Kit Hughes
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- December 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190855789
- eISBN:
- 9780190855826
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190855789.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
Chapter 5 (keyword: narrowcasting) explores the development of private satellite networks to manage distributed workforces in the context of globalization and a “cultural turn” in popular management ...
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Chapter 5 (keyword: narrowcasting) explores the development of private satellite networks to manage distributed workforces in the context of globalization and a “cultural turn” in popular management theories. The late 1980s saw the proliferation of industry-focused subscription channels (e.g., geared toward insurers) and internal “networks” housed by a single company (e.g., Hewlett Packard). Two case studies (Johnson Controls and Steelcase) show how businesses used television to target worker identity in a bid to usurp other modes of affiliation (the nation, class) within the unstable employment environment of the 1980s and 1990s. This is the other side of the multichannel era: the creative deployment of employees as niche audiences. At the same time that post-national consumer identities became lucrative as a means of gathering and selling audiences on the diverse products of flexible specialization, proper cultural management of worker identity supported companies’ profit-maximization strategies (often based in cuts to employees’ material welfare).Less
Chapter 5 (keyword: narrowcasting) explores the development of private satellite networks to manage distributed workforces in the context of globalization and a “cultural turn” in popular management theories. The late 1980s saw the proliferation of industry-focused subscription channels (e.g., geared toward insurers) and internal “networks” housed by a single company (e.g., Hewlett Packard). Two case studies (Johnson Controls and Steelcase) show how businesses used television to target worker identity in a bid to usurp other modes of affiliation (the nation, class) within the unstable employment environment of the 1980s and 1990s. This is the other side of the multichannel era: the creative deployment of employees as niche audiences. At the same time that post-national consumer identities became lucrative as a means of gathering and selling audiences on the diverse products of flexible specialization, proper cultural management of worker identity supported companies’ profit-maximization strategies (often based in cuts to employees’ material welfare).
