Week 6: The New International Division of Cultural Labour

The exploitation of Hollywood cultural labour

‘One man draws out the wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it... The division of labour […] occasions, in every art, a proportionable increase of the productive powers of labour.’ – Adam Smith, Of the Division of Labour

Work in the media industries can be perceived from different sides, such as from the perspective of political economy, sociology or Marxism. This blogpost will illustrate not so much what the work in the media industries contains, but more how the cultural labour is divided. An interesting concept within this framework is the New International Division of Cultural Labour (NICL), developed by the scholar Toby Miller. Especially in the case of Hollywood this new division of cultural labour is interesting, because the key roles for media production and work relations have shifted under the influence of conglomeration, liberalization, globalization and new digital technologies (Mayer 2013: 9). These shifts accompany the struggles in media industries in relation to labour, as the case studies Mickey Mouse goes to Haiti and the intro of The Simpsons by Banksy demonstrate. These cultural products show that even though cultural production is understood as deriving from the expressive individual artist, it is often based on a complex division of labour (Hesmondhalgh & Baker 2011: 392) that includes the exploitation of this labour.

The New International Division of Cultural Labour

With the global stage, new forms of labour were institutionalised in empire. Nowadays, life-cycle models of international products suggest that they are first made and consumed in the centre, in a major industrial economy, then exported to the periphery, and finally produced and consumed ‘out there’, once technology is standardised and savings can be made on the labour front (Miller 2001: 113). Hollywood is one of these major industrial economies that relocate a great amount of their production to the periphery. Through runaway productions and outsourcing this film industry aims to keep the costs as low as possible, therefore increasing the profits.

This restructuration of cultural labour is what scholar Toby Miller calls the New International Division of Cultural Labour. He derives this idea from the New International Division of Labour (NIDL), a term that describes the spatial shift of manufacturing industries from advanced capitalist countries to developing countries, as a result of globalisation. Miller states that the same has happened within cultural production, which has led to new work relations within Hollywood (Miller 2001). The core of cultural labour in the NICL can be presented as following:

This figure shows that Hollywood makes a distinction between work involved in the production above-the-line, and work in the production below-the-line (Miller 2001: 119) The former lies within the key sector of budgets, and includes supposedly ‘proactive’ workers (such as writers, producers, stars and directors), while the latter covers ‘reactive’ workers. The first segment sees leading talent transplanted back to the core, while the second is more likely to provide contingent runaway employment under the NICL (Miller 2001: 119). Miller states that the consequence of this NICL is that “work may be subject to the local, national, regional and international fetishisation of each component, matching the way that the labour undertaken is itself largely fetishised away from the final text (Miller 2001: 114).” Therefore, you could say that it is within this distinction that a part of the media work becomes alienated.

Alienation is a concept that Karl Marx developed while he was creating his claim against capitalism. He stated that in the capitalist system the workers have become detached and relatively independent of their work, but not in a good way (Hesmondhalgh & Baker 2011: 383). He describes alienation as ‘the state in which people and societies become estranged from the products of their labour, from the process of production and from their own nature as humans’ (Hesmondhalgh & Baker 2011: 383). A good example of this alienation in relation to the NICL of Hollywood is the documentary Mickey Mouse goes to Haiti.

 

Mickey Mouse goes to Haiti (part 1)

This is a documentary that is made by the National Labor Committee about Haitians that create merchandise products for Disney. It documents the harsh conditions in which this merchandise is manufactured in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western world. Portraits of workers are included describing how they are being intimidated and threatened to be fired if they try to unionize in order to demand a fair living wage. The most striking is that these workers produce merchandise that they are not able to afford themselves. This is exactly what Marx means with alienation. Even though alienation is an old term, and the capitalist work system has undergone many changes, as is also described in Toward a Political Economy of Labor in the Media Industries by Hesmondhalgh and Baker, and Making Media Production Visible by Vicki Mayer, this documentary shows that the exploitation of cultural labour is still present nowadays. It may not happen within the core activities of the work in Hollywood, but through outsourcing their productions Hollywood aims to keep their costs as low as possible and increase their profits.

Intro The Simpsons by Banksy

The intro that Banksy made for The Simpsons makes this exploitation of cultural labour visible as well. The video illustrates the (exaggerated) reality behind The Simpsons: the dehumanizing repetitive work in the factories, combined with child labor, the toxicity of the used materials that leads to pollution, and the mistreatment of (extinct) animals. Both this fragment and the documentary Mickey Mouse goes to Haiti are examples of how the media work relations are becoming more transparent. To explain the notion of transparency, it is useful to first look into the opposite side of transparency: the invisibility of media production. Vicky Mayer claims in her text Making Media Production Visible that media production is the most invisible part of the entire media industries, and that consumers rarely consider where the media messages came from, who made them and what kind of work is put into them (Mayer 2013: 1). This coincides with a much older notion: commodity fetishism by Karl Marx. Both scholars show how we tend to forget or conceal the (cruel) human experience behind the production of a commodity (Hesmondhalgh & Baker 2011: 384). Production becomes ‘a hidden abode’: it denies the fact that we, as part of the capitalist system, are dependent on the work of others (Hesmondhalgh & Baker 2011: 384).

However, the examples I mentioned above, make the reality behind the productions clearly visible, by demonstrating the exploitation of cultural labour that is happening in the production of Disney merchandise or The Simpsons. They show the downside of the New International Division of Cultural Labour without covering up the facts; by breaking through the idea that media production is ‘a hidden abode’. The documentary and the intro are examples of activism that want to expose the atrocities going on in media production, thus pushing organisations like Hollywood to become more transparent and ethical. They imply the ethical importance of raising awareness of the suffering going on in the production below-the-line, and of collective action to alleviate it.

This blogpost first explained how the process of globalisation influenced the New International Division of Cultural Labour, and how the distinction between production above-the-line and below-the-line reinforced the alienation of work in the media industries. Especially in the case of the production of Disney merchandise in Haiti and in the intro of The Simpsons this exploitation of cultural labour is made clearly visible. These examples take on an activistic attitude to bring the atrocities of media production to light. If anything, this blog post shows that the concerns over the division of labour and exploitation need to become more transparent, in order to better understand the conditions of the workers, but also to formulate strategies for action.

AH - SH - MS - GV - MW

Thesis: Is it time for a Renewed International Division of Cultural Labour?

Sources:

- David Hesmondhalgh & Sarah Baker (2011), ‘Toward a Political Economy of Labor in the Media Industries’, in: Janet Wasko, Gragham Murdock & Helena Sousa (eds.), The Handbook of Political Economy of Communications. Blackwell Publishing, pp. 381-400.

- Vicki Mayer (2013), ‘Making Media Production Visible’, in: Vicki Mayer (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies, Volume II: Media Production. Blackwell Publishing, 2013.

- Mark Deuze (2006) ‘The International Division of Cultural Labor’, Deuzeblog http://deuze.blogspot.nl/2006/11/international-division-of-cultural.html (accessed on October 10th, 2015).

- Mark Deuze (2007), ‘Creative Industries, Convergence Culture and Media Work’, in: Media Work. Cambridge & Malden: polity, pp. 45-83.

- Toby Miller (2001), ‘The New International Division of Cultural Labour’, in: Global Hollywood. British Film Institute: pp 111-172.

- Lecture by Toby Miller (2007) at the University of California: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9LoveanwC8 (accessed on October 10th, 2015).



- Mickey Mouse goes to Haiti. Documentary by the National Labor Committee (1996) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_OXhtgHBxk (part 1) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8zcwniS3Es (part 2)

- The Simpsons by Banksy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK-1zT1gBXk