Abstract
Keywords
Introduction
Around the world, reports of the suicides and suffering of media contributors have led to a moment of reckoning for the TV industry. In countries including Japan, America, Australia and France, ordinary people who’ve participated in shows such as
In 2019, following the highly-publicised suicides of contributors from
In the associated debates, attention has focussed upon the impact of sudden fame upon ordinary members of the public; the negative effects of trolling upon their mental health; and the pressure created by the performative expectations of modern formats, which tend to foreground displays of intense emotion and conflict. But less scrutiny has been paid to the structural context through which their participation takes place: the organisation of the cultural industries, and how its routines and procedures may affect the people at their centre. Using empirical data gathered over the course of the last 4 years, this article will critically examine how the unintended consequences of changes to the television industry have included the development of a set of working conditions, imperatives and routines in which the wellbeing of contributors can be jeopardised.
Firstly, it’s important to observe that the discourse of concern about contributors has arisen within the context of a period of profound change, in which the cultural industries ‘have moved closer to the centre of economic action’ (Hesmondhalgh, 2018: 4). Dramatic expansion, digitalisation, and the arrival of the internet have created a startlingly different media landscape within the space of a generation, and are among the factors which have led to the creation of a hyper-competitive attention-economy, catering to an increasingly fragmented audience (Banks, 2007; Hesmondhalgh, 2018; Ursell, 2000).
A significant thread of scholarship has focussed on the impact of these changes upon creative workers, whose working conditions have undergone a parallel transition: evolving from a stable, unionised workforce of direct employees, to a deregulated environment, where the pleasures of producing creative work are offset against considerable stress and anxiety (Hesmondhalgh and Baker, 2011). Risk is devolved from companies to individuals, who operate in conditions of chronic precarity and insecurity (Lee, 2012). In the UK, recently published research by the
We know that a pressurised and precarious working environment has a significant impact upon workers in the cultural industries, but what is underexamined is how it also affects the ordinary people they are working with. Although the connection between the industrial context and the slew of worrying anecdotal experiences circulating within the public domain is often alluded to in media research, it remains largely unsubstantiated by empirical data. Whilst a great deal of academic research talks
What emerges from these collective works is a conceptualisation of media subjects as complex individuals, who sometimes feel ill-used, yet also perceive benefits from their involvement; a diverse collection of people who have differing levels of agency, whose relationships with media producers are complicated by asymmetries of power, but who nonetheless, often find pleasure in participating. These studies demonstrate the potential of empirically-grounded research, which devotes close attention to subjective experiences, to reset entrenched ethical debates. To build upon these insights, the aim of this article is to take a further step towards redressing the absence of the perspective of ordinary people within media production research, and to develop a situated understanding of their experiences within the broader context of the cultural industries.
Cultures of production
The theoretical basis of this research is informed by the contention advanced by scholars such as Caldwell (2008), Mayer (2011) and Banks (2007), that we can learn a lot about the production of culture by studying the cultures of production. Foundational scholarship in the 1970s and ‘80s adopted a sociological, often ethnographic approach to the analysis of culture-making (Gans, 1980; Tunstall, 1971). For his classic study,
Over the past 20 years, media production studies has developed into a dedicated field of research, with important contributions including Caldwell’s (2008) study of the rituals and routines of film and video production workers in LA; Born’s (2004) impressive ethnography of the BBC; and Hesmondhalgh and Baker’s (2011) behind the scenes account of the making of a TV talent show. In their introduction to a widely-cited edited collection, Mayer et al. (2009) claim that production studies ‘borrow theoretical insights from the social sciences and humanities, but, perhaps most importantly, they take the lived realities of people involved in media production as the subjects for theorizing production as culture’ (p. 4). Characteristic of this approach is a deep immersion in media workplaces and institutions, and the involvement of scholar-practitioners who – as Caldwell (2009) puts it – ‘work both sides of the fence’ (p. 214). Analysing creative practices and the internal workings of media institutions has become a valuable way of revealing the pressures and priorities of cultural production; illuminating questions of power, and how it is inhabited and exercised by producers; and drawing connections between the social and cultural conditions of production and the resulting text (Paterson et al., 2016: 9).
