![]() I was able to search these archives with the online database, the Inathèque. These sources were all collected in the archives of the French National Audio-visual Institute ( Institut National de l’Audiovisuel, INA), which holds archived television programmes from 1945. These are in effect the three main routes through which discourses circulated and influenced the progress and outcome of the case. ![]() The main corpus of sources for this study comprises daily news broadcasts, ads for hygiene and beauty products and tele-magazines. Over the 1972–1981 period, several narratives on the case were mediated on television, and I have studied the combined effect of the circulation of these narratives. Through what televisual channels did the mediatisation operate? What was the chronology? What was the interaction between the televisual coverage and the actual proceedings of the case between 19? In this article I consider the nature, effects and evolutions of the televised mediatisation of the Morhange baby powder case. With the first channel’s evening news attracting 17 million viewers in 1972, many of whom were female consumers, the television coverage of the Morhange baby powder case became a salient phenomenon of the 1972–1981 decade, providing an excellent case study of the impact of media productions on current affairs. 7 Concurrently, some tele-magazines and news broadcasts adopted a different discourse to discuss the marketing of these products. Since 1968, television was a key medium for the advertisement of hygiene and toiletry products, such as deodorant, toothpaste and personal care products in the same category as talcum powders. Television would play a key role in how it unfolded, granting coherence to the media movement that brought the case to the public eye. The Morhange baby powder case and its television coverage emerged in this context in August 1972. 6 In the 1970s, the workings and configuration of this industry were still little known. 5 The cosmetics industry played a key part in this, largely due to its economic vitality, yielding 3.5 billion Francs in profits in 1972 and supplying 40,000 jobs in France. 4 Consumption was a core concern of the political and economic policies initiated with the country’s fifth and sixth Plans. 3 The population had extended access to goods and services and citizens were becoming “consumer-citizens”. 2 Talcum powders have been sold over the counter in pharmacies and supermarkets for well over a century, with no monitoring by public authorities.īy 1972, France was embracing mass consumption socially, economically, politically and culturally. ![]() In his book about the global beauty industry, historian Geoffrey Jones connects the nationwide scandal sparked by the Morhange baby powder case with the emergence of consumer movements. In terms of French health disasters, the Baumol case case is not as well documented or recalled as the Morhange one, even though Baumol resulted in twice as many deaths as Morhange. The powder had been accidentally mixed with very high doses of arsenic during the manufacturing process. Baumol baby powder, singled out in Annick Le Douget’s work as “France’s first health disaster”, 1 caused the death of 80 children in 1952. ![]() In comparison to other scandals, like the case of Baumol baby powder, television coverage played a key role. This tragic event introduced a new term to the economic and political equation of the time, namely, the health risks associated with mass consumption. In some cases, the doses of hexachlorophene were six times above what adults were estimated to tolerate. Morhange baby powder was quickly identified as the cause of death after an investigation by the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM). A batch of contaminated talcum powder was sold in the north of France, resulting in the deaths of 36 children within a few months. A barrel of hexachlorophene, a powerful anti-bacterial agent, was accidentally mixed with talc at the Setico factory, in Aulnay-sous-Bois. The baby powder scandal began in 1972 as a result of a manufacturing error. ![]() The Morhange laboratory, a company specialising in perfume and toiletries, had sold baby talcum powder since the mid 1950s. This article examines the impact of the television coverage of the Morhange talcum powder scandal between 19 in France. ![]()
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