Abstract
Conventional news values are not well attuned to provide voice that matters for those who are socially marginalised, including residents of social housing in Australia. As a result, news media can legitimise and entrench inequalities and injustices. In this article we examine social housing resident voice in media reporting during the COVID-19 pandemic, identifying constraints on resident voice and indicating rarer instances where alternative models that value resident voice appear. We analysed over 700 newspaper articles published in 2020, and found conventional news hierarchies of attention marginalise and devalue the voice of social housing residents through two processes: limiting residents to speaking about personal experience; and portraying residents as vulnerable through stigmatising discourses. These processes consistently undermine residents’ expertise. To develop more just alternatives in a context of ongoing housing crisis, we argue it is necessary to value voices of social housing residents as experts and challenge stigmatising discourses.
Introduction
In this article we analyse conditions of voice in news media, and argue that existing media hierarchies of attention are not well attuned to foster just outcomes for those who are socially marginalised, such as residents of social housing in Australia. As media and communications scholar Simon Cottle argues, ‘who gets “on” or “in” the news is important—very important indeed’ (2000: 427). At the time of writing, a very small decrease in official interest rates has dominated the news agenda in Australia, against the backdrop of ongoing media attention to the ‘housing crisis’. Experts in housing and social services argue for increased public investment in social housing as the most equitable way to address rapidly growing housing inequality and a crisis that has seen Sydney become one of the most expensive cities in the world (Liu et al., 2023; Sisson, 2023). However, this argument receives little coverage in legacy news media.
Through examining the place of social housing resident voice in news media reporting during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic we identify constraints on voice in this media, and indicate rarer instances where alternative models that value resident voice do appear. The presence and absence of particular groups’ voice that matters (Couldry, 2010) in news media can legitimise and entrench inequalities and injustices. We deploy Couldry's (2010) concept of ‘voice’, noting that this can refer to individual and/or collective voice, and acknowledging critiques that this may gloss over multi-vocality, representational dynamics and diversity of experience amongst those whose interests and agendas are contained in a singular understanding of voice (Mazzei, 2016).
Our approach aimed to listen under dominant narratives such as stigmatisation, racialisation and classism that constrain and marginalise resident voice. We did so through analysis of how the voices of social housing residents appeared (or did not appear) in over seven hundred newspaper articles published in 2020, a unique moment of crisis in which social housing received heightened media coverage. We find that conventional news hierarchies of attention marginalise and devalue the voice of social housing residents through two key processes: limiting residents to speaking only about personal experience, which is portrayed as atomised and individual; and portraying residents as vulnerable through relying on stigmatising discourses such as the deficit discourse and pathologisation of poverty. These two key processes serve to constantly place residents’ expertise lower in value than that of those legitimised as ‘experts’. In order to develop more just alternatives, we argue that it is necessary to value the voices of social housing residents as experts.
With attention to processes of voice, we begin this article by analysing direct quotes from social housing residents that appeared within news media throughout 2020 – a very unusual year. We then explore the longstanding stigmatisation of social housing residents, often linked to racialisation and classism, that influences and constrains where and how resident voice is valued. Through analysing the presence and absence of resident voice in newspapers, we argue that the neoliberal frame that predominates in mainstream news media serves to marginalise and devalue the voice of social housing residents, and that more just alternatives can be achieved by rethinking conventional news values, challenging entrenched discourses of vulnerability and deficit to instead hear from residents as experts in the systems and structures that they inhabit.
Why voice matters in media
Recent work in media studies has placed increased emphasis on voice and listening, particularly under neoliberalism (Couldry, 2010; Lloyd, 2009; Dreher, 2009). Within his highly influential work on voice and neoliberalism, media theorist and sociologist Nick Couldry delineates between voice as a process, and voice as value. Voice as a process refers to the relatively familiar use of the term voice: ‘the expression of opinion or, more broadly, the expression of a distinctive perspective on the world that needs to be acknowledged’ (2010: 1). It is worth noting here that voice in this sense is not limited to vocal cords or auditory sounds; all forms of communication, such as sign language and written communication, can equally be considered voice.
