Internships: Friend or Foe? 3 Million Stories Conference, March 8‐9, 2013 Alexandre Frene=e CUNY Graduate Center afrene=e@gc.cuny.edu
Win‐Win‐Win Arrangement
ExploitaKon
Kevin Liles 1991: Unpaid intern, Def Jam / 1998: President, Def Jam Music Group
Methods ParKcipant observaKon as unpaid intern ‐ Major record company ‐ Indie‐oriented distributor Semi‐structured interviews (57 parKcipants) ‐ Interns (25), Employees (28), College personnel (4)
What Interns Do
“What you make of it” “And I think this internship is, you know, totally what you make of it. We’ve had people who come in here and sit here and watch videos on YouTube. If that’s, you know, your prerogaKve, awesome, do your thing, I’m not going to stop you.” – A&R employee
“What you make of it” “We try to impress upon our students that no ma=er where you go [in the music industry] you’re going to be doing mundane tasks (…). At some companies they’re not really good at gauging a parKcular student, but we always tell them – go in, do what you can, whatever job that they give you you do the best that you can do at it because if you do this job well they’re going to move you up to do the next job and just conKnue on.” – Internship coordinator
Why Companies Host Interns • Inexpensive source of labor (extra hands, good for one’s advancement, replacing staff) • Influx of youth, informaKon, and ideas • Training ground + pipeline for job candidates
CharacterisKcs and constraints: “Just the intern”: 1) Low status 2) Presumed incompetence 3) Temporary
Low Status “Enjoy learning about all the kinds of la=es Starbucks makes!”(…) “Soon you will be able to fix any paper jam that the photocopier will throw at you!” – Major record label, Sales employee
Presumed Incompetence “A good intern knows where to put a stamp on an envelope. A bad intern, I’d say, wouldn’t.” ‐ DistribuKon company, Digital sales employee “You come in not as somebody I know who you are now, but you come in as another intern. […] Intern A comes in, Intern B comes in, one of them is good, one of them is bad, and you don’t know what they’re capable of doing. So automaKcally you just generalize and say, ‘OK, it’s an intern.’ And then all of a sudden by the Kme we get to know you, you’re gone.” – Major record label, Sales employee
Intern Lawsuits • Charlie Rose (~$250,000 se=lement) • Elite Model Management • Fox Entertainment Group • Hearst CorporaKon
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