for a history channel on cable television.

Political career

In politics, Jeanneney is very close to the Socialist Party.
With Élisabeth Guigou, he has been co-president of the think tank Europartenaires since 1998.

President of the National Library of France

From 2002 to 2007, Jeanneney was president of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. In this capacity, he was noted for his opposition to Google Book Search. Since making his objections known, he has been looking to develop a European digitization program to be run by governmental authorities.

Published works

Jean-Noël Jeanneney has published works on media history, other works of history, and essays on various subjects. He has written prefaces for several works, which are not included on the list.