Voice as a value, on the other hand, refers to valuing ways of organising life that respect ‘the multiple interlinked processes of voice and sustaining them, not undermining or denying them’ (2010: 2). In line with Couldry, we argue that valuing voice creates the possibility of challenging fundamental aspects of neoliberalism, a widespread and deeply entrenched frame that shapes housing in Australia and many other liberal democracies. In particular, Couldry discusses ‘political voice’: voice that has the potential to have impact and influence within political processes. Whose voices are valued in these processes is of particular concern. Neoliberalism excludes ‘the possibility that voice matters’ (Couldry, 2010: 12). Crucially, this means that voice as value is not only about expressing thoughts or opinions, but also about voice having meaningful potential impact.
Voice as a value as conceived of by Couldry turns our attention to systems and structures, to institutions and the ways that they are or are not built to value and respond to voice. In this article, we examine the institution of media and the structures of news values, media logics and professional practices. Couldry demonstrates how the mainstream media not only fails to provide the means for people to give an account of themselves, but also reinforces neoliberal values and argues for alternatives, drawing on theories of justice with reference to Amartya Sen and Judith Butler.
In what follows we examine the implications of news values and everyday media logics for valuing the voice of social housing residents in decision-making via media. This is a vital aspect of voice that matters – voice that has the potential to have an impact, influence decisions, or set the agenda. Ensuring everyone has the opportunity not only to speak, but also to be meaningfully listened to, is a vital element of imagining and enacting more just futures. As Amartya Sen (1999: 288) argues, ‘the liberty of acting as citizens who matter and whose voices count, rather than living as well-fed, well-clothed, and well-entertained vassals’, is an essential aspect of a just society. In a similar vein, Miranda Fricker's (2007) work on epistemic justice turns attention to hierarchies of credibility granted to people and groups as knowers or as experts, highlighting the injustice of being denied epistemic authority.
Social housing in Australia
We focus on social housing in Australian media as housing is a human right, as outlined in Article 25 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), and is an essential element of social justice. A lack of access to stable, safe, genuinely affordable housing is detrimental to the wellbeing of individuals and communities, as it exacerbates existing poverty (Liu et al., 2023), increases risks to health (Shaw, 2004), and deprives residents of ontological security (Dupuis and Thorns, 1998). In Australia, as in many other liberal democracies, the social housing system is a key mechanism for delivering more affordable and secure housing. However, under the widespread and deeply entrenched neoliberal frame, social housing is being increasingly defunded and under-resourced (Morris, 2013).
In Australia, social housing is an umbrella term that refers to a number of housing types subsidised by governments and targeted at those on low or no incomes: public housing, community housing and Aboriginal housing. The social housing system is the most substantive form of low-income housing available in Australia, and is an important aspect of redistributive justice. However it makes up only a small proportion of total housing stock, is increasingly underfunded, and as social housing becomes increasingly targeted, residents have increasingly complex, overlapping needs (a process known as residualisation) (Liu et al., 2023; Morris, 2013). Both social housing as a tenure type and those who live there are highly stigmatised in Australia. Furthermore, due to the highly residualised nature of the social housing system, residents often face multiple axes of marginalisation based on disability, history of incarceration, and/or race, to name only a few.
One aspect of these axes of marginalisation is the entrenched nature of stigmatising discourses in media. The stigmatisation of social housing residents in media is often based on a ‘pathologising’ discourse (Hastings, 2004; Jacobs and Flanagan, 2013), in which disadvantage is attributed to individual action, lifestyle and choices (Arthurson and Darcy, 2015). Similarly, the constant portrayal of social housing residents as ‘vulnerable’ is another element of this discourse that serves to mask structural causes of disadvantage.
The space for voice in mainstream media most often serves to amplify and normalise neoliberal values (Couldry, 2010), such as the foregrounding of market considerations at the expense of all else, and individualism. The view that disadvantage is not the result of structural oppression, but of poor choices and character, contributes to a lack of political will to address problems associated with stigmatised groups (Jacobs and Flanagan, 2013). This view also contributes to the justification of reform agendas and punitive interventions (Sisson, 2020), and delegitimises the voice of those who live in social housing. Media reporting also contributes to the construction of racialising frames that essentialise crime and social problems as lying with particular racial or ethnic groups (Windle, 2008).
