Knowledge Workers in the Information Society

This book focuses on the most neglected group in the literature on our information-intensive economy: workers. After authoring several articles on this topic themselves, McKercher and Mosco are to be complimented for advancing this focus by bringing together authors in Europe, North America, and Asia to address the conditions of the diverse work force in the information economy: workers in journalism, film, libraries, telecommunication, digital equipment factories and call centers. -- Bella Mody, University of Colorado The main strength of Knowledge Workers in the Information Society is the breadth of subjects and variety of methodological inquiry, and, although this is a joint effort, Canadian communication 'eminence grise' Vincent Mosco's hand, as editor and author, is very apparent. He and fellow editor McKercher have undertaken a much appreciated project that I hope will continue. * Journal Of International Communication * At last, we have a book that gives knowledge workers back their agency. With analytical clarity and shrewd judgment, McKercher and Mosco have drawn together an impressive range of contributions from around the world that illustrate vividly, in all their complexity, the hard choices that knowledge workers make each day to balance their urge to creativity with their need to scrape a living and defend working conditions. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand knowledge work as it is in the real world, as opposed to the fantasies of policy gurus. -- Ursula Huws, Analytica Social and Economic Research

Catherine McKercher is associate professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University. Vincent Mosco is professor of sociology and Canada Research Chair in Communication and Society at Queen's University.

Chapter 1 Introduction. Theorizing Knowledge Labor and the Information Society Chapter 2 Chapter 1. Labor Off the Air: The Hearst Corporation, Cross Ownership and the Union Struggle for Media Access in San Francisco Chapter 3 Chapter 2. Writing Off Workers: The Decline of the U.S. and Canadian Labor Beats Chapter 4 Chapter 3. The Librarian and the Univac: Automation and Labor at the 1962 Seattle World's Fair Chapter 5 Chapter 4. A Libratariat? Labor, Technology, and Librarianship in the Information Age Chapter 6 Chapter 5. Marketing Creative Labor: Hollywood "Making of" Documentary Features Chapter 7 Chapter 6. Commodification of Creativity: Reskilling Computer Animation Labor in Taiwan Chapter 8 Chapter 7. Glocalization in an Era of Globalization: Labor Relations in British Provincial Newpapers Chapter 9 Chapter 8. Spanish TV Production Goes Digital: Impact on Journalistic Routines, Workflow, and Newsroom Organization Chapter 10 Chapter 9. No Information Age Utopia: Knowledge Workers and Clients in the Social Service Sector Chapter 11 Chapter 10. Outsourcing Knowledge Work: Labor Responds to the New International Division of Labor Chapter 12 Chapter 11. "New" Economy/Old Labor: Creativity, Flatness, and Other Neo-liberal Myths Chapter 13 Chapter 12. Immaterial Labor, Precarity, and Recomposition Chapter 14 Chapter 13. New Media as a New Mode of Production? Chapter 15 Chapter 14. High-Tech Workers of the World, Unionize! A Case Study of WashTech's "New Model of Unionism" Chapter 16 Chapter 15. Short-Circuited? The Communication of Labor Struggles in China Chapter 17 Chapter 16. Women and Knowledge Work in the Asia-Pacific: Complicating Technological Empowerment Chapter 18 Chapter 17. Globalization and Workers' Power: The Struggle for Hegemony during the 1997 UPS Strike Chapter 19 Chapter 18. Labor Strife and Carnival Symbolism Chapter 20 Chapter 19. Neo-liberalism and Its Impact in the Telecommunications Industry: One Trad Unionist's Perspective