Media Work (DMS - Digital Media and Society) [Paperback]

Mark Deuze (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0745639259 | ISBN-13: 978-0745639253 | Publication Date: September 11, 2007 | Edition: 1

The media are home to an eclectic bunch of people. This book is about who they are, what they do, and what their work means to them. Based on interviews with media professionals in the United States, New Zealand, South Africa, and The Netherlands, and drawing from both scholarly and professional literatures in a wide variety of disciplines, it offers an account of what it is like to work in the media today.

Media professionals face tough choices. Boundaries are drawn and erased: between commerce and creativity, between individualism and teamwork, between security and independence. Digital media supercharge these dilemmas, as industries merge and media converge, as audiences become co-creators of content online.

The media industries are the pioneers of the digital age. This book is a critical primer on how media workers manage to survive, and is essential reading for anyone considering a career in the media, or who wishes to understand how the media are made.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Media Work is an intricate, theoretically informed and invaluable portrait of what it is like to work professionally in today's media [...] It succeeds both as a college text and an exercise in theory" --New Media & Society

"[T]his book makes an important contribution to literature on media and on media work, and to our understanding of media and its place in contemporary society." --International Journal of Media Management

This lively and readable account demonstrates that the study of new media through the lens of labor [...] is an important and vibrant area of interdisciplinary scholarship." --The Information Society

"The book is highly recommended for students [...] The text is both easy reading and deep, with good bibliographical choices, so educators will find it inspiring, too." --Ecquid Novi

“Deuze ably synthesizes a wide range of sources, writes lucidly even as he marshals a considerable amount of detail, moves unjarringly between different media sectors and offers a valuable synoptic account of the major characteristic features of media work in the so-called digital age.”
European Journal of Communication

"A comprehensive account of what working in the media today entails ... Media Work is well researched and insightful. On the heels of the recent screenwriters' strike in the USA, it is relevant and specific to the creative industry but offers pertinent observations that are useful far beyond the field of media."
Work, Employment and Society

“Mark Deuze is one of the best young media theorists working today and his compelling new book does a magisterial job of laying out the field of current discourse on digital media issues and suggesting their far-reaching implications for every aspect of modern life. Deuze moves fluidly between different media sectors, mixes and matches perspectives on media production (including work on labor) with perspectives on media audiences and their activities, engages with work on new media but then applies it to more traditional media, and does so without recourse to predetermined ideological perspectives and specialized language. This book will frame key debates in the field for some time to come.”
Henry Jenkins, MIT

“Mark Deuze offers a guidebook to navigate us through the ‘mashup’ of everyday life and media content, production and consumption, globalization and the local, work and leisure, authenticity and artefact. His book is a timely corrective to the popular dream of cultural employment, and offers insight into a society characterized by instability and destabilization, speed, precariousness and a continual over spilling of the domains of work and life.”
Andy C. Pratt, London School of Economics

“Work and meaning - economy and culture - are more integrated than ever. As audiences and consumers we revel in media; as workforce and citizens we’re at risk from them. In this well-researched and original book Mark Deuze shows how the creative industries work and what it is like to work in them. What he calls ‘media life’ is mobile, convergent, semi-permanent and precarious. It can be tough too, when you - and your income - are only as good as your last idea.”
John Hartley, Queensland University of Technology

From the Back Cover

The media are home to an eclectic bunch of people. This book is about who they are, what they do, and what their work means to them. Based on interviews with media professionals in the United States, New Zealand, South Africa, and The Netherlands, and drawing from both scholarly and professional literatures in a wide variety of disciplines, it offers an account of what it is like to work in the media today.

Media professionals face tough choices. Boundaries are drawn and erased: between commerce and creativity, between individualism and teamwork, between security and independence. Digital media supercharge these dilemmas, as industries merge and media converge, as audiences become co-creators of content online.

The media industries are the pioneers of the digital age. This book is a critical primer on how media workers manage to survive, and is essential reading for anyone considering a career in the media, or who wishes to understand how the media are made.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Polity; 1 edition (September 11, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0745639259
• ISBN-13: 978-0745639253
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 0.9 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #524,218 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mark Deuze (1969) is Associate Professor at Indiana University's Department of Telecommunications in Bloomington, United States, and is affiliated with ISCTE in Lisbon, Portugal. From 2007 to 2011 Mark has held a joint appointment as Professor of Journalism and New Media at Leiden University, The Netherlands (his home country). As a journalist he has written for newspapers and websites in South Africa, The Netherlands, and the United States. As a bass guitarist, he has played and performed with Dawn Awakening and Skinflower.

In 2003, Deuze was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication. In 2007, Mark held a Visiting Research Fellowship at the Centre for International Communications Research of the University of Leeds. His research interests include the role of new media in everyday life, and the management of careers and firms in the creative industries. Publications of his work include seven books (three in Dutch) as well as over fifty articles in scholarly journals such as the The Information Society, New Media & Society, Journalism Studies, and Media Culture & Society. Most recent books: "Media Work" (Polity Press, 2007); "Managing Media Work" (Sage, August 2010); "Media Life" (Polity Press, forthcoming Spring 2012).