Methodology
This research is informed by a social justice framework, a core aspect of which is beginning with those most impacted or marginalised, and is thus particularly concerned with how and where voices of social housing residents are and are not valued. As residents (and those who require social housing but are unable to access it) are most directly impacted in relation to social housing, seeking out and valuing the voices of residents wherever they can be found is a core part of the research strategy. This involves listening under dominant narratives such as stigmatisation, racialisation and classism that constrain and marginalise resident voice.
Our article draws on a 3-year research project which involved a media analysis, policy document analysis, semi-structured in-depth interviews, and participant observation, and was approved by the UNSW Human Research Ethics Committee (approval number HC200151). While all of these methods informed the findings of this article, we draw most directly on the media analysis and so overview this method in detail here. The media analysis involved a discourse analysis of all newspaper articles published by six Australian newspapers throughout 2020 that mentioned social housing or related search terms, 1 resulting in 716 articles as detailed in Table 1. Of these, 116 were focused primarily on issues related to social housing, while the remaining 600 mentioned social housing only briefly.
Newspaper profiles (sources readership: Roy Morgan, 2016, 2021).
The year 2020 was selected as it was a unique and significant moment for news reporting on social housing, as detailed below. The 12-month period of inclusion resulted in a sizable yet manageable dataset of articles for analysis. In drawing from this mix of newspapers, with two of each focusing on the national, metropolitan and local level, we were able to include a range of regional perspectives. In particular, local newspapers have been found to be a particularly important source of ‘hyperlocal’ news in a rapidly changing media ecology (McAdam and Hess, 2024). Four of the six papers are published by Nine Entertainment or News Corp Australia (see Table 1). The news media landscape in Australia is one characterised by highly concentrated ownership, particularly with regards to newspapers (Dwyer et al., 2021; Spaviero et al., 2024).
While the business model of traditional newspapers has been severely disrupted over recent decades, and audiences for much legacy media are in decline, newspapers remain a significant focus for media studies research. In an update of their highly influential study of news values, Harcup and O’Neill argue ‘the news values of newspapers remain worth studying because what appears in such publications is by definition the result of journalistic selection in a highly competitive market’ (2016: 1475), providing insight into professional norms and practices that shape who and what is heard in media.
Further, mediatisation research demonstrates that policymakers are particularly attuned to media ‘optics’, closely monitoring agenda-setting mastheads such as The Australian when formulating and communicating policy directions (McCallum and Waller, 2013). The attention economy of key policy makers adds significance to the presence or absence of political voice of marginalised groups, such as social housing residents, within newspapers.
All newspapers selected for analysis have both a digital and printed version available, however, only four are indexed by newspaper database Factiva (see Table 1). These four newspapers were searched for relevant context through Factiva, while the remaining two were searched by manually reading through full editions of the online version of each article published in 2020. The online versions of both these papers were available as digitised scans of the analogue edition, rather than individual webpages for each news article. After collating all articles in NVivo, articles were coded through an emergent and open coding approach (Strauss and Corbin, 1990) to identify common themes and define distinct concepts and categories. A discourse analysis approach drawing on Machin (2013), guided by a theoretical framework that draws on media frames (Cottle, 2000; Entman, 1993) and social justice, was used as the method for analysis throughout.
This analytical approach was apt in investigating where and how resident voice appeared or was absent in news media throughout 2020, with particular attention to the implications of this. In analysing whose voices were given space in newspaper reporting, we coded all actors directly quoted by newspapers about social housing, and coded the specific topics they spoke about. Insights from studies of the sociology of news (Hall, 1975; Tiffen et al., 2014) assisted us in examining the power dynamics, discourses and processes that affect the framing and embedding of hierarchies of voice in news media. Attention to framing focused on the role of news frames in legitimising or delegitimising competing interpretations of events, definitions of problems, moral judgements and suggested problem solutions (Entman, 1993). Our research was guided by two questions:
How is resident voice valued, or devalued, in media coverage of social housing in Australia? What are the implications of this?
In relation to the first question, valuing and devaluing is operationalised by drawing on framing theory. Framing theory identifies how perspectives are legitimised or delegitimised via inclusion and exclusion, and emphasised and deemphasised within news reporting. In relation to the second, how social issues are framed within news media has implications for which responses are deemed legitimate, and which are sidelined or left absent. Through discourse analysis we brought focus to the (re)production of social relationships of power and influence in relation to both of these questions.
