Marco Teórico

In commentaries about new media work, entrepreneurialism has been identified as one of the industry‘s defining features (Christopherson, 2004; Gill, 2007, 2010; Neff et al, 2005, Neff, 2012; Oakley, 2014). Like precariousness, I refer to it an extrinsic feature of new media work because it is dependent on the external context within which such work is carried out. Neff et al (2005) attempted to trace the origins of what they referred to as ‗entrepreneurial labour‘ in new media work by linking it to decisions made by firms in the US and other regions to change the norms of the workplace as a response to the growing trend in the post-industrial economy toward nonstandard employment in the 1970s. There changes were reflected in the introduction of policies

that encouraged the hiring of independent contractors and ‗perma-temps‘ as a replacement to regular employees. As a result of this, there was a gradual shift of economic risk from institutions and organizations onto individual workers. Neff et al.

(2005) noted that, ‗without strong stabilizing norms and regulations of workplace behavior and rewards‘, media workers began to bear these risks with the hope that they would be better able to navigate uncertainty while remaining associated with the industry. Neff (2012) termed this behaviour ‗venture labour‗ which, according to her, became prevalent among new media workers and contributed to the dot-com bubble in the US. Venture labour, ‗as a way of managing the risk of contemporary work‘ (Neff, 2012, p.16) potentially explains what Christopherson (2014) described as the

‗entrepreneurial model‘ predominant in the US new media sector.

Apart from managing the risks in the firms they worked, another method workers opted to handle this situation has been to set up their own firms. Thus, in her research conducted in several European countries, Gill (2010) observed that entrepreneurialism among new media workers was evident through ‗the proliferation of micro-businesses or independents‘ along with the ‗habits and dispositions and mentalities of the workers, with their aspirations to innovate, create and to be pioneers‘ (p.7). In a similar research on new media work, Gottshall and Kroos (2003) also highlighted the predominance of ‗self-employed workers without employees‘ (p.5) in the UK and in Germany. However, the study of the German industry by Mayer-Ahuja and Wolf (2007) presented a somewhat contrasting picture. According to their study of 12 internet companies, there was an increasing tendency towards ‗routine work, stable employment, formal hierarchical structures and direct control‘ (p.73). They noted the sharp difference between what had been reported, for example, about the new media industry in New York (see Batt, 1997) and the ‗standard employment pattern‘ which had begun to develop under conditions of consolidation in Germany in 2001.

This variation in the employment patterns available in different contexts is further highlighted by Christopherson (2004) in her comparative study of new media in the US and in Sweden and Germany. For Christopherson, this variation is the result of differences in the industrial and regulatory frameworks across countries. According to her, ‗the ―regulatory difference‖ has produced considerable variation in the

occupational identities of new media workers among advanced economies‘ (p.543). It has led to a situation in which some countries create capacities for some types of solutions or constrain them. She cites, for example, the situation in which career patterns in the new media sector of Sweden and Germany follow ‗an employment-based professional model‗ while the United States is characterized by a ‗free-agent, entrepreneurial model‘ (p.549). Thus, according to Christopherson (2004), while in countries like Sweden and Germany, the new media workforce ‗tend to be full-time employees and to work under longer-term employment contracts even when they are working on projects‘, the case is different in countries like the United States ‗where an entrepreneurial model prevails‘ and ‗the costs of sustaining a project-based industry are primarily absorbed by the workforce‘ (p.556).

If such variations exist among countries of the Global North, how can we understand what prevails in countries of the Global South? In this thesis, I address this issue by examining entrepreneurialism among new media workers in the Nigerian context. This is important because the study of a context like Nigeria which is different from those of the West from a geographic, economic and cultural standpoint, potentially opens up new frames for understanding entrepreneurialism in new media work. For example, apart from the variations in regulatory frameworks across countries, the impact of infrastructure on the practice of new media work can provide fresh perspectives on entrepreneurialism among those in the industry. Such a study will have to account for the specificities of infrastructure in the context under observation. My investigation on entrepreneurialism in the Nigerian context will therefore examine how the prevalence of infrastructural breakdown manifests the entrepreneurial practices of new media workers there.

To do this, I discuss how the breakdown of infrastructure is characterized by the prevalence of electricity outages and poor internet access. I also examine the ways by which people continually attempt to negotiate these conditions in their everyday lives.

In Chapter 6, I draw on my empirical data to suggest that the specific form of entrepreneurialism practiced by my research participants is a function of the efforts they make to negotiate the infrastructural challenges encountered in their work. In

doing this, I examine how the intrinsic features of new media work contribute to their negotiation of those challenges.