‘Work/place’ media: locating laboring audiences

Abstract

Without suggesting a break from ongoing research into historical examples of corporate and industrial media, this article points towards additional and complementary avenues of research. It considers the role of (what we might call) the audience across contemporary and historical media workplace media practices by offering a framework for thinking through the cultural meanings embedded within labor-related media by users. Rather than focusing audience research through the lens of ‘industrial’ or (more recently) ‘corporate’ – categories that are both broad (‘industrial’ includes a wide range of internal and external communication and education purposes) and exclusive (neither allows for the inclusion of all media produced and consulted in the course of business, e.g. an office worker watching YouTube on the job) – I suggest using ‘work/place’ to understand media use and practice within structures of labor and location. Placing audience studies literature alongside discussions of labor and place, I sketch a preliminary outline for understanding these practices while pursuing questions related to the definition of audiences, the specificities of non-entertainment media, and mediated place and labor. My conclusion points to the methodological challenges and special considerations tied to this ‘work/place’ lens and the possibilities of undertaking live subject audience research.