Newswork and Precarity

<p>This edited collection brings together leading scholars from around the world to discuss the consequences and implications of precarious labor conditions within the modern news industry.</p><p>In 14 original chapters, contributors address global concerns in journalism across all platforms, based on the assumption that unstable employment conditions affect the extent to which journalists can continue to play their historically crucial role in sustaining democracies. Topics discussed include work conditions for freelancers and entrepreneurial journalists as well as the risks facing conflict reporters, precarity in media start-ups, unionization and other collective efforts, policies regulating journalistic labor around the world, and the impact of hedge fund money on newswork. Drawing on case studies and data from South America, Africa, the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and continental Europe, the book highlights how media outlets are forcing newsworkers to work harder for less money, and few countries are proactive in alleviating the precarity of journalists.</p><p>Newswork and Precarity is a valuable addition to an important still-emerging area in journalism studies that will be of interest to both professionals and scholars of journalism, media studies, sociology, and labor history.</p> <p>Table of Contents</p><p>Introduction: Global Precarity’s Uneven Impacts on Journalism: Linda Steiner and Kalyani Chadha</p><p>Part I: THEORETICAL, HISTORICAL and ECONOMIC CONTEXT:</p><ol> <ol> <p> </p> <li>Kalyani Chadha and Linda Steiner: Precarity: The Concept, Evolution, Forms and Applications </li> <p> </p> <li>John Nerone: The Labor History of Newswork from Industrialization to the Digital Age</li> <p> </p> <li>Krishnan Vasudevan: Dead on Arrival: <i>Deadspin</i>’s Fight with its Private Equity Owner and The Rise of <i>Defector</i> </li> <b> </b><p>Part II: APPLICATIONS TO JOURNALISM SPECIALIZATIONS AND INNOVATIONS.</p> <p> </p> <li>Carey L. Higgins-Dobney: Producing in precarity: A Focus on Freelancing in U.S. Local Television Newsrooms </li> <p> </p> <li>Lindsay Palmer: The Precarious Labor of Freelance War Correspondents</li> <p> </p> <li>Cherian George: "All the news that’s fit to print. Except for cartoons. Those things are scary"</li> <p> </p> <li>Karin Wahl-Jorgensen: Precarity in Community Journalism Start-Ups: The Deep Story of Sacrifice</li> <p> </p> <li>Sofie Willemsen and Tamara Witschge: "Becoming Real": Professional Precarity in Entrepreneurial Journalism</li> <b> </b><p>Part III: Regional and National Particularities</p> <p> </p> <li>Adriana Amado, Mireya Márquez-Ramírez and Silvio Waisbord: Labor Precarity and Gig Journalism in Latin America</li> <p> </p> <li>Harry Dugmore: Endogenous "Precarious Professionalism" in African Newswork</li> <p> </p> <p> </p> <li>Mirjam Gollmitzer: Alleviating or Exacerbating Precarity? How Freelancers in Germany and Canada Experience Policies Regulating Insecure Journalistic labor</li> </ol> </ol><p>PART IV: RESISTANCE AND PRODUCTIVITY</p><ol> <p> </p> <li>Erwin van ‘t Hof and Mark Deuze: Making Precarity Productive</li> <p> </p> <li>Nicole S. Cohen and Greig de Peuter: Collectively Confronting Journalists’ Precarity through Unionization</li> <p> </p> <li>Verica Rupar: The Responsibilities of Journalism Educators</li> </ol>