Macquarie University New Books Seminar Series: Journalism and Digital Labor
Bridget Griffen-Foley
Journalism and Digital Labor:
Experiences of Online News Production
Please join us for the first event in the MCCALL New Books Seminar Series on Wednesday 10 March. Dr Tai Neilson will talk about his new book, in a seminar chaired by Dr Margie Borschke.
- 4.00–5.00pm, Wednesday 10 March 2021
- Zoom link (password 395174):
https://macquarie.zoom.us/j/87966224260?pwd=ZzAxcXhIRWtZVjBDSitvQXovN1ZmUT09
Abstract: Journalism and Digital Labor investigates journalists’ work practices, professional ideologies, and the power relations that impact their work. It demonstrates how reporters’ lives and livelihoods are shaped by digital technologies and new modes of capital accumulation. In particular, Neilson argues that, now, when a journalist works to promote their stories, themselves, and their organisations in social media platforms, this labour serves at least two masters. First, it serves the reporter’s employer. It creates value for the news company by enticing audience members to click-through to be exposed to advertising or to subscribe. Second, their work serves the social media company, whether it is Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram; the reporter who continuously curates their online profile and contributes professional media content labours to keep the platform’s users online and engaged.
The book navigates the relationship between political economic structures, and the experiences and agency of journalists. Journalists’ experiences are at the heart of the book, which is based on interviews with news workers from Aotearoa New Zealand and the United States. Their experiences span global and local contexts, digital start-ups, legacy media, nonprofits, and public service outlets. Neilson explores the organisation, ownership, and control of media institutions and considers patterns of media ownership within larger power relations. These power relations individualise risk and are more intensely profit-driven, anti-public sector, and anti-union. Journalism and Digital Labor is concerned with the ways that existing power relations limit the democratic potential of news media.
Link to the book: https://www.routledge.com/Journalism-and-Digital-Labor-Experiences-of-Online-News-Production/Neilson/p/book/9780367217891
Presenter bio: Dr Tai Neilson is a Lecturer in media at Macquarie University. His primary research areas include journalism, the political economy of digital media, and critical cultural theory. His current research investigates journalists’ work practices, professional ideologies, and the power relations that impact their work. Neilson is the co-editor of Research Methods for the Digital Humanities. He has published work on journalism and digital media in Journalism, Triple-C, Fast Capitalism, and Global Media Journal.
This series is presented by the Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language and Literature (MCCALL). After this first seminar of the year, attendees are welcome to stay on for ‘virtual drinks’!
Enquiries: Bridget Griffen-Foley b.f...@mq.edu.au