A 1980s TV campaign for the Guardian encouraged us to look at the wider picture before forming an opinion. Although this is generally a good idea, sometimes this leads you to think too much about an issue, ending up without a clear perspective.
This was how I felt about the ongoing debate about work experience in the media industries (some recent articles are here and here). My confusion was fuelled by having vested interests that pulled me in three different directions.
My academic research concerns the exploitation of workers in the cultural industries (which doesn't just cover work experience but also homeworking, online work, personal branding, etc. etc.). However, as a direct contradiction, I also lead the work experience module on De Montfort University's MA in Public Relations, thus actively promoting placements. You can see my dilemma. On top of this, I also used to work as a PR practitioner and consequently have met scores of work experience students, who have varied in their quality from the terrifyingly awesome to being a terrifying liability.
All this led to a lot of hand-wringing and soul-searching about where I stood in the debate. But after listening to the experiences of my work experience students this year, and reading stories from all corners of the industry, I've decided that some of my confusion about the work experience/exploitation debate derived from the fact that I was trying to make PR 'work experience' mean one thing (we'll put to one side 'placements' and 'internships' here, which can have slightly different meanings). For in PR, the term 'work experience' can span two types of employment - one exploitative, one not. I will explain:
- One kind of placement is essentially symbiotic. The organisation feels that it wants to give something back to the industry, but at the same time it needs to remain profitable, and has some minor but interesting jobs that need carrying out. The placement student spends a lot of time shadowing and attending meetings but also contributing to team activities, sharing their new university knowledge and 'doing' PR - something that my placement students find invaluable.
- But there's another type of placement. I'm increasingly being phoned by organisations who have a 'project' and want a 'placement student for three months.' No, they don't want a placement student. They want an unpaid resource with few employment rights. Similarly, I'm hearing stories from placement students (rarely mine, fortunately) who are working at agencies where the placement students outnumber the paid staff. While some of these students are getting amazing experience by being allowed an awesome level of responsibility at a very early stage in their career, the agencies are simply exploiting goodwill and pocketing the cash from clients. In one case the placement students had to vacuum the office at the end of the day! This isn't work experience, and although 'economic downturn' might be an excuse, it doesn't make it right. There's no mentoring, no support, and no coaching that goes beyond tearing a press release apart. These jobs should be done by paid staff (and that includes the cleaning).
As a result of this, I've made a decision. I'm happy to promote and encourage students to apply for the first type of internship. After all, they enjoy the placements, apply their prior learning, find out more about PR, and acquire valuable experience and contacts - and the host organisation gets something out of it as well. As for the second type ... I'm not going to promote their 'opportunities' to my students or retweet their vacancies via Twitter. And if I have the chance, I'll privately explain why. Simple as that. It's not a particularly active stance, but it's a start.
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