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As media industries undergo rapid change, conditions of media work are shifting. The number of journalists working as freelancers globally has exploded. While popular commentary positions freelancers as ideal workers for an information age, adaptable, multiskilled and entrepreneurial, Nicole S. Cohen argues that freelance media work is becoming increasingly precarious, marked by declining incomes, loss of control over one's work, intense workloads, long hours and limited access to labor and social protections. Like growing numbers of workers in the media, cultural and entertainment sectors, freelance journalists are experiencing deepening precarity. The book provides context to the freelance struggles bubbling up as we barrel toward journalism's digital future, and identifies points of contention and movements toward change. Through interviews and a survey of freelancers, Cohen highlights the paradoxes of freelancing, which can be simultaneously precarious and satisfying, risky and rewarding. The book documents the transformation of freelancing from a way for journalists to resist salaried labor in pursuit of autonomy into a strategy for media firms to intensify exploitation of freelance writers' labour power. Cohen examines pressing issues of low pay, restrictive contracts and unpaid work, and presents four new case studies of freelancers' efforts to collectively transform their conditions. His groundbreaking work offers a timely intervention into current debates about the future of journalism, organizing workers in precarious employment and the transformation of media work in a digital age, making clear what's at stake for journalism's democratic role when the costs and risks of its production are offloaded onto individuals.
Includes bibliographical references and index.