Upon completing the reading for this week I felt a sense of fear but excitement. The fear I believe directly correlates to the realities of the media industry. The author speaks of the low, unfair and frankly unethical pay that media freelancers in particular recieve for their hard work. But I am also excited to be part of such a talked about and current industry. By examining relations between formal and informal economies, Lobato and Thomas offer a refreshingly fresh and important way understanding all aspects of media from production to even media history.

The books comments on the media worker being overused and cheated due to the eagerness of young hopefuls. This really resonates with me particularly because of the generation I am apart of. We are a generation who want everything now and the idea of working up the food chain so called doesn’t sit well with a lot of us. That is why the informal economy of freelancing and working for yourself is becoming so popular. However, for the others who believe that hard work will get you far are being taken advantage of. Their aspirations and hard work are being exploited and we are getting drained too young.

Overall, I didn’t love this reading but was able to connect with a few aspects and issues it was dealing with.

 

Ramon Lobato and Julian Thomas, 2015, ‘Work’ in The Informal Media Economy, Polity Press, Cambridge UK, ch.3.