Working climates in the media industry

Around the world, there are millions of media industry practitioners responsible for billions of pieces of communication. Many are paid, some are not. Some work from home, some work from an office, some work on the road. So while there are literally countless pieces of communication being produced in this industry, it would be illogical to argue that they are all created in the same conditions and the same working climates.

First, we must consider what ‘working conditions’ actually involve. It can be argued that every single circumstance, occurrence or action that happens in a workplace is a result of ‘working conditions’, but for the purposes of this exploration of working conditions in the media and communication industries, particular focus will be given to the “the jobs…the tasks…the physical, social and mental workloads and the organisational contexts under which the job has to be performed”(1). This definition can be applied internationally, as public relations is a fairly standardised industry across the globe.

One of the key working conditions in the industry, relating to the “organisational contexts”(1) cited by the Encyclopedia of Public Health, is the idea of teamwork. As Deuze points out, media workers are forced to “develop all kinds of tactics and strategies to counter the precarity embedded in their work styles” that is a result of the “continuing layoffs across all media industries”(2). One of the most important and successful tactics according to Deuze is the formation of informal ‘semi-permanent work groups’, or SPWGs, that tend to work together on projects for a period of time before moving on. This definition can include small groups of individuals, or global networks of companies, banding together to hold firm in the face of financial adversity in the media industry.

The reason for this, he argues, is that “society certainly seems much more dynamic than it used to be”(3). With the changing landscape of the world — Deuze uses the mobile phone to exemplify the significant changes the world sees on a daily basis — he posits that “people move constantly in and out of all kinds of networks”(3) out of necessity.

It is now entirely commonplace in specific organisations, such as public relations firms, advertising agencies and news companies, for a team of individuals to lend their own individual expertise toward the creation of something that exceeds their personal skillsets — a simple video-based advertising campaign, for instance, will require copywriters, art directors, account managers, supervisors, talents, designers and publishers to all perform their own required tasks. And considering that a copywriter could not, in all likelihood, perform the required duties of an art director to the same standard as the art director themselves, the entire campaign would be better-crafted and benefit greatly from the use of teamwork.

Another key working condition in the media industry on the whole involves pay and wages. Similar to many other professional industries, young and inexperienced practitioners are willing to work “for nothing, or expenses only, or cash-in-hand, or very low pay”(4). There is a plentiful supply of “graduates willing to work for free or for very low wages to get a foothold in the industry”(5). And as Huws eloquently states, so many media practitioners accept low pay in exchange for ‘a foot in the door’, that they are “constructing new bars for their own cages”(6) — that is, they allow a ceiling to be put on what a practitioner can earn for a certain amount of work, and thus create a standard of low wages across the industry.

Media practitioners also need to be aware of the working hours that they will be expected or required to undertake as part of a career in the media and communications industry. There are many different sources reporting different expectations for working hours, which gives credence to the idea that all workers are different, and their working climates can be as individual as they are. Some writings claim a typical working week for a public relations practitioner to be 35–40 hours, while other sources cite a much higher figure. A common thread throughout, however, is the unpredictability of the hours worked — PR workers are “required to work evenings and on weekends, sometimes on short notice, especially in times of crisis for their employer”(7).

Hesmondhalgh and Baker, in their analysis of the ‘creative labour industry’, as they term it, found that many individuals in the industry worked unpaid overtime, overly demanding hours and struggled to maintain an appropriate balance between work and leisure. They particularly noted the case of a television cameraman, who admitted that in his professional life, there are “times when you are downing Red Bulls or taking Pro Plus…you are shaking and you have to work the most ridiculous hours and you’re in a terrible state”(8). They concluded that “there is a strong tendency towards self-exploitation in the cultural industries…in spite of low rates of pay and long working hours”. They were also careful to find a cross-section of interviewees, not just in terms of age, specialisation and gender, but also in nationality where possible, to ensure that their findings with regard to working climates across the industry could be generalised across different countries.

Mark Deuze goes one step further in holding a bleak outlook on gaining employment in the media industry, writing in his paper The Media Logic Of Media Work that the “labour market is more difficult and less well-rewarded or supported, average earnings have dropped, and working terms and conditions continue to deteriorate”(9). To Deuze, it has become apparent that “letting go of control, history and tradition are advertised as new necessary survival skills”(10) in the media industry, and as such it has become a less desirable career path.

To summarise, the working climates of the media industry have been characterised as poor. Job security and wages are low, while working hours and exhaustion are high. But how does this affect the industry’s workers?

Paul Lashmar views entrepreneurism as “a state of mind”(11) that involves the attuning of one’s mind to “evaluate every situation…for its business potential” — whether that potential takes its form in a new idea, a revamped idea, a particularly lucrative idea, or an idea that prioritises social good. This definition can be skewed either positively or negatively for those people considering media and communication as a profession.

If an impartial and objective entrepreneur were to look upon the current media landscape, there are certainly issues with regards to its working conditions, as have previously been illuminated. There are also issues with regard to the meteoric rise of free communication, and a constantly replenishing squad of young communicators ready to give themselves to the profession (for a number of semi-flawed reasons, as usefully cited by Hesmondhalgh and Baker).

But from a business standpoint, there are exciting opportunities. Companies like Snapchat, BuzzFeed, Pedestrian, Facebook, Boozle, Uber — they are all innovating every single day, and it can be stated with crystallised certainty that the ever-changing media industry is a dynamic, fulfilling and unstructured place to work.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Kirch, W. (ed.) (2008) Encyclopedia of Public Health: Volume 2: I-Z. New York: Springer-Verlag New York.

2. Deuze, M. (2014) ‘Work in the media’, Media Industries Journal, 1(2).

3. Deuze, M. (2013) Media Work. United Kingdom: Polity Press.

4. Ursell, G. (2000) ‘Television production: issues of exploitation, commodification and subjectivity in UK television labour markets’, Media, Culture & Society, 22.

5. Willis, J., Dex, S. (2003) ‘Mothers returning to television production work in a changing environment’ in Beck, A. (ed.), Cultural Work: Understanding the Cultural Industries, Routledge, London

6. Huws, U. (2007) ‘The spark in the engine: creative workers in a global economy’, Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation, 1.

7. Career Centre WA (2011) Public relations professional. Available at: http://www.careercentre.dtwd.wa.gov.au/Occupations/Pages/public-relations-professional.aspx#workingconditions (Accessed: 28 March 2016).

8. Hesmondhalgh, D. and Baker, S. (2010) ‘A Very Complicated Version of Freedom: Conditions & Experiences of Creative Labour In Three Cultural Industries’, Poetics: Journal of Empirical Research On Culture, Media & The Arts, 38.

9. Deuze, M. (2009) ‘The media logic of media work’, Journal of Media Sociology, 1.

10. Sennett, R. (2006) The culture of the new capitalism, New Haven: Yale University Press.

11. Lashmar, P. (2013) What is entrepreneurism?. Available at: http://onlinejournalismguide.com/what-is-entrepreneurism/ (Accessed: 26 March 2016).