In dialogue with this analytical tradition, my research also draws upon a second body of scholarship, which examines the corrosive effects of structural changes in the factual TV industry for those who participate within it (De Benedictis et al., 2017; Skeggs, 2005). This work establishes a connection between the changing values of the media and the often-dysfunctional ways it represents ordinary people, but has tended to focus upon the political ramifications of media participation without paying much attention to the actual people involved. More recently, Wood (2021) has claimed that the media are encouraging forms of neoliberal labouring practices, and that participation should be classified as a form of work. To do so, Wood argues, would enable us to consider the ‘care’ contributors receive within the production process, rather than restricting our focus to issues of their textual representation and consumption by the audience. The framing of the apparatus for participation conceals its economic purpose and solidifies its dismissal from forms of workplace protection, and proper inquiry. Issues of care and wellbeing, therefore, provide a useful framework for exploring the interactions between the media and its subjects.
Methodology
This research was carried out between December 2018 and June 2020. I conducted in-depth interviews with a sample of 30 contributors and producers. Given the breadth of sub-genres within factual production, I chose to focus primarily on documentaries, so that I could draw upon my own professional experiences of working as a producer/director in the TV industry for 16 years prior to beginning this research project. I was intrigued by the high demands documentaries make upon their participants, to share deeply private and intimate aspects of their lives, over extended periods of time. The intense level of commitment required by documentary productions is a distinctive feature compared to categories of media contributors who’ve been studied previously: for example, Palmer’s (2017) news subjects had typically fleeting relationships with their reporters; and Grindstaff’s (2002) talk-show guests arrived at the studio in a limo then left again a few hours later. By contrast, most of the people I interviewed were filmed over the course of several months, years, or even (in the case of one of my interviewees) whole lifetimes.
My familiarity with the industry has undoubtedly helped me to identify a significant topic, and to shortcut some of the access difficulties scholars have encountered when studying the media (Ortner, 2009). My own personal experiences of confusion and ambiguity when it came to working with contributors – of navigating uncertain boundaries between the instrumental and the personal, and struggling to maintain the precarious balance between objective distance and personal intimacy – have played an influential role in establishing the concerns of the research. In many ways, this project sets out to reflect upon and resolve the dilemmas of my previous career, and I’m by no means the first to bring lived experiences into analytical focus. Grindstaff (2002) described her time working as a participant-observer in the TV industry as ‘a means of knowing others through oneself’ and oneself through others (p. 281). However, the advantages of the ‘insider’ perspective are offset against methodological and ethical complications: the dangers of confirmation bias, the compromise to objectivity, and the difficulties in sustaining any kind of neutrality. To minimise these risks, I decided not to directly analyse my own experiences, or interview my own contributors, but to generate a new set of data to analyse afresh.
As documentary scholars have long debated, hard and fast distinctions between genres are difficult to draw, and many of the texts I’ve worked with overlap into reality TV or even drama (Aufderheide, 2007; Corner, 2008). My approach, therefore, has been to include as wide a variety of documentary styles as possible: from BAFTA-winning features to more tabloid or constructed formats. My sample was hugely diverse – not only in terms of social characteristics, but also life experiences – including a Holocaust survivor, a renowned heart-surgeon, a sex worker, a pro-life abortion activist, and a disabled world-champion powerlifter. Twenty per cent of the sample were documentary-makers, and 80% participants. Initially, the interviews were conducted at a leisurely pace, in people’s homes or in cafes over lunch. During the covid-19 pandemic, the conversations continued online. I used a primarily inductive approach to analysing my data, inspired by the tenets of grounded theory. I’ve chosen not to anonymise my interviewees, because the specificity of their subject-position is an important part of understanding their experiences. By definition, their stories are already circulating in the public domain, and by not identifying them, there is a danger of erroneously implicating other contributors who took part in the documentaries under discussion. Many of the people I spoke to agreed to be interviewed because they actively wanted to add their voices to public debates, or to comment upon their representations. My focus upon the perspective of participants redresses its historical absence, and therefore the accounts I analyse are subjective, favouring one-side of the story rather than offering a definitive version of events. Blurred organisational boundaries mean that it’s difficult to attribute ‘blame’ for poor treatment or misrepresentations, but in any case, my intention is to scrutinise working cultures rather than mistakes which may have been made by individual producers or the companies they work for. To minimise the risk of repeating representational harms, every contributor has been given the chance to read the research prior to publication, add their comments, and amend as they see fit. 1
The experiences they’ve shared with me – both positive and negative – have formed the starting point for this research, which I’ve then attempted to contextualise alongside the extensive existing scholarship about the changing political economy of the media industries. In the following discussion, I will focus the analysis upon five recent developments in the organisation of television production – working practices, jobs functions, narrative norms, marketing strategies, and the wider media ecology – using the empirical data I’ve generated to demonstrate the impact of these changes upon the wellbeing of contributors.
