4. From TV to AV in Jamaica: Creative Work, Content and Consumption

With the change from public service to commercial television, Jamaican television practitioners were faced with a new concept—television as business. Neoliberalism had changed the nature of employment relationships. This chapter traces the trajectory of transition of creative work in the Jamaican audiovisual sector. It examines the processes used, structures established, methods engaged, philosophies that inspired, structures adopted and activities undertaken by audiovisual professionals to complete their jobs of work. The greatest challenge to creative work as decent work is getting stakeholders external to the creative sector to understand, accept and fully appreciate many creative activities as work, worthy of a decent work agenda. Understanding the changes in the nature of creative work in the AV subsector provides insight into its unique characteristics and provides thematic clues to address endemic challenges. Seven characteristic changes have been identified across cultural and creative sectors as units of analysis to describe the specific transformational factors from television institution to audiovisual subsector of the cultural economy in Jamaica and Ghana between 1997 and 2017. This chapter examines changes in three of those—creative work, content and consumption.