Media Work: Done

Just before the end of 2006 I am please to report to myself that the manuscript of Media Work (to be published in September 2007 by Polity Press if all goes according to plan) is done... just finished the final sentences, editing the final paragraphs, putting it all together. At 83,909 words, its quite long - but it was also a lot of fun to research and write!

And oh whatever, let me share the final paragraph - not because its profound or meaningful, but just because it IS the final one:

Of course, there is much more to say about the work-styles of media professionals and the implications of these conclusions for a life lived in media. As societies move towards culturalized economies, glocalized production and consumption, lifestyle politics and an ongoing immersion in media, the lessons we can learn from the experiences of workers in the creative industries are clearly critical. Beyond the convenient categories of culture versus economy, core versus periphery, content versus connectivity, creativity versus commerce or even flexibility versus stability I would like to argue for a more complex and indeed liquid understanding of a life lived (and thus: worked) in media. A liquid life is, as Bauman perhaps underestimates, a media life. And this life is primarily shaped, and lived, by media workers.