Media and Cultural Work: A Resource for Better Working Life in the Arts and Media

Dear colleagues,

Today sees the launch of a new website, MEDIA AND CULTURAL WORK: A RESOURCE FOR BETTER WORKING LIFE IN THE ARTS AND MEDIA: http://mediaculturalwork.org

The title should hopefully make its function clear. It’s for activists, campaigners and public interest groups as much as for academics. It’s intended to be international. The launch of this website coincides with unprecedented media interest in questions of representation and inequality in cultural production. What has long been apparent to scholars in the field – that the cultural industries are less ethnically diverse, more male and skewed towards those of a higher socio-economic background that most other parts of the economy – seems to have become, at least briefly, ‘news.’ We hope to provide a forum where these and related issues can be discussed and where related research and activities can be publicised.

We’d be very grateful if you could share this with your networks, via email, Facebook and Twitter. You can follow the resource on Twitter by visiting https://twitter.com/mediaculturwork

And if you want to suggest a link that we can put on the site, please let us know. We’d also like to hear your constructive feedback, whether positive or critical. The website is a work in progress, but we hope you find it useful.

Email contact: [email protected]

Best wishes,
David Hesmondhalgh and Kate Oakley
(both of the School of Media and Communication, University of Leeds)

PS: Our thanks to Joanna Kania, Klaudia Szlifinska, Chris McLachlan, Andreas Rauh Ortega, and Peter Edwards for their work on this initiative.