Precarious knowledge workers in China\u2019s social transformation\u2014a study of editors in the Chinese publishing industry

Jianhua Yao

doi:10.1186/s40711-017-0053-6

Abstract

Contributing to contemporary studies on knowledge workers, this paper aims to conceptualize the four critical challenges for editors in the Chinese publishing industry under the framework of political economy. These challenges, as a result of fundamental social changes, including technological, political and economic ones, and, most importantly, changes in class relations and power dynamics are the following: challenges related to technological change, challenges of how to follow the political principle in the media marketization process, challenges brought about by the smashing of the work-unit system, and challenges resulting from internal divisions within knowledge workers. Moreover, by incorporating findings discovered in the case studies of two publishing houses in Shanghai, this paper addresses the wider social relationship between communication and the institutional power structure in which editors, and knowledge workers in general, are situated.

Highlights

The study of knowledge workers has raised a number of important questions for academics and policymakers
This paper principally draws on approaches that rest upon qualitative traditions to critically analyze challenges facing knowledge workers, editors in the publishing industry, during China’s on-going social transformation
This paper addresses an interconnection between structures and agents, attempting to bridge the gap between theoretical perspectives that foreground structure and those that emphasize action and agency

Summary

Introduction

The study of knowledge workers has raised a number of important questions for academics and policymakers. Bell (1999) maintains that with the rise of a society dependent on intellectual technology, on the production and distribution of theoretical information, a new class of leaders—a genuine knowledge class of welltrained scientific and technical workers—is rising to prominence. With the emphasis on meritocracy based on education and skills in the production and distribution of information, knowledge workers have successfully become central figures in this new political and economic system. Knowledge workers—professional, skilled and presumably middle-class—play an increasingly critical role in the global market. Mosco and McKercher (2008) point out that with knowledge workers occupying a large share of jobs in the developed world and with dramatic growth in their numbers in poorer nations as well, they are becoming active in the labor movement globally Knowledge workers—professional, skilled and presumably middle-class—play an increasingly critical role in the global market. Mosco and McKercher (2008) point out that with knowledge workers occupying a large share of jobs in the developed world and with dramatic growth in their numbers in poorer nations as well, they are becoming active in the labor movement globally

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