As detailed below, the analysis took place at a significant moment, as several notable events related to social housing and the COVID-19 pandemic occurred throughout 2020. This resulted in an analysis that is based in a particular moment of crisis, rather than being representative of a general trend, and generated empirical research with depth and nuance relating to this unique moment.
Australian social housing in news media throughout 2020
During the moment of crisis that was 2020, there was a heightened level of attention on social housing in news media. While a somewhat crude measure, the heightened level of attention is evident in the number of search results appearing on Factiva for the four papers included in the analysis that are available in the database. In 2020, the search terms bring 1,512 2 results, while the average number of results for the preceding 4 years (2016–2019) was 476, and 890 for the following 4 years (2021–2024). To contextualise this unique time here we provide some brief context on how events of 2020 influenced the content of the newspaper articles analysed.
In July 2020, the Victorian government placed over 3000 residents across nine high-density, high-rise public housing towers in the Melbourne suburbs of North Melbourne, Flemington and Kensington under hard lockdown restrictions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Under hard lockdown restrictions, residents of the public housing towers were not permitted to leave their homes for any reason. Meanwhile, neighbouring private residential buildings of a similar density remained under stage three restrictions, meaning residents were permitted to leave home for work or school, for care or caregiving, for daily exercise, or to get food and other essentials. This was the only lockdown in Australia in which restrictions were announced with no warning to residents (O’Keeffe and Daley, 2022), and was enforced with a police presence of approximately 500 officers per shift (Briggs, 2021).
The hard lockdown generated a lot of media attention; 41% (n = 48/116) of articles analysed that were focused on social housing were about the Victorian hard lockdown. Images of police swarming the base of public housing towers, of plastic bags filled with frozen soup left on paper towels to thaw in apartment hallways beside residents’ doors, and of a short-lived fenced exercise yard outside one North Melbourne tower were published in newspapers. These images appeared alongside firsthand accounts from residents and community organisers about the confusion, isolation, trauma, lack of communication, and sense of mistreatment residents experienced. The lockdown constituted what Cottle (2006) terms a ‘conflicted media event’. Defined as media events that ‘tap into deep-seated conflicts that normally remain subterranean … conflicted media events involve deep conflictive under-currents, whether those of “race”, class or gender’ (Cottle, 2006: 419). In the hard lockdown of the Victorian public housing towers, deep-seated conflicts of race and class were brought to the surface and played out in the media.
Alongside the increased media attention on social housing related to these lockdowns, there was an unusually high level of attention on the potential of funding social housing as part of an economic stimulus. Widespread calls were made for government to provide economic stimulus in the form of funding for the construction and maintenance of social housing, as the Australian government had done in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis (Ruming, 2015). These calls were particularly frequent during March and April 2020, when economic recession was anticipated in the wake of the emerging COVID-19 pandemic, and again in June 2020, when the HomeBuilder scheme was announced. This scheme was the only federal package aimed at stimulating the construction industry, and offered no support for social housing (Prime Minister of Australia, 2020). In relation to this aspect of the news media conversation we identified a persistent theme: social housing was portrayed predominantly as an investment with potential benefits for the economy, rather than as a social good that may benefit both those who live there and broader society (Hynes and Liu, forthcoming). Within these frequently occurring media conversations focused on the economic dimensions of social housing, resident voice was rarely present. In relation to the hard lockdowns, on the other hand, resident voice was frequently published in the form of direct quotes, as discussed further below.
Experience rather than expertise
As Cottle argues, it is vital to consider ‘whose voices predominate, whose vie and contend, and whose are marginalised or rendered silent’ within news media (Cottle, 2000: 428). Within the 716 articles analysed, representatives from government, industry bodies, community housing providers and community organisations were quoted on the topic of social housing 245 times across 160 articles. These actors were often framed as experts; their quotes present early in articles, speaking about potential solutions to current issues. By contrast, social housing residents and ex-residents were quoted 94 times across 34 articles, with these 94 quotes coming from 47 (ex-)residents. Often, the same resident was quoted multiple times within one article, or across multiple articles.
