The rise of the ‘neo-precariat’? The emerging precarious challenges for and responses of formal creative labour in advertising and public relations industries

Dr. Tommy Tse, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, The University of Hong Kong

Wednesday 7^th November, IAS, Millburn House, 13:00-14:30.

In view of the changing state of the creative workforce, this presentation reworks the traditional concept of precarity as a habituated (rather than contingent) state, to explore the diversity of precarisation processes in the creative sector. In doing so it critiques Standing’s (2016) theorisation of the ‘precariat’ as a ‘class-in-the-making’, based on an increasingly temporary employment status and lacking seven forms of labour-related security. The term ‘neo-precarity’ is coined to describe the emerging, normalising perceptions of insecurity among full-time creative labourers. Theoretically, this study identifies the drivers and patterns of three new forms of neo-precarious experience and their derived anxieties and dissatisfactions. Empirically, it demonstrates how technologisation, intergenerational conflicts and the disempowerment of creativity constitute various forms of perceived insecurity among creative workers, including professional status and job status insecurity. The findings illustrate how interactions of Hong Kong public relations and advertising workers with the environmental context, institutional and organisational factors, and multiple actors are reshaping their definitions of career, career success and self-actualisation. Rather than a unique hallmark for non-standard workers, I argue that precarity should be reconceptualised as inherent to—in different degrees—all labour-capital relationships.

On Tuesday 16^th October, two graduates from the Centre for Cultural and Media Policy at the University of Warwick reunited with guest lecturer Tony Spong from the AAR in London shortly after a meeting with a new client.

The business partners, Don Lee (Li, Xiaoming) from the MA International Cultural Policy and Management course and Jonathan Sarabadu from the MA Global Media and Communications course connected with Tony Spong from the AAR who helped to further the Warwick Alumni’s business which is now in it’s 2^nd year running. The partners met each other in the centre’s welcoming event in 2015 and the two have developed the partnership since.

Tony Spong, Managing Partner of the AAR, supported Devoch by providing his in-depth understanding of marketing and agency roles. The Warwick graduates first met Tony through the University and valued the support and expertise so much that they have continued to collaborate with their University and lecturers alongside their business development. Don Lee, a Chinese national, sponsored by the University of Warwick has embraced the British business culture becoming a finalist in the IoD’s Director of the Year whilst Jonathan Sarabadu, has continued his service in the RAF Media Reserves squadron whilst developing his cultural understanding of Chinese culture and it’s language. Their company, Devoch, specialises in supporting British companies planning and implementing their strategy to integrate into the Chinese market.

For more information go to: http://www.devoch.co.uk/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DevochUK/

Professor Caroline Pauwels (Vrije Universiteit Brussels)

Professor Pauwels is a leading international expert on European and national media policy and the economy of the media sector. She is currently Rector at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and has received the Francqui Chair at Ghent University as well as held the Jean Monnet Chair. In 2017 she was selected as the ‘Brussels Leader of the Year’. In 2015, she organized the first World Difference Day (www.differenceday.com) discussing freedom of speech and media.

Professor Pauwels has published extensively on media policy and economics including The Palgrave Handbook of European Media Policy (2014) and Private Television in Western Europe: Content, Markets, Policies (2013).

17^th October, 13:00-14:30

IAS, Millburn House

Please email Paula Watkins (P.Watkins@warwick.ac.uk) to RSVP.