The labor of news work and journalism

The economic crisis of the journalism industry, technological changes, and industrial actions taken by news workers have raised academic interest in journalistic labor. Labor refers to the concrete, purposeful activities that create value under the conditions of capitalism. Labor process theory (LPT) is a critical approach to studying labor. It is concerned with work at the point of production, the technologies involved in work, the products of work, and workplace and class conflict. It bridges sociological and political economic approaches as a schema to inform journalism research.

Much of the research drawing on LPT has focused on the concept of control. Control refers to the power of capital and managers over workers and the labor process. Managers seek to increase the pace and duration of work to improve profitability. Journalism work is intensified through forms of labor reorganization, surveillance, and digital workspaces. Moreover, journalists’ roles and work hours are extended into 24/7 social media and web-publishing platforms. In professions such as journalism, control can also take the form of self-governance associated with appeals to values, competition, and trust. As such, LPT can be combined with feminist and Foucauldian approaches to subjectivity and power.

Terms like precarity, free labor, and emotional labor have become familiar concepts for understanding the experiences of journalism work. Precarity refers to atypical and insecure work (such as freelancing), as well as the subjective experience of uncertainty felt by many journalists. In addition to freelance and continuing employment, some journalistic labor is unpaid, such as internships and citizen journalism. Finally, as journalists take on marketing and community engagement roles, emotional labor describes the strategic management of journalists’ emotions as a requirement of their work and professional identity.