ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the organisational characteristics of the magazine industry, drawing on notions of the 'project' form of business organisation. It shows how project forms of organisation in magazine publishing rely on the self-exploitation of a labour force, including both its employed and freelance components. The chapter considers the spatial dimensions of project organisation in magazine publishing, particularly the implications of the externalisation of sunk costs. It describes the exploitation argument further by showing how spatial clustering in the industry has a darker side. Spatial clustering need not be a necessary condition of project-based organisation in the magazine industry. Social and spatial embeddedness in magazine publishing operates through fundamental power inequalities between capital and labour. Project-organisation in magazine publishing has similarities with, and differences from, the Soho advertising agencies, and much of this is due to the nature of the product.
