[ICTs-and-Society] Uppsala Conference: New keynote speaker for plenary 5 - Margareta Melin

[Christian Fuchs]

Dear colleagues,

I am happy to annouce that Margareta Melin will be one of our keynote 
speakers in plenary session no. 5 of the Uppsala conference (Friday May 
4th, 2012. 09:00-10:30, Lecture Hall 4). Catherine McKercher is also 
keynote speaker in the same session that has been renamed to "Feminism 
and the Political Economy of News- and Knowledge-Work in the Information 
Age”.

Margareta Melin is an Associate Professor at the School of Arts and 
Communication (K3) at Malmö University. Her research lies in the 
crossroad between cultural sociology, feminism, journalism, and the 
arts. She is Chair of the Swedish Association of Media and Communication 
Research (FSMK).

Catherine McKercher is Professor at the School of Journalism and 
Communication at Carleton University. Her research concentrates on 
labour in the communication industries, including labour in journalism.

The abstracts of both Catherine and Margareta are included below and 
promise an exciting session.

Best, Christian

Plenary Session 5: “Feminism and the Political Economy of News- and 
Knowledge-Work in the Information Age”
Friday May 4th, 2012. 09:00-10:30. Lecture Hall 4 (Ekonomikum).

Margareta Melin (Malmö University, Sweden): Flight as Fight: 
Re-Negotiating the Work of Journalism
Catherine McKercher (Carleton University, Canada): A Feminist Political 
Economy of Labour and Communication: Precarious Times, Precarious Work
Chair: Christian Christensen (Uppsala University, Sweden)

MARGARETA MELIN (Malmö University, Sweden): Flight as Fight: 
Re-Negotiating the Work of Journalism

ABSTRACT: In this talk I will address issues how women (and other 
groups) use the tactic of flight to re-negotiate their professional 
conditions in the field of journalism. I do so from the theoretical 
crossroad of political-economy, feminism and cultural sociology. As such 
my starting-point is that a gender logic permeates the culture and every 
corner of the fields of journalism. I will in the talk discuss the play 
and dynamics around the way this gender logic is defended and 
challenged, specifically using new technology to do so.
The world of news-production can be hard, particularly for women and 
groups that are perceived as others. In order to survive and get a 
career, i.e. be a successful player on the field of journalism (in 
Bourdieuan terms) these groups of others need to use varying tactics to 
fight strategies used by the dominating groups in the field. These 
strategies can be symbolic violence in daily routines, harassment in the 
news-room, the infamous glass-ceiling, etc. Well-known and much 
written-about tactics for women journalists are fighting hard for a top 
career by aggregating masculine capital and being “one of the boys”, or 
fighting for female subjects and being “one of the girls”. A third 
tactic “flight” has been used as a mean of fleeing the newsroom in order 
to avoid the supressing strategies and patriarchal symbolic violence. It 
has been used because the dichotomised positioning of journalist – 
woman/mother/person of colour/disabled etc have been near impossible to 
overcome. And as such the tactic of flight could be seen as a tragic 
victimisation. I have in previous research shown that the only option 
open to those women who wanted both to have a family and work as a 
journalist was to work as a freelancer, web-journalist, part-time 
producer – all poorly paid.
My argument is, however, that we now live in an age where news is no 
longer just newspapers and (public service) TV and radio. Today 
TV-producers write news, newspapers broadcast news, and news is 
twittered and blogged by journalists, their “sources” and audience 
alike. And the number of women in journalism is above the so-called 
“magic number” of 33%. New technology has meant new possibilities, new 
ways to overcome old dichotomies.
I argue that finding new means to do journalism can be strong and 
creative tactics of finding new usages of ones aggregated (journalism) 
capital. Working as a freelancer, or working with web-news in various 
ways, can be means of creating your own space and your own newsroom. It 
means fighting through flight.

Margareta Melin is an Associate Professor at the School of Arts and 
Communication (K3) at Malmö University. Her research lies in the 
crossroad between cultural sociology, feminism, journalism, and the arts.

CATHERINE McKERCHER (Carleton University, Canada): A Feminist Political 
Economy of Labour and Communication: Precarious Times, Precarious Work

ABSTRACT: As areas of research within communication studies, both 
feminism and labour have typically been relegated to the margins. This 
talk addresses the value of bringing together feminist and political 
economic ways of thinking about labour in the media industry. In an era 
increasingly characterized by non-standard work arrangements and 
precarious labour, it recognizes the need to understand the relationship 
of gender to the workplace and the relationship of the workplace and the 
home. Specifically, I will examine the state of the freelance journalist 
in North America, an occupation that is increasingly seen as “women’s 
work.” A number of conditions have given rise to the precariously 
employed woman journalist, including declining employment in the news 
business, increasing reliance on free content provided by student 
interns, the feminization of the student body in journalism schools, and 
the imposition of freelance contracts that demand more and more rights 
over the freelancer’s work. Many young women journalists, especially 
those with children, see freelance journalism as a way to maintain a 
toehold in the creative class, offering flexibility and market-based pay 
and the chance to work from home. The reality, however, is that 
flexibility means precarity, and market-based pay lags significantly 
behind the pay for full-time work. In recent years, freelancers have 
begun exploring collective action in hopes of improving their social and 
material conditions. This talk will conclude by pointing to some 
promising developments in this area, including initiatives by 
conventional trade unions to organize freelance locals and efforts to 
create new forms of workers organizations for freelancers.

Catherine McKercher is Professor at the School of Journalism and 
Communication at Carleton University. Her research concentrates on 
labour in the communication industries, including labour in journalism.