Venture Labor| Making Media Work: Turning to Labor Management in Communication Studies

Authors

  • Michelle Rodino-Colocino Penn State

Keywords:

labor, work, management, new media, productivity, scientific management

Abstract

This essay discusses a work in progress that explores how new media technologies promised to manage labor. From the film technologies of the early 20th century to today’s smart mobile devices and algorithmic software, new media have been allied with emergent forms of labor management. Although such media, when first introduced, were clunky and unpredictable, they became key instruments in new labor management practices. Thus, this essay and the larger project it discusses contribute to the “turn to labor” in communication studies, a vibrant research area that foregrounds labor as the practice of work at both individual and social levels.

Author Biography

Michelle Rodino-Colocino, Penn State

Michelle Rodino-Colocino is Associate Professor in Film-Video and Media and Women’s Studies at Penn State University. She studies relationships between new media, gender, labor, and movements for social justice. Her work has been published in Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies; Communication, Culture & Critique; Critical Studies in Media Communications; Feminist Media Studies, New Media & Society, among others. Her research and teaching have been honored with several awards. She thanks the following for funding research that makes possible her present study, Making Media Work: The Smtihsonian’s Lemelson Travel Grant for research at the National Museum of American History, the Sam Fishman Travel Grant for research at Wayne State University’s Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs, and the College of Communications and the Institute for Arts and Humanities, both at Penn State. Rodino-Colocino earned her PhD from the University of Pittsburgh, her MA from Northwestern, and her BA from UCLA. She served as Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Cincinnati before moving to State College, PA. http://comm.psu.edu/people/individual/michelle-rodino-colocino 

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Published

2017-05-09

Issue

Vol. 11 (2017)

Section

Forum

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