Evidently, the voices of social housing residents did not predominate in reporting on social housing. However, it is interesting to note that those articles that did quote social housing residents did so extensively; the 34 articles including quotes from social housing residents included, on average, 2.76 quotes from social housing residents per article, while the 160 articles including quotes from other sources included an average of 1.53 quotes from other sources per article. There was overlap between these articles. Beyond the sheer numbers of direct quotations that appeared in news reporting, the context in which quotations appeared influences how social housing residents as news sources are framed. Table 2 identifies the main topic that each of the 47 social housing residents and ex-residents spoke about when quoted in newspaper articles, and ranks these by frequency. In this table we are referring to individual residents; many of these 47 individuals were quoted multiple times across different articles.
While residents’ voices and stories were sought out and published in times of crisis, this was not the case with news reporting that dealt with decision-making, policymaking, or setting the terms of the conversation. While social housing residents hold expertise about how their housing might be better provided and managed, and this expertise may be solicited by journalists and published in relation to social housing policy, this rarely occurred. In a vast majority of cases where direct quotes from social housing residents and ex-residents were published, these quotes made reference to residents’ experiences of social housing in situations of upheaval and uncertainty, responding to external events rather than having the opportunity to set the terms of the conversation. On the other hand, when policymakers, those who work in social housing, and developers were quoted, they often discussed how money might be allocated to both fund social housing and stimulate the economy – suggestions that relate directly to decision- and policy-making (see reference omitted for peer review for more on this).
Themes of social housing residents’ and ex-residents’ direct quotes.
It was in the context of the hard lockdown that residents’ voices were most often sought out and directly published by the newspapers analysed. As shown in Table 2, of the 47 current and ex-social housing residents quoted throughout all newspaper articles, 19 were residents of the nine towers placed under hard lockdown. A further 11 were residents of the Sydney housing estates in Waterloo, Glebe and Airds – estates which were either facing or undergoing redevelopment, thereby threatening thousands of residents with displacement from their homes. This reflects the hierarchy of expertise operating within mainstream media; residents are allowed voice of direct experience during crisis, but they are not present when setting the agenda or offering institutional critique. As disability activist and expert El Gibbs poignantly asks, ‘Are we to be included to talk about only our personal stories, or are we to be included so our expertise in the systems and structures that oppress us is central to the discussion?’ (2022).
This absence is evidence of the constraints upon residents’ access to political voice in media (Couldry, 2010). This form of political voice, portrayed with more legitimacy and expertise, was reserved for those framed as experts, such as employees of community housing providers, academics and consultants. As Cottle states ‘both press and broadcasting, are said routinely to privilege the voices of the powerful and marginalise those of the powerless’ (2000: 427). This was evident in reporting on social housing in Australia throughout 2020.
Most often, residents shared intimate details of their frequently traumatic personal experiences, contributing to a broader framing of social housing residents as ‘vulnerable’. The negative implications of labelling groups as ‘vulnerable’ have been well demonstrated in the social science literature. As summarised by Brown (2011: 316) criticisms of the term have centred around three aspects: that it is paternalistic and oppressive, it is a mechanism of widening social control, and that the label can exclude and stigmatise groups labelled as vulnerable. Brown (2011: 319) describes the term vulnerable as ‘deficit-oriented’, and cautions that viewing groups as inherently vulnerable can reduce awareness of and willingness to tackle structural causes of vulnerability.
