This week’s reading is ‘Work’ – The Informal Media Economy by Ramon Lobato and Julian Thomas. It talks about the debate between the emerging new trends in the content creation market in form of creative labour debate. It gives examples of amateur writers trying to break in the industry in this ‘New Economy’ work place. The article expands on the pleasures, dissatisfaction and self exploitation of these media professionals. It talks about pre-carity and how different aspects of the industry affect it. It raises questions on the existence of pre-carity with historical relevance as to has there been a time when it did not exists and if it did how was the issue tackled. It also reflects on the ethical dilemma of this debate saying this issue might be a game changer for people from different parts of the world especially developing countries who are highly skilled, lowly paid, for whom this might be about expansion of a certain kind of media work (disappearance of middle class jobs). The final segment talks about the formalisation of this industry by giving suggestions from the European discourse. It also raises questions relating to the possibility of formal and informal practices to co exist. Is that even possible?

Personal Experience/Reflection

My final career plan is to enter the film industry. I have had similar experiences of informal employment while I was looking for my internships. On one had it is easy for beginners and amateurs to enter the industry via this means of informal employment, it does not look good if you want to do it as a career. At times, you question yourself if you are doing enough, if you are doing the work that matters and would any of these experience ever lead you to where you wanna go.

But it is helpful. The article suggests some formalisation in the content creation industry and I believe one cannot have all of it. A professional would have to put in the hours and sacrifice on a few things to get the desired outcome or a specific career he/she wants to achieve. It is only in a few cases would it be possible for it to just flow to you and you would as put it in the article ‘get the sustainability of an industrial model as well as the seductive informality of the art, fashion and dotcom worlds, get the 9-5 wages without the 9-5 drudgery. At the end, good work is noticed and one needs to keep pushing till they find it. There is no other way around it. Grind it till you find it.