Dilemmas of Project-Based Media Work: Contexts and Choices

Abstract

Media firms exist in dynamic business contexts which influence how they and their creative workers respond to a series of project-based work dilemmas. The paper reviews three forms of dilemmas or tensions within media-based businesses: identity dilemmas of individualization versus collective belonging, organizing dilemmas of creative autonomy versus corporate control, and learning dilemmas of creative exploration versus commercial exploitation. The paper conceptualizes how creative businesses and creative workers respond to these dilemmas in terms of separating, integrating and shifting response options. It then examines how contextual features of media industry technologies, markets, institutional practices, and user coproduction convergences impact how project businesses and their creative workers are likely to respond to the dilemmas.

Key Words:

• project management
• media
• identity
• autonomy
• learning
• alliance