The framing of residents-as-vulnerable served to undermine their standing as knowledgeable and credible political agents. This is certainly not because residents lack expertise in, or opinions about, the ways in which the social housing system could be improved (Robinson et al., 2021). However, residents’ opinions on these issues did not appear in the newspaper articles analysed. Their voice was largely limited to discussing direct personal experience, and when critique was offered, it was in response to existing crisis, not agenda setting. The following two examples further demonstrate the tendency to focus on traumatic stories and personal experience when residents were quoted: ‘Tower resident Tehiya Umer said it was unfair to lock up towers with no coronavirus cases and criticised the government for failing to prepare residents for a lockdown … “We are in a pandemic, it's not just people who live in high-rise [flats],” she said. “They are treating us like criminals for nothing.”’ (Fowler and Booker, 2020) — ‘[Resident Ahmed Dini] said someone had dropped off some pies at his front door at 2am on Monday morning, and this was the only food he had received. “Everyone in this tower is worried about food.” “We have got community leaders on the ground who are saying, ‘This is what we want to do’. And DHHS is having meetings about it, and meanwhile that food is not getting to us. When it comes to locking up people, you can't have bureaucracy like this stopping things like food.”’ (Eddie et al., 2020)
In analysing implications and discursive constructions of ‘quarantine’ as part of the public health response to COVID-19 in Australia, Plage, Kuskoff, and Stambe (2024: 13) point out that in media coverage of the hard lockdown, social housing residents were ‘presented simultaneously as dangerous and in danger, leveraging vulnerability tropes percolating Australian welfare discourse’. This was evident in our analysis, as residents were often portrayed as particularly vulnerable and disadvantaged in terms of mental and physical health, with many residents over the age of 70 and with various medical conditions. The emphasis on vulnerability and poor health creates a medicalising frame, part of a widespread discourse that pathologises poverty (Hastings, 2004; Jacobs, 2021). It is true that in the current residualised social housing system only those with the most complex needs are able to access housing, and many residents have serious health issues or disabilities. However, focusing nearly exclusively on residents’ vulnerabilities serves to frame them as deficient, and undermines the possibility of political voice. The portrayal of residents as particularly vulnerable was something that received pushback from residents themselves, as in the following example published by The Saturday Paper in July 2020: ‘The word “vulnerable” is again a fixture of the press conference. It's a description Julian Acheampong recoils from. “I’m not vulnerable,” he says. “I look at some of the people in this building and they are some of the smartest people I’ve ever met in my life.”’ (Chingaipe, 2020a)
In critiquing the framing of residents as vulnerable, and as responding to crisis rather than setting the agenda, we do not mean to discount the importance of the unique and unusual position of resident voice in reporting on the Victorian hard lockdowns. Residents ‘speaking up’ in this way was vital in generating the nation-wide attention these hard lockdowns garnered, and the ensuing report from the Victorian Ombudsman tabled to the Victorian parliament in December 2020. This report found that the lockdown breached residents’ human rights and urged the Victorian Government to apologise to residents – something the government refused to do. The voice of residents in media also likely contributed to the $5 million compensation (about $2200 per resident) the Victorian Government agreed to pay following a class action lawsuit (Silva, 2023).
While residents’ voice was largely limited to speaking in response to crisis, rather than setting the agenda in mainstream news media, they were able to create ‘alternate representations of place and community’ (O’Keeffe and Daley, 2022: 559) through social media, community arts programs, and community media. Community media offers the possibility for presenting alternative narratives, and for those marginalised within mainstream media to set the agenda (de Souza and Dreher, 2024; Dreher, 2009). Through mobilising on social media, residents of the nine towers – particularly young residents – made themselves highly visible. This visibility then moved into mainstream media, as news outlets reported on firsthand accounts residents were posting; some of the direct quotes published in newspaper articles quoted above were taken directly from residents’ social media accounts. O’Keeffe and Daley (2022: 572) argue that residents resisted territorial stigmatisation, utilising the digital space of social media to make themselves visible, and ‘to present alternative narratives of their communities’.
Stigmatising discourses
Alongside resident voice being largely restricted to discussing personal experience when published in news media, deficit discourse and stigmatisation further served to devalue the voices of social housing residents. Deficit discourse emphasises deficiencies of particular people or groups, foregrounding lack, failures and absences (Campbell, 2019; Hogarth, 2017). Existing research on media representations of the hard lockdown has pointed to the presence of a deficit discourse (Plage et al., 2024; Robinson et al., 2021). This was common in relation to the multi-lingual aspect of the Melbourne public housing towers involved in the hard lockdowns; the potential language barrier in communicating lockdown measures to residents was portrayed in many articles as a difficulty to be overcome in managing the lockdown.
