Serendipity and the silver screen: Career entryways and worker experiences in UK television

Davies, James Richard 2021. Serendipity and the silver screen: Career entryways and worker experiences in UK television. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

In the past thirty years, shifts in organisational change, propelled by advances in technology, as well as policy and legislative change motivated by global neo-liberal trends, has transitioned UK television from traditional, vertically integrated bureaucracies (such as the BBC and ITV) to a more fragmented organisational landscape in. A proliferation of smaller, independent production houses have emerged to provide employment for an increasingly itinerant, freelance workforce, requiring a more nuanced form of organisational governance and control than those found in traditional, rational bureaucracies. There has been an increasing reliance on a combination of soft power and control mechanics, deployed by organisational ‘hybrids’, retaining elements of traditional bureaucratic control, but introducing softer forms of control as well. The result is a sector dominated by short-term project work, with a largely freelance and individualised labour force negotiating employment contracts via personal contacts and professional networks. A few issues make themselves apparent. What are the entryways to UK television in the 2020s? What skills are required for new entrants, and from where are they able to acquire these skills? Finally, what is television work like for new entrants to the sector? Adopting a subjectivist ontology and moderate constructionist epistemological perspective, this project presents findings of the responses of 46 workers in UK television, including senior professionals, recent entrants and former workers, based on in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted 2019. This paper argues that an increased reliance on hybridised forms of organisational power have contributed to shaping a workforce that feels lucky and grateful to have negotiated unclear entryways at all, a workforce that is under-trained and feeling out of their depth, but willing to self-exploit, and a workforce the deleterious result of a normative discourse that stresses the importance of commitment, paying your dues and going the extra mile.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Business (Including Economics)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	TV Industry Creative Work Socialisation Hybrid organisations Power Control Bureaucracy Neo-bureaucracy
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	26 August 2021
Last Modified:	03 Aug 2022 01:38
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/143669

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