Labor resides at the center of all media and communication production, from the workers who create the information technologies that form the dynamic core of the global capitalist system and the designers who create media content to the salvage workers who dismantle the industry's high-tech trash. The Routledge Companion to Labor and Media is the first book to bring together representative research from the diverse body of scholarly work surrounding this often fragmentary field, and seeks to provide a comprehensive resource for the study and teaching of media and labor. Essays examine work on the mostly unglamorous side of media and cultural production, technology manufacture, and every occupation in between.

Specifically, this book features:

-wide-ranging international case studies spanning the major global hubs of media labor;

-interdisciplinary approaches for thinking about and analyzing class and labor in information communication technology (ICT), consumer electronics (CE), and media/cultural production;

-an overview of global political economic conditions affecting media workers;

-reports on chemical environments and their effect on the health of media workers and consumers;

-activist scholarship on media and labor, and inspiring stories of resistance and solidarity.

"As globalisation, convergence and digitisation restructure the media industries at dizzying speed, the human effort that enables them has never been more important. Yet up to now this topic has been surprisingly neglected, perhaps because scholars have been daunted by the sheer scale of the interdisciplinary challenge. This collection rises to that challenge, bringing together key world-leading experts to provide an authoritative introduction to media labour right along the value chain, from hardware manufacture to content production to waste disposal. Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the labour behind the media." -Ursula Huws, University of Hertfordshire, author of Labor in the Global Digital Economy: The Cybertariat Comes of Age "Media Studies joins the 'turn to labor' with this superb volume. Expertly assembled, and as close to definitive as we could hope for. A truly indispensable companion!" -Andrew Ross, New York University "This is an important and compelling collection devoted to the constant that unites media old and new, digital, and analog, mass and post-mass: the labor upon which they rely, whether this takes place behind the screens, under the 'clouds,' offshore, or outsourced. The collection features engaging essays from the top scholars in the field, making it a staple text for anyone interested in the political economy of the media and its implications for democracy, politics, and the environment." -Mark Andrejevic, Pomona College