Residents of Melbourne's public housing towers have a long history of fighting against discrimination and institutionalised racism, most notably the Haile-Michael v. Konstantinidis race discrimination claim, which was settled in 2013 (Haile-Michael and Issa, 2015; Hopkins, 2021). Haile-Michael v. Konstantinidis brought to light Operation Molto, a 2006 Victoria Police operation that involved an intensification of policing based on explicit racial profiling. In this claim ‘17 African and Afghan children and young men filed a race discrimination claim with the Australian Human Rights Commission about police conduct in Flemington and North Melbourne’ (Hopkins, 2021: 2). Young Afghan and African residents of the Flemington and North Melbourne towers spoke of being subjected to recurrent harassment including unlawful arrests, an instance of a public strip search, frequent stopping and questioning, arbitrary confiscation of items, and physical harm at the hands of police (Haile-Michael and Issa, 2015; Hopkins, 2021). This occurred within the context of media reporting on ‘African youths’ as a ‘problem group’, contributing to the construction of racialising frame that essentialises the problem as lying with particular racial or ethnic groups (Windle, 2008).
This history of police discrimination was brought up in the 2020 news reporting on the ‘hard’ lockdown of public housing towers in Melbourne, with The Age
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reporting that ‘The Flemington commission towers have a difficult history with Victoria Police, with racial profiling used by officers in and around the area leading to a public settlement by the force in 2013’ (Estcourt and Lucas, 2020). This article was referenced some days later by right wing commentator, Andrew Bolt, in a commentary piece published by The Daily Telegraph: ‘The Premier's “hard lockdown will deprive some of Victoria's most disadvantaged people of their freedom”, protested The Age, warning that “the Flemington commission towers have a difficult history with Victoria Police, with racial profiling used by officers”. Is a lockdown only a crime against humanity if the people being locked down include many Africans?’ (Bolt, 2020)
This reporting at times reflected and reinforced ‘the policy logics underpinning the hard lockdown in Melbourne’ which served to ‘differentially construct public health subjects according to a classed and racialised view of compliance and non-compliance’, as in the above example (Kelaita et al., 2023: 247). A similar racialised construction was present in Sydney, where harsher lockdown restrictions were imposed in 2021 across several suburbs in the city's west and south-west that have lower socioeconomic status and higher levels of migrant populations (Dau and Ellis, 2023). In both Sydney and Melbourne ‘restrictions disproportionately affected racially minoritised communities’ (Zivkovic, 2023: 4). The deficit discourse runs counter to valuing resident voice, and to recognising those who experience marginalisation as experts in their own lives – experts who have the clearest understanding of how best to organise things and deep knowledge of the structures and systems they must navigate every day.
As Sisson (2020: 5) argues, portraying spatial disadvantage and stigma as a cause of social abnormality or disorder serves to ‘obfuscate structural and systemic causes and legitimate either intervention or neglect’. In newspaper reporting during the 2020 hard lockdowns, public housing towers themselves were portrayed as a unique space of risk. Kelaita et al. (2023: 253) argue that the Victorian hard lockdowns served to position tower residents as ‘risky subjects in risky places’. The built form and infrastructure of the towers were discussed as being of particular epidemiological concern due to the close quarters that residents live in, sharing laundry facilities, tight corridors and small lifts. The towers were described by Acting Chief Health Officer Professor Kelly as ‘“vertical cruise ships” because of their potential to infect hundreds of people’ (Ferguson, Baxendale, and Akerman, 2020), as reported by The Australian in June.
The phrase ‘vertical cruise ships’ references the outbreaks of COVID-19 on cruise ships throughout 2020. These outbreaks spread widely and quickly in the confined spaces of the ships and were widely publicised, particularly during the earlier stages of the pandemic (Plage, Kuskoff, and Stambe, 2024). In using this phrase in the above quote, Professor Kelly drew parallels between the spaces of cruise ships and public housing towers, portraying them as particularly risky spaces. The phrase ‘vertical cruise ships’ went on to be repeated in numerous articles. In reporting, the towers were also described as ‘prime incubators’ (Robinson, 2020) for the virus, and as ‘ripe for spreading COVID-19’ (Russo, 2020). Focussing on the built structure of the towers as a cause of increased susceptibility to transmission of COVID-19 served to obfuscate the structural and systemic causes that created the overcrowded, under-resourced public housing system.