Working practices and the production environment
A collapse in ratings and increased competition for advertising revenue are among the factors that have led to dwindling budgets and schedules, which pile pressure on producers to meet high expectations with fewer resources (Hesmondhalgh, 2018; Ursell, 2000). Lee (2012) suggests that ethical behaviour towards participants becomes harder to sustain in such circumstances, claiming ‘the moral core of television is being corroded from within because of the transformed institutional, economic and political context within which it is taking place’ (p. 494). However, empirical research has tended to approach the issue from the perspective of creative workers rather than contributors. Jenny Smith is the headteacher of Frederick Bremer School in Walthamstow – an economically-deprived area of Greater London – who was filmed for the 2014 Channel 4 series Compared to the other series, it was done on a much shorter timescale and a tighter budget. . .it was filmed in about half the time.
Smith was keen to stress that she and the other teachers at the school built positive relationships with the production team, who she described as ‘brilliant’, yet it was clear to her that the cuts were making their jobs difficult to perform: They were exhausted. They were only getting about three hours sleep a night. . . working ridiculous hours. Ridiculous. . .They were there
The pressure to deliver dramatic storylines within a bare-bones schedule rippled out beyond the paid production crew to the staff and pupils they were filming, with interviews being shot long after the school day had finished, late into the night and at weekends, on top of their already-demanding jobs.
I got worn down by it. Sometimes those interviews were at 8 or 9 o’clock at night, and I was like, “Listen, I just need to go home. What is it you want from me?” And they’d go, “We just want you to say. . .”
As Smith’s quote indicates, working practices adapt in response to the production environment. Diminishing budgets mean that producers are not only working harder, but working differently. The majority of the contributors I spoke to told me they’d been scripted during interviews, or asked to film staged sequences – sometimes, replicating the activities of their everyday lives, but often performing them solely for the purposes of the production. This shift in the mode of filming, from observing to instigating, can be problematic for contributors. Liane Piper suffers from body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) – a debilitating anxiety disorder which is characterised by a preoccupation with an imagined defect, causing significant distress and impaired social functioning (Veale et al., 1996). Piper took part in a 2018 BBC documentary, One of my big fears was going swimming. I have an eating disorder and body dysmorphia at the same time. I was probably the heaviest I’ve ever been in that documentary. They were saying, “Let’s go swimming”. I said, “I really don’t want to do that”. They were saying “It’s good for you. It’s good therapy”. And I was in such a panicked state in the swimming pool, we just had to cut it. . .They were pushing me into having reactions.
Even medical professionals, who work with mental health conditions on a daily basis, are cautious about the use of exposure therapy to treat anxiety disorders, many believing it carries an unacceptably high risk of harm, is intolerable for patients, and poses ethical quandaries (Farrell et al., 2013). To confront a vulnerable person with their worst fears using the justification that it’s ‘good therapy’ poses an unacceptable risk to their wellbeing, which is born from a situation where things have to be made to happen according to a minimal timescale, and a working culture which has normalised constructed filming – even within ostensibly observational documentaries. The fact that a well-meaning production crew would engineer this type of actuality is indicative that editorial decisions are not consistently anchored by appropriate professional guidance. Piper told me that despite receiving a year-long course of therapy during the making the film, by the time they wrapped, her BDD was worse than ever.
However, the situation I’ve described is not necessarily the fault of individual producers. A recent report into occupational distress in factual TV drew attention to the lack of training producers have in working with vulnerable people, understanding the impact of trauma, and developing appropriately-boundaried relationships (Rees, 2019). The producers they surveyed expressed a wish to receive further training, which is routinely unavailable. In a predominantly freelance workforce, employers are unwilling to invest in staff who will only work for them for a limited period of time. An unintended consequence of industrial restructure is that the informal system of mentorship from senior colleagues, which for previous generations of TV workers provided crucial support, has been largely dismantled. Consequently, the report concludes, producers are ‘thrown in at the deep end and left to work things out for themselves’ (Rees, 2019: 15).
For workers negotiating conditions of precarity in an ‘economy of favours’, where unblemished reputations are a pre-requisite of future employment, a sense of expendability and a culture of silence limits the scope for individuals to complain (Ursell, 2000: 813). The repercussions of this situation – where producers are muddling through in difficult circumstances without the relevant expertise – can have profoundly damaging consequences for contributors. There is a danger they are not only failing to protect the wellbeing of the people they work with, but are actively endangering it.
