Desperately seeking my wages: justice, media logic, and the politics of voice in urban China

<jats:p>Much has been written about the working conditions, experiences of injustice and exploitation, and the formation of the working class in the construction sector in China. However, we know very little about the role of media in the process of gaining/denying voice and visibility. Combining critiques of media forms and media practices with ethnographic insights, and in juxtaposition to the two dominant, or hegemonic, media forms – reality TV shows and media events – which embody, respectively, the market and the Party-state’s efforts to exploit the ‘media logic’, the article considers the success and failure of rural migrant construction workers’ media tactics in their struggles to claim wages owed to them. This article is concerned with the politics of voice, and explores how the processes of mediation and mediatization engaged in by all parties – the Party-state, the market, workers and the media – amplify or constrain voice.</jats:p>