From Pink Slips to Pink Slime: Transforming Media Labor in a Digital Age

Abstract

This paper examines some of the labor processes involved inthe expansion of digital journalism to comment on the nature and implications of transformations in journalistic work in a digital age. Specifically, I survey four practices that stand out as putting pressure on traditional journalism production: outsourcing, unpaid labor, metrics and measurement, and automation. Although these practices are unevenly incorporated into mainstream news production (and in some cases are still marginal), they demonstrate viable options for media corporations seeking to streamline production. Drawing on labor process theory, I emphasize that media corporations use strategies of efficiency and rationalization to lower labor costs. Unpaid labor, robot reporters, algorithms, and outsourcing demonstrate that changes in the media production process are not the inevitable results of technology but, as the long history of journalism and technological change demonstrates, strategies for lowering labor costs.