The reorganisation of jobs in factual production
Whilst digital technology has encouraged the development of so-called ‘slash jobs’, where a single person will take on several roles – such as producer/director/camera/sound – at the same time, a countervailing emphasis on specialisation has led to jobs also becoming more fragmented. The functions of casting, shooting, and editing are now often separated out and divided between different workers, enabling processes to take place concurrently and schedules to shrink. These producers have lost a degree of their autonomy, and are overseen by several managerial layers, including series producers, executive producers, and commissioning editors (Born, 2011). Although organisationally efficient, my research suggests the fragmentation of creative roles can have negative consequences for contributors, because of the consequential loss of consistency and overall authorial responsibility. Executive producer Peter A. Gordon told me: The division of labour that now exists - it’s not the one person who makes contact, maintains contact, and then does the editing. It’s probably three or four different people. Someone’s found them, someone’s edited, someone’s filmed them. . .so the nuances of what was said and what’s been understood are gone.
Although the contributors I spoke to were largely unaware that things were once done differently in television production, several spoke of their sadness or disappointment when a crew member they’d bonded with suddenly vanished: I didn’t realise at the beginning [the director] was freelance, so there were times where she’d disappear for three or four months, seeing other people. . .Once the filming stopped, she said “I’m off for another job now, I’m off that show”. We said “Hang on! We expected you to be our friend till the end! And you’re off! You’re not even part of the final edit”. That was a shock to us, where we found at different stages of production, people were coming and going, and then disappearing.
The interchangeability of production staff can have a particularly destabilising impact upon vulnerable contributors. For Liane Piper, navigating the filming process whilst dealing with a severe anxiety disorder, the sudden loss of a trusted presence was deeply unsettling: I don’t like meeting new people. I always wonder what they’re thinking of me. I’d have to take the producer to one side and say “Do they believe me? Do they think I’m lying? Do they like me? Do they think I’m annoying?” I didn’t really like it when it changed. I was more comfortable when I got to know somebody.
Being passed from pillar to post generates a lack of accountability, an erosion of producer autonomy, and a breach in the painstakingly-built relationship of trust which is a vital component of filmmaking (Nash, 2010) – but it also suggests an attitude of replaceability which extends to both producers and contributors alike.
The advent of managerialism which has underwritten the reorganisation of jobs in factual production has decoupled power from responsibility when it comes to the treatment of contributors. The final say in how participants are represented will routinely be made by executives or commissioners who have no direct relationship with them, and no direct accountability. Director Jerry Rothwell told me that the relationship between a filmmaker and their subject is fundamentally compromised when they don’t have editorial control. He questioned: Do you have the authority to have that relationship in an honest way, or actually, is there someone lurking behind you. . .who’s going to push it in a different direction?
In academic debates, threats to editorial control are usually perceived to emanate from outside the institutions of broadcasting – but perhaps we should also be cognisant to how these fundamental principles are being eroded from within.
Formatting and narrative norms
Formatting emerged as a strategy to mitigate risk in a highly competitive environment, mushrooming from the 1990s onwards into a multi-billion dollar industry (Chalaby, 2016). Formats are appealing to production companies and broadcasters alike: enabling them to develop intellectual property, and build brands which can attract returning audiences.
In a format, the story arc is already laid out, and participants are used interchangeably, fitting into a pre-existing mould. The prescriptiveness of the template may vary, but is often so rigid that a ‘production bible’ or a ‘production clock’ will be developed, specifying what should be happening on screen at any given minute of the programme (Chalaby, 2016: 16). The result, from a contributors’ perspective, is that their unique stories are made generic, refashioned into a formula to hit the right beats.
Emily Ingold agreed to take part in a 2019 Channel 4 documentary series called The takeaways you saw me eating – I had to eat the whole thing. I ate all of that cheesecake, then I had five or six packets of crisps. . .that was straight after the McDonalds. . .I felt sick.
Although not all texts are so obviously formatted, the underlying norms of narrative structure are heavily embedded within the culture of TV production. At its most basic level, every story needs a sequential beginning, middle, and end. Ellis (2011) describes narrative as ‘a structuring of events towards a conclusion’ (p. 70). There is, therefore, a fundamental clash between the ever-evolving nature of lived experience and the expository, consequential structure of stories.
