Ramon Lobato & Julian Thomas (2015)
Chapter 3: Work
This excerpt outlines the problematic work conditions of the informal media economy. In the rapidly growing and evolving media economy, it is a constant struggle to properly evaluate and measure the appropriate financial rewards for evolving and new emerging media work. With vastly different natures of work ranging from freelance journalism, production crewing, or game designing and programming, this chapter stresses the instability of creative labour and the challenges of regulating these industries.
This is a tricky and delicate problem. Not sure what to make of it. The current economic system and the way we value labour and resources are not in line with the work-life balance from the individual’s perspective. There is no fair standard to measure and value the quality of the work we make or hours we spend “doing” it. We are currently mostly victims of this. But if these industries become heavily regulated, would that lead to more restraints on smaller startups and independent media groups or individuals who were enabled by informal, entrepreneurial structures and crowdsourcing capabilities? Leaving the winners to be those who have large enough capital and can afford paid labour? As pointed out by the article the diverse natures of work grouped under the roof of media makes it hard to address this as a single issue. Also, I find it difficult to grasp the concept of the proposed “flexicurity”.