The televisual framing of organ transplantations in France, from the 1960s to the 1980s

Résumé En

Since the first successful human organ transplants of the late 60s, television in France has represented a means of publicizing and then popularizing a surgical operation that is not self-evident in scientific terms or in terms of social acceptance. This paper intends to show how the televisual narrative on organ transplant in France has been constructed through time and how contextual elements may have affected it in the 60s up to the 80s. It describes the four periods that organ transplant went through on screen. It then focuses on the main "actors" of the French televisual narrative: the surgeon, the patient, the donor and, later on, the organs, and the part they played in the construction of a public image of organ transplantation. The conclusion shows that these elements are stable over time and underlines the shortcomings of this televisual narrative. The research is part of the ERC programme “The healthy self as body capital: Individuals, market-based societies and body politic in visual twentieth century Europe” (https://bodycapital.unistra.fr/), and is based on an analysis of the archives of the Institut national de l’audiovisuel (INA).