study was ultimately concerned with the question, do such schemes create jobs ? And how do these forms of work experience shape the kind of work undertaken at a later stage ? While the ISFOL study does not break down the nature of the work placement programmes to specify the arts media or cultural sector, we can assume that such fields are indeed active participants in what are in effect job creation schemes utilising unpaid or semi-paid programmes as additional training for work. In the UK, discussion of work experience programmes and internships has included a wider range of bodies, most vocal of which have recently been journalists including the National Union of Journalists, and along with this organisations associated with media including television, magazines, film and video etc. In the UK, the debate has focused on unfair practices, exploitation as cheap labour, the advantages young people from well-off professional backgrounds have in gaining access to prestigious internships, and the increasingly standard expectation that in media fields young people work unpaid for up to six months in the hope of eventually moving onto the payroll. Various factors are called upon to explain this phenomenon: so-called grade inflation among graduates leaving university with high qualifications ( 2.1s ) such that employers cannot differentiate, oversupply of graduates looking for work in arts, media and creative fields, itself a reflection of the higher numbers of young people attending university and higher education than was the case in the past, and high motivation among young people to work in prestigious or deemed to be interesting media-related fields. It is also important however to make cross-discipline connections between fields of expertise ; what applies in media and creative arts also applies in the social or third
sector of NGOs and non-statutory organisations such as charities. Volunteering has long had a double function : genuine desire to contribute to the social or cultural good without pay, and also work experience which in the context of the young person’s CV adds significant cultural capital ( Bourdieu 1984 ). In addition to this we need to take into account the massive expansion of the NGO sector or of charities and their role in civic society. Christie ( 2008 ) has investigated the informal pathways into the voluntary and charity sector, including youth and community work. This is a sector which connects with the cultural and creative field insofar as it increasingly relies on media, arts and cultural expertise ( eg for fund raising, communications and press office and campaigning work ). The study showed that 60 % of the sample surveyed had volunteered before getting a job and as one said “sometimes it is necessary to have volunteered even to get a volunteer placement”. In addition some young people continue to volunteer for other agencies even after they get a job, “to develop their skills”. This study also found that volunteers often ended up as paid members of staff confirming a sense that in this sector too, the same process of unpaid work ( here called volunteering ) also applies in the search for paid work. And turning back to media and journalism, a survey carried out at London Metropolitan University of finalists in London media-related degree courses ( media, film and television ) reported mid-way through the study that longer periods of non-remuneration were increasingly expected with some working for 6 months unpaid in the hope of a job at the end of the period. This study showed how in London getting a first job seemed to revolve around personal contacts including friends and family. ( “Formal recruitment and employment procedures are rarely adopted.” ) The author of the study was