This qualitative case study of travel journalism in the USA explores how freelancers produce on s... more This qualitative case study of travel journalism in the USA explores how freelancers produce on speculation because publications do not contractually guarantee pay or advanced resources for travel. Freelance travel journalists therefore experience their work as an investment into an uncertain return in an undefined future. This article shows how such speculation manifests itself as a new productive process and relations of organisational externalisation in lean capitalism. Examining the changing obligations between freelancers and publications without assignment-contracts, this study argues that speculation presents the obfuscation of production. It externalises the risks of production onto the freelancer; reduces organisational control over production; and changes occupational norms and practices.
This article analyzes emerging entrepreneurial practices of travel journalists in the USA as a qu... more This article analyzes emerging entrepreneurial practices of travel journalists in the USA as a qualitative case study of the marketization of fields of cultural production. Today, the journalistic field is undergoing a radical transformation of practice and organization collectively framed as crisis. As a result, formerly solid lines separating business and editorial departments, print and online publishing spaces, professional journalists and amateur content are blurring. Drawing on interviewing and discourse analysis, this article analyzes how travel journalists react to these changes and the threats posed to their economic subsistence by folding publications, mass-layoffs and declining pay for freelancers. Situated at the intersection of the Sociology of Culture and Economic Sociology, this research shows how new opportunity structures significantly change the meaning of journalistic practice; how travel journalists today generate income and resources through entrepreneurial practices that have been previously deemed unethical. They do so by bridging the existing boundaries to publishing, marketing and travel industry. This article argues that travel journalists instrumentalize crisis narratives to justify shifting professional ethics as means of economic production, while they simultaneously maintain an order of prestige and create closure to outside challengers based on these ethics.
This qualitative case study of travel journalism in the USA explores how freelancers produce on s... more This qualitative case study of travel journalism in the USA explores how freelancers produce on speculation because publications do not contractually guarantee pay or advanced resources for travel. Freelance travel journalists therefore experience their work as an investment into an uncertain return in an undefined future. This article shows how such speculation manifests itself as a new productive process and relations of organisational externalisation in lean capitalism. Examining the changing obligations between freelancers and publications without assignment-contracts, this study argues that speculation presents the obfuscation of production. It externalises the risks of production onto the freelancer; reduces organisational control over production; and changes occupational norms and practices.
This article analyzes emerging entrepreneurial practices of travel journalists in the USA as a qu... more This article analyzes emerging entrepreneurial practices of travel journalists in the USA as a qualitative case study of the marketization of fields of cultural production. Today, the journalistic field is undergoing a radical transformation of practice and organization collectively framed as crisis. As a result, formerly solid lines separating business and editorial departments, print and online publishing spaces, professional journalists and amateur content are blurring. Drawing on interviewing and discourse analysis, this article analyzes how travel journalists react to these changes and the threats posed to their economic subsistence by folding publications, mass-layoffs and declining pay for freelancers. Situated at the intersection of the Sociology of Culture and Economic Sociology, this research shows how new opportunity structures significantly change the meaning of journalistic practice; how travel journalists today generate income and resources through entrepreneurial practices that have been previously deemed unethical. They do so by bridging the existing boundaries to publishing, marketing and travel industry. This article argues that travel journalists instrumentalize crisis narratives to justify shifting professional ethics as means of economic production, while they simultaneously maintain an order of prestige and create closure to outside challengers based on these ethics.
Uploads
Papers by Tim Rosenkranz