Organizing work: Company magazines and the discipline of safety

Abstract

This article explores how company magazines went beyond the creation of corporate culture and were used as a tool of management to manipulate and control the labour process. The article concentrates upon the Great Western Railway, its staff magazine and the occupational safety education campaign run between 1913–1939. Using Foucauldian notions of discipline, it is argued that the magazine propagated a specific version of ‘safety’ which attempted to extend managerial prerogative in the workplace. This operated within the bureaucratic tradition of the railway industry. However, it is also suggested that attempting to influence production processes through company magazines is highly problematic.