The pressure to conform to a narrative arc is often most apparent to contributors when it comes to endings. Vicki Beckett took part in I don’t think there’s an end to grief. . .People always want a happy ending. . .but there isn’t really one.
Beckett chose to take part in the documentary to raise public awareness, and supported the producers’ decision to portray her ending in the way they did, agreeing that it made her story easier for the audience to hear, but for other contributors I spoke to, a false sense of closure felt jarring and artificial. Liane Piper’s therapy sessions were coming to an end; the production was scheduled to finish, but her problems hadn’t disappeared. Nevertheless, the story needed to be given its conclusion: At the end I had to film a sort of “ending” – and I didn’t feel good at all. . .I didn’t want to, but they said we should end it on a high. . .I wasn’t better. I didn’t feel better. . .but they said it’s good for people watching it to see there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.
My research suggests the pressure to comply with narrative norms can result in a feeling of detachment between contributors and their screen representations, who might look the same as them, but are behaving in ways they find hard to recognise. One contributor told me: It was my face but everything else was unrelated to me, as if I was an actress rather than it being a documentary.
In examples such as this, where the demands of the narrative structure supercede a fidelity to the truth, contributors may bear a psychic cost, performing a version of self which feels inauthentic to them; being made complicit in their own misrepresentation. As market forces continue to incentivise more formulaic styles of filming, the risk this poses to contributors must be recognised.
Marketing in an era of choice
In an overcrowded media space, characterised by an abundance of viewer choice, marketing has taken on an increasing importance (Born, 2011). Strategies to make a television programme memorable and distinctive are crucial, but sometimes come at the expense of contributors’ wellbeing.
In the early 2000s, viewers began to navigate the multichannel environment using an EPG (electronic programme guide). Broadcasters responded by choosing titles capable of instantly conveying the programme content, which in some cases, were designed to stand out by being sensational or even offensive. Within my data, several contributors reported instances where broadcasters gave a programme a salacious title, which was only revealed to them after they’d finished filming and had given consent: That was hard. But it’d already gone past the part when I’d signed a contract so I couldn’t say anything.
Whether this information is genuinely undecided or withheld from contributors, it reduces their ability to exercise their agency, and in some cases revealed a whole new agenda for the programme which they were previously unaware of. Gemma Rawnsley and her family agreed to take part in a 2017 Channel 4 documentary about home-schooling, and were shocked to discover, after filming had wrapped, that the broadcaster intended to market the production as a show about ‘no-rules parenting’. Indeed, the description of the show on Channel 4’s website makes no mention of home-schooling at all, but instead claims the documentary is about ‘the off-grid parenting philosophy’, posing the question: ‘Does a lack of rules make the children healthier and happier, or lead to behaviour issues?’ (Channel 4, 2017) Rawnsley recounted the conversation she had with the producers when they told her the intended title was I was absolutely disgusted. . . I just said “We’re not feral. You what?” And he said, “We need a catchy title”. I said, “You’re not calling it that”. So he went away and came back and said “What about The Bad Parents’ Handbook or The Guide to Bad Parenting, something like that?” I said “Are you joking? We’re not bad parents. We’re really good parents”.
For Rawnsley, who told me over a long conversation how she’d overcome a difficult childhood and had consequently made family-life and motherhood her main priority, the idea that she would be publicly labelled a ‘bad parent’ or a ‘feral family’ was particularly hurtful: I get this pang of anxiety in my heart that strikes me and goes into my stomach when I think about the fact we’re on there. . .I did really psychologically struggle with it.
Jenna Presley also appeared in the documentary, and told me she’d had few qualms about agreeing to take part, considering her family’s experiences of home-schooling to be innocuous and uncontroversial. When the documentary’s marketing positioned the text in a way she wasn’t expecting, she was unprepared for the considerable negative psychological impact it had upon her and her family: straining relationships with her parents, making her son a target for bullies, and ostracising her from the home-school community, who blamed her for what they perceived as an unflattering representation: It caused me so much grief afterwards. . . They’re humiliating people. . .They’re actually playing with peoples’ lives.
Social media and the wider media ecology
The increasing interconnectedness of different platforms means that by taking part in a TV production, contributors become de facto public figures within mediated culture more broadly, and as such, are likely to become a topic of discussion on social media, and be written about in the press. Once their stories were out in the public domain, contributors found their consent was no longer required, and any boundaries they’d negotiated with the filmmakers were no longer upheld.
