Organizing youth work(ers) through the paradox of play

ABSTRACT

A recent focus among communication scholars, the study of contradiction and paradox illuminates the inherent irrationality of organizing. The following case study examines how youth labor – cast as play – functions as a series of tensions and contradictions in the day-to-day construction of work(er) between adults and youth. Mirroring the popular reality TV show, The Apprentice, the program under study communicated contradictory messages about youth work(ers) in terms of: (1) proving/discounting oneself as worker, (2) demanding confidence while orchestrating uncertainty and (3) playing along versus being playful in the organizationally prescribed framework, effectively dismissing work(ers) essential to the functioning of the organization. My analysis demonstrates how the framing of youth’s work as a game delegitimized youth work(ers) resulting in potentially exploitative working conditions, and serves as a call to communication scholars to better account for youth as workers, while pointing to similar implications for other types of provisional and contingent work(ers).

KEYWORDS:

• Contradiction
• paradox
• play
• socialization
• work
• youth

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Angela Trethewey for her support and guidance throughout this project, the anonymous reviewers for their encouragement and helpful feedback, as well as editor, Debbie Dougherty, for her clear direction in moving this manuscript to publication.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Youth Crew and REACH are pseudonyms, as are all other names. IRB approval was granted for the study.

2. It is perhaps important to note that research for this project was completed when Donald Trump was a reality television personality, well before his entrance into the US political landscape.

3. In the findings that follow, I distinguish talk recorded in my fieldnotes (single quotation marks) from that which was recorded and transcribed as a part of an interview (double quotation marks).