Is a Freelance Worker 'Free'? : The Network Subordination of Freelance Workers in the Media Industry

• In Event: 20881 - Section on Labor and Labor Movements Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 1: Documenting Labor Inequalities

Abstract

In the media industry, where products such as television programs and films are produced on a project basis, freelance workers play a crucial role and constitute a significant share of the labor market. Freelance workers in the media industry occupy a dual position: they are often portrayed as autonomous and creative laborers, yet simultaneously experience the precarities of low income, employment instability, and excessive working hours dictated by client demands. Then, what are the actual labor experiences of freelance workers in the media industry?
This study explores the vulnerabilities of freelance workers by shifting the focus from the predominant emphasis in previous literatures on the absence of legal subordinate employment relationships to examining the relational subordinations that emerge in the actual labor process. Through in-depth interviews with seven freelance workers in the media industry, the study reveals that freelance work, often expected to be autonomous and creative, is in fact precarious and subordinated to capital, particularly through social mechanisms such as personal networks. Based on this analysis, We critically examines the discourse that frames media industry freelancers and creative workers as autonomous laboring subjects and further argues for the institutional supplementation of the relational instability faced by freelance workers.

Authors

• Jaeeun Park, Seoul National University

• Hyerim Lee, Seoul National University

• Suyoung Kim, Seoul National University