Several of my interviewees reported negative and distressing experiences with social and secondary media. One told me the tabloids published a fabricated story that she’d given her baby a tattoo; another was upset about a headline which claimed she considered herself ‘too ugly to have sex’ (Griffiths, 2018). Director Sue Bourne told me that one of her contributors woke up to find dozens of journalists camped out on their front lawn, after the press release for her documentary was spun into a sensationalised story. Rather than offer support, the broadcaster instructed her to have no further contact with the family, as she could be subject to legal action if she gave them the wrong advice: It was shocking; so shocking. . .they didn’t care that the family had been thrown to the lions.
Production companies routinely instruct their contributors not to look at social media, but understandably, most people told me it was hard to resist. Ignoring social media is not a realistic strategy. It only offers a way to avoid engaging with the problem. Producers may not be able to control how a documentary will travel through the broader media ecology, but in truth, their approach to social media favours maximisation rather than containment. Social media is no longer an after-thought, but a reason in itself to develop or commission an idea.
Hate-watching is a term which first appeared in the TV column of the The development of a parasitical media economy, whereby an increasing range of media agents are able to accumulate capital as the “media storm” transfers from one field of production to another (pp. 4; 20).
In an attention economy, confected outrage generates Tweets, clicks, and momentum as the story travels through secondary and social media, fuelling ratings, and becoming a viable strategic basis for success. The parallel economic agendas which intersect different media fields mean that broadcasters and producers are heavily incentivised to offer up protagonists as targets for judgement and criticism.
Jane (2014) is critical of the tendency of the scholarship to lose touch with the human subjects who are the targets of what she rather brilliantly terms ‘e-bile’, arguing hate-watching is more problematic when the recipients are not celebrities but ordinary people: Directing invective at these sort of “amateur” or “accidental” celebrities raises different ethical issues because it’s likely that such people are more psychologically, physically, and financially vulnerable to anti-fan campaigns than seasoned celebrities (Jane, 2014: 184).
It’s certainly true that I spoke to people who had their wellbeing harmed through this process: who were prescribed medication for anxiety or depression; whose marriages broke down in the aftermath; whose families disowned them; and whose lives were impacted in tangibly negative ways. However, a more surprising finding from my research is that contributors are not simply victims of this dynamic, but in some cases, are harnessing its potential as part of their own communicative strategies. This was particularly true of the people I spoke to whose views challenge orthodoxies, who feel they are rarely heard in the mainstream media. Men’s rights activist Philipp Tanzer told me: If I had the choice between being treated fairly and sympathetically but little time being spent on men’s issues, or me being portrayed as a weirdo and a lot of time being spent on men’s issues: I would go for the latter.
Jo Lockwood had her gender transition filmed for the 2019 Channel 4 documentary If you look at
Similar sentiments were expressed throughout the small sub-sample of people who took part in this research project who felt their messages defied societal norms. These representational strategies only make sense in a media landscape where people with marginalised viewpoints or life-experiences understand they have limited opportunities to be heard. The insights of the people I interviewed complicate any simplistic notions of contributor exploitation, but also demonstrate how the public expression of ordinary people is distorted by the limited forms of agency media participation affords them.
Conclusion
In this article, I have used empirical data to demonstrate how the wellbeing of producers and contributors is both interconnected to one another, and inseparable from the political economy of the cultural industries. For scholars, the implications of this research suggest that the study of creative labour should be extended to the ordinary people on our screens, whose experiences are deeply imbricated in – and revealing of – the organisational context through which they are participating. My argument is that poor contributor care is an expression of poor working conditions. Ordinary people and their welfare are major casualties of media deregulation, and their experiences are a barometer for dysfunction in the industry.
One of the problems with the recent UK parliamentary inquiry is that it has been driven by criticism rather than a wish to drill down into more fundamental structural issues about power and representation. The solutions these debates have generated involve adding external psychological support, but have so far missed an opportunity to think more carefully about what’s going on within the production process itself. A broader repertoire of support is required, which is more attuned to contributors’ needs, and geared towards redressing underlying problems rather than offering quick fixes. Without this kind of reconsideration, my data would suggest that recent policy amendments are likely to be of limited effectiveness. It simply isn’t enough to screen out the most vulnerable people, or patch them up again afterwards, without addressing the actual mechanisms that are causing them harm. The questions we need to ask next are about how the occupational health of the entire workforce – including people both in front of and behind the camera – can be sustained within a deregulated industry.
Footnotes
Funding
ORCID iD
