Internships for all? A critical review of unpaid

Transcript:Internships for all? A critical review of unpaid:
Internships for all? A critical review of unpaid labour and questions for marketing, advertising and public relations students in the UK: A working paper BSA Work, Employment and Society Conference, 2016 Liz Yeomans, Ioannis Kostopoulos and Sallyann Halliday, Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, UK Introduction An internship, or period of work experience, is widely acknowledged as a way into employment (BIS, 2012). Employers favour those students and graduates who have gained work experience to those who have not (Gault, Leach and Duey, 2010). However, while an internship is normatively understood as a way into desired careers in marketing, advertising and public relations, the question of unpaid internships – ‘free labour’; also titled ‘provisional’, ‘precarious’ and ‘ambiguous’ labour - is insufficiently problematised in much of the literature in these fields, even though the ‘challenges’ for universities in implementing internship programmes is well documented (Divine et al 2007). What is missing is a critical, comprehensive understanding of the experiences, aspirations and motivations of students on marketing, advertising and public relations courses in relation to their social and cultural contexts and the graduate labour market. Marketing, advertising and PR degrees and internships Within the UK, approximately 500,000 employed in the marketing, advertising and public relations professional fields (Office for National Statistics, 2015). Part of the cultural industries (Hesmondhalgh, 2013), practitioners within these three fields operate as ‘promotional intermediaries’, working on behalf of commercial interests to sell not only commodities but to shape ‘values, norms and beliefs about society, markets and human relations’ (Davis, 2013, p. 29). Most universities now offer generic Marketing, Advertising or Public Relations courses, combined degrees, or specialised degrees (e.g. Fashion Marketing; Sports Marketing) to cover the demand from employers (Unistats, 2016). Internships considered as crucial parts of undergraduate and postgraduate courses curricula because of the requirement to develop, practical, job related skills in order to become business professionals (Li, Greenberg and Nicholls, 2007). Professional associations diversity policies Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR Public Relations and Communication Association (PRCA) Only CIPR and PRCA have developed policies on fair wages for interns. http://www.prca.org.uk/campaigns/better-internships/pr-and-communications-employers-pay-their-interns https://www.cipr.co.uk/content/policy-resources/toolkits-and-best-practice-guides/internship-and-work-placement-toolkit The social capital debate Social capital theory (Bourdieu) is often used as a rationale for unpaid work for those students from underprivileged backgrounds who lack social capital. Social capital acquired through the contacts made on an internship can be used as a resource to enhance their