Blame the Intern

Name: Blame the Intern
Price: 49.99 AUD
Availability: OutOfStock
ISBN: 9780691181486

On (Not) Breaking into the Creative Economy

Alexandre Frenette

$49.99

Hardback

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English

Princeton University Press
14 April 2026

Cultural studies; Media studies; Sociology: work & labour; Industrial or vocational training

An inside look at the work lives of college interns and their uncertain path to paid employment.

While generations of young adults used to spend their summers working as lifeguards or camp counsellors, college students today are more likely to seek office experience as interns. Blame the Intern takes readers into the workspaces of the music industry to show how internships, especially unpaid ones, are problematic introductions to the working world that often provide little valuable training and are unlikely to lead to a job.

Since the 1980s, shifts in labour markets and careers have made employers less prone to invest in training entry-level employees who may quickly change jobs anyway. In recent decades, higher education has filled the gap, fuelling an explosive growth of internships to facilitate the transition from college to a career. Drawing on in-depth interviews with interns, record label employees, and college personnel, as well as his own experiences as an unpaid intern at two music industry firms in New York City, Alexandre Frenette sheds light on who benefits from the intern economy, who suffers, and why. He finds that internships are rife with ambiguity because employers are neither trained nor greatly rewarded to mentor and colleges are ill-equipped to provide workplace guidance. As a result, there is little consensus about what interns should be doing or what benefits they should be gaining from their experience, which can often lead to inequality, exploitation, and disappointment.

Timely and provocative, Blame the Intern demonstrates how employers and institutions of higher learning are redefining what it means to break in

and reveals what happens when few can.

By: Alexandre Frenette
Imprint: Princeton University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 155mm,
ISBN: 9780691181486
ISBN 10: 0691181489
Pages: 264
Publication Date: 14 April 2026
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Alexandre Frenette is assistant professor of sociology at Vanderbilt University.

Reviews for Blame the Intern: On (Not) Breaking into the Creative Economy

""A clear-eyed examination of how internships can be problematic introductions to professional life. . . . Though largely focused on the music business, Frenette’s measured, well-researched analysis applies to other creative professional fields. It’s a persuasive critique of a system that promises opportunity, but delivers ambiguity."" * Publishers Weekly *