Creative Labour: Media Work in the Cultural Industries

创意产业*(如电视、音乐、杂志和报纸、电影、广告等主要生产美学、表现力或信息性的产品的产业)近年来已成为公共政策的一个非常重要的领域。大多数创意产业政策明确旨在扩大这些行业的就业机会。这就使得检查这些工作是什么类型的工作变得很重要。部分出于这个原因，也因为有关行业的性质发生了深刻的变化，一些学术领域最近开始更多地关注这种“创造性劳动”。我正在申请资金，以便在早期研究的基础上写一本书，这本书还利用了2006-2007年在三个创意媒体行业(电视、杂志和音乐)进行的实地考察。这本书试图在许多方面超越现有的方法。首先，这本书试图概念化创意产业在目前条件下的“好工作”和“坏工作”。它不仅通过提供媒体行业创造性工作者面临的条件(他们的工作时间、工资、获得工会代表的机会、压力和焦虑)的信息，而且还利用哲学和社会学的讨论，不仅是关于工作的讨论，而且是关于什么是构成好生活的讨论(亚里士多德)，其中工作永远是美好生活的一部分。要做到这一点，有必要采取一些进一步的举措。第二，这本书试图改善我们对自主性(创造性工作者相对自由地从事工作，不受相对较少的监督或监督，几乎不受商业、宗教或政治需要的干扰)和自我实现(实现个人能力和实现希望的目标)这一关键而困难的概念的理解。人们普遍认为，创意产业的工作往往是短期的，而且越来越不安全。正因为如此，一些分析师认为，自主和通过工作实现自我是补偿工人这种不安全感的方式--这意味着，实际上，自主和自我实现可能是一种控制机制，因为它们可以驱散工人的不满。因此，这本书试图评估这是否是一种准确或有用的思考问题的方式。第三，一些作家指出，“主体性”(工人的个人特征、思想和感受)在现代工作场所越来越重要；例如，组织越来越热衷于让工人享受工作，从而更充分地投入到工作中。但奇怪的是，用于分析工作的主观性理论往往缺乏任何意义上的个体工人，他们是情绪化的和反身性的(能够有意义和有目的地反思自己的环境)。因此，我建议对人们在工作中的经历进行更多的关注，尤其是对矛盾心理的关注--创造性工作者既爱他们的工作又讨厌他们的工作，以及他们在创造性劳动中追求伦理和审美目标的方式。第四，这本书考察了创造性工作者如何谈论什么才是好作品--例如，一个好的电视节目或一个不太好的节目--它试图提供一个理解，即这可能如何帮助我们思考文化产品的“质量”；以及为什么某些产品会被制造出来，而不是其他产品。*有关术语的说明：许多作家将“文化产业”一词与“创意产业”或多或少地互换使用，尽管创意产业的一些定义非常宽泛，包括软件等类别。这里的重点是创意或文化产业部门中的媒体产业。

Plain English Summary including for non-specialists:Creative industries* (industries such as television, music, magazines and newspapers, film, advertising and so on that produce goods that are primarily aesthetic, expressive or informational) have formed a very important area of public policy in recent years. Most creative industries policies explicitly aim at expanding the number of jobs available in these industries. This makes it important to examine what kinds of jobs these are. Partly for this reason, and also because of profound changes in the nature of the industries concerned, a number of academic areas have recently begun to pay greater attention to such 'creative labour'. I am applying for funds to provide leave to write a book that builds upon earlier research, and which also draws upon fieldwork conducted in three creative media industries (television, magazines and music) in 2006-7.The book seeks to move beyond existing approaches in a number of ways. First, the book seeks to conceptualise what 'good work' and 'bad work' in the creative industries might be under present conditions. It does so not only by providing information about what the conditions faced by creative workers in media industries (their hours, pay, access to union representation, stress and anxiety) but also by drawing on philosophical and sociological discussions, not only of work, but also of what constitutes the 'good life' (Aristotle) of which work can only ever be a part. To do so, a number of further moves are necessary.Second, the book seeks to improve the way in which we understand the crucial and difficult idea of autonomy (the relative freedom for creative workers to get on with their work with relatively little supervision or monitoring, and little interference from commercial, religious or political imperatives) and self-realisation (the goal of realising one's capacities and fulfilling one's hopes). There is widespread agreement that work in the creative industries is often, and increasingly, short-term and very insecure. Because of this, some analysts argue that autonomy and self-realisation through work are ways of compensating workers for this insecurity - meaning that in effect, autonomy and self-realisation may be mechanisms of control, because they can dissipate the discontents of workers. The book therefore seeks to assess whether this is an accurate or useful way to think of the problem. Third, a number of writers have pointed out that 'subjectivity' (the worker's individual characteristics, thoughts and feelings) is increasingly important in the modern workplace; for example, organisations are increasingly keen for workers to enjoy their work and therefore to devote themselves to it much more fully. But the theories of subjectivity that have been used in analysing work have often been curiously lacking in any sense of the individual workers as beings who are emotional and reflexive (able to reflect meaningfully and purposively on their own circumstances). So I propose an account of people's experiences at work that pays much more attention to emotion, in particular to ambivalence - the way that creative workers can both love and hate their jobs, and to the way in which workers pursue ethical and aesthetic goals in their creative labour. Fourth, the book examines how creative workers talk about what makes for good work - a good television programme or a not-so-good one, for example - and it seeks to provide an understanding of how this might help us to think about the 'quality' of cultural products; and why certain products get made rather than others. * A note on terminology: many writers use the term 'cultural industries' more or less interchangeably with 'creative industries', though some definitions of creative industries are very broad to include categories such as software. The focus here is on media industries within the creative or cultural industries sector.