Class and exclusion at work: The case of UK film and television

Abstract

Policy makers applaud the growth of the creative and cultural industries (CCI) in the developed economies; indeed, it has been argued that these sectors have achieved global popularity as a plank of economic development strategy (Cunningham, 2007). Even in the context of the current recession Pratt (2009: 496) remarks on both ‘the relative and absolute rise of the CCI’. In the United Kingdom they are held up for the potential they may have to create wealth and new jobs in the wake of declining secondary and tertiary sectors (DCMS, 2008, 2011; Bakhshi et al., 2013). In 2010 approximately 1.5 million people were employed in creative industries in the UK (DCMS, 2011) and the value of the sector has grown at an average of 5 per cent per annum against an average of 3 per cent across the economy more generally (Shorthouse, 2010). As part of this wider set of industries the UK film industry has been estimated to contribute around £5.3bn to the economy and provide 70,000 jobs, including 46,000 in production (BFI, 2013) while the television industry, which includes the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) – a semi-autonomous public service broadcaster (PSB) and not primarily profitmaking – provides around 80,000 jobs and £1bn to the export economy (House of Lords, 2010). Universities see the continued year-on-year growth of creative arts and mass communications degree programmes (HESA, 2013), and the cultural and creative industries remain popular as aspirational graduate destinations, with associations of glamour (Davies and Sigthorssen, 2013). However, behind this ‘good news story’ is a more complex picture. These industriesare uneven in their growth, employment potential or economic significance despite similarities in organisational and workforce structures. In contrast to their popularity and glamorous associations they have a collective history of nepotistic recruitment through informal networks (Holgate and McKay, 2007; Grugulis and Stoyanova, 2012); a very substantial proportion of freelance, casual, contingent, ‘flexible’ or precarious work (Hesmondhalgh and Baker, 2010, 2011; Skillset, 2011); an increasingexpectation that entrants will be filtered through a system of unpaid or low-paid internships (Siebert and Wilson, 2013; Skillset, 2010; Holgate, 2006); and an employment profile that suggests that mechanisms are at work which exclude on the basis of gender, ethnicity, age, geography, disability and social class (Randle, Leung and Kurian, 2007; Grugulis and Stoyanova, 2012; Warhurst and Eikhof, 2011; Gill, 2011). One wide ranging review of creative and cultural industries (Pratt and Jeffcutt, 2009: 269) concludes:a careful examination of the socio-economic backgrounds of participants reveals a distinct bias to the mainly young, white, male, middle classes. In the UK, and it is likely in other nations for which we do not have direct data, the creative and cultural industries are particularly poorly representative of diversity.