Issues of classism also played out in the Victorian public housing lockdowns, related to the perception of the towers as particularly ‘risky places’ (Kelaita et al., 2023: 253). The difference in treatment between the public housing towers and neighbouring private housing was a recurrent theme among several articles, as the following example demonstrates: ‘Right across the road from Flemington [public housing estate] are three apartment complexes that are private. They share the same lifts, they share the same foyer, they share the same car park, and there isn’t a concern there’. (Chingaipe, 2020b)
Here we have drawn out some aspects of the class-based and race-based stigmatisation of social housing residents. These are not the only axes of marginalisation faced by many residents, and as work on intersectionality established by critical race theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw demonstrates, these axes are not separable (Cho, Crenshaw, and McCall, 2013). This pervasive stigmatisation, enacted through deficit discourse and the pathologisation of poverty, creates a situation that devalues resident voice, placing it low in media hierarchies of attention and undermining residents’ political power. This leads to a widespread sense that residents are not being listened to, and points to the need to bring forth an alternative frame that values the voice of residents as experts on their own lives.
Shifting news values to value voice
In the preceding sections we analysed how resident voice is valued, or devalued, in media coverage of social housing in Australia. We found that voices of social housing residents were included in news reporting at a time of heightened media coverage. Residents were given opportunities to speak about personal experiences of hard lockdowns, yet entrenched stigmatising discourses served to delegitimise resident voice. Social housing residents were not framed as providing expertise or political voice. Here we draw out the wider implications of this hierarchy of voice and attention. We argue that existing media hierarchies of attention are not well attuned to foster just outcomes for those who are socially marginalised, such as residents of social housing in Australia, nor to a social justice frame that acknowledges widely accessible safe, appropriate and affordable housing as fundamental to more just and equal futures.
The presence and absence of particular groups’ voice that matters (Couldry, 2010) in media can legitimise and entrench inequalities and injustices. Individualised and pathologised understandings of poverty and disadvantage are common in news media under neoliberalism, and are often drawn on in explanations of the disadvantage experienced by social housing residents (Arthurson and Darcy, 2015; Hastings, 2004; Jacobs and Flanagan, 2013). Social housing and social housing residents remain marginalised and stigmatised at a time when housing researchers are calling for increased social housing provision to address an urgent and growing housing crisis in Australia (Liu et al., 2023; Sisson, 2023). Media that devalues resident voice means that news audiences receive little information on the value and significance of social housing. Policymakers attuned to media agendas and ‘optics’ are not exposed to the expertise of social housing residents. As Couldry (2010) argues, neoliberalism constrains the possibility of realising voice as a value through prioritising economic concerns above all else. The media frame on the housing crisis in Australia foregrounds housing as a private investment, with social housing relegated to the margins.
Attention to voice brings structural issues in media to the fore. As Couldry (2010: 113) states, when valuing and paying attention to voice, we must look beyond personal narrative (while noting that this is also important) and pay attention to ‘the conditions under which people's practices of voice are sustained and the outcomes of those practices validated’. This involves attending not only to individuals, ‘but also the “landscape” in which they speak and are, or are not, heard’: in other words, the hierarchies of voice and attention in media. This attention to the ‘landscape’ in which practices of voice occur invites examination of structural and systemic factors in media that may hinder the ability of people to build an account of themselves. In the case of social housing residents in Australia, the media landscape is structured by hierarchies and values that delegitimise resident expertise and place the social justice and human rights implications of housing at the margins, at a time in which housing inequality is rapidly increasing.
In order to address the systemic devaluing of resident voice, it is essential to challenge and change established news values, professional practices and norms, and to shift entrenched discourses and frames. This can be achieved by engaging social housing residents and other under-represented groups in media as experts on their own lives and on the systems and structures that they know from close experience. The possibility of genuinely valuing voice in news media already exists in fragments. One aspect of this that has gained ground and increasing legitimacy over recent decades is valuing the voices of those with lived experience as experts (Gibbs, 2022; Walsh et al., 2016). This is essential not only in remedying past injustices, but in imagining and enacting more just possible futures.
Conclusion
In this article we have examined the place of social housing resident voice in newspaper reporting during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic in Australia, identifying constraints on resident voice in media, and indicated rarer instances where alternatives that value resident voice did appear. In response to the question ‘how is resident voice valued, or devalued, in media coverage of social housing in Australia?’, we found that conventional news hierarchies of attention marginalised and devalued the voice of social housing residents by limiting residents to speaking only about personal experience; placing their expertise lower in value than that of those legitimised as ‘experts’; and portraying residents as vulnerable through the