Table Of Content

The Routledge Companion to Labor and Media Labor resides at the center of all media and communication production, from the workers who create the information technologies that form the dynamic core of the global capitalist system and the designers who create media content, to the salvage workers who dismantle the industry’s high-tech trash. The Routledge Companion to Labor and Media is the first book to bring together representative research from the diverse body of scholarly work surrounding this often fragmentary field and it seeks to provide a comprehensive resource for the study and teaching of media and labor. Essays examine work on the mostly unglamorous side of media and cultural production, technology manufacture, and every occupation in between. Specifically, this book features: wide-ranging international case studies spanning the major global hubs of media labor; interdisciplinary approaches for thinking about and analyzing class and labor in information communication technology (ICT), consumer electronics (CE), and media/cultural production; an overview of global political-economic conditions affecting media workers; reports on chemical environments and their effect on the health of media workers and consumers; activist scholarship on media and labor, and inspiring stories of resistance and solidarity. Richard Maxwell is Professor of Media Studies at Queens College, City University of New York. His research has focused on international communication and media, political economy and media, surveillance and data protection, and the environmental impact of media. His recent publications include Media and the Ecological Crisis and Greening the Media. The Routledge Companion to Labor and Media Edited by Richard Maxwell First published in paperback 2017 First published 2016 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2016, 2017 Taylor & Francis The right of the editor to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Routledge companion to labor and media / edited by Richard Maxwell. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Mass media—Economic aspects. 2. Mass media—Employees. I. Maxwell, Richard, 1957– P96.E25R68 2015 331.7'6130223—dc23 2015002563 ISBN: 978-0-415-83744-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-73177-6 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-40411-9 (ebk) Typeset in Goudy by Apex CoVantage, LLC Contents Notes on Contributors Foreword Janet Wasko Introduction Richard Maxwell Section I The Changing Face of Media Labor: Networks, Clouds, and Digitalized Work 1 Labor and Digital Capitalism Dan Schiller 2 Working (or Not) in the Cloud: Chains of Accumulation and Chains of Resistance Vincent Mosco 3 Exploitation and Media Labor David Hesmondhalgh 4 Mediations of Labor: Algorithmic Architectures, Logistical Media, and the Rise of Black Box Politics Soenke Zehle and Ned Rossiter 5 Dallas Smythe and Digital Labor Christian Fuchs Section II Materials and Chemical Impact on Workers and Consumers 6 The Body Burden: Toxics, Stresses, and Biophysical Health Elizabeth Grossman 7 Health and Safety Policies for Electronics Workers Ted Smith and Chad Raphael Section III Media Labor Around the World 8 Workers of the World, Unite, You Have Nothing to Lose but Your (Global Value) Chains: The NICL Revisited Toby Miller 9 Embracing Communication: China’s Post-2008 Economic Restructuring and Labor Yu Hong and Wei Wang 10 “Free Birds”: The New Precariat in India’s Mobile Phone Manufacturing Anibel Ferus-Comelo 11 Behind the Line: Information Privatization and the Reification of Work in the Call Center of a Brazilian State-Owned Telecommunications Company Simone Wolff 12 The Creative in the Middle: Knowledge Workers in a Medium-Sized Company in Spain Luis Reygadas 13 The Exceptional Intermittents du Spectacle: Hyperflexibility as the Avant-Garde of Labor Security in France Jonathan Buchsbaum 14 UK Art Workers, Class, and the Myth of Mobility Mark Banks and Kate Oakley 15 The Unfunny Tale of Labor and Cartooning in the US and Around the World John A. Lent 16 The Straw That Broke the Tiger’s Back? Skilled Labor, Social Networks, and Protest in the Digital Workshops of the World Leon Gurevitch 17 Crisis or Innovation? The Norwegian Journalist Between Market and Ideals in the Multimedia Era Rune Ottosen 18 History of the International Movement of Journalists: Shifting Drives of Profession, Labor, and Politics Frank Beyersdorf and Kaarle Nordenstreng 19 The Planned Obsolescence of TV Journalism Gerald Sussman and Carey L. Higgins-Dobney 20 Student Media Labor in the Digital Age: MediaNOLA in the Classroom and the University Vicki Mayer and Jocelyn Horner 21 The Work of Wearing Cameras: Body-Worn Devices and Police Media Labor Kelly Gates Section IV Activism, Organization, Worker Resistance, and Media Labor’s Future