This collection of new essays explores the cultures, social organisation, work practices and belief systems of media practitioners. Sections result from a combination of situated fieldwork, empirical or from-the-ground-up studies and critical analysis.

Below the Line illuminates the hidden labor of people who not only produce things that the television industry needs, such as a bit of content or a policy sound bite, but also produce themselves in the service of capital expansion. Vicki Mayer considers the work of television set assemblers, soft-core cameramen, reality-program casters, and public-access and cable commissioners in relation to the globalized economy of the television industry. She shows that these workers are increasingly engaged in professional and creative work, unsettling the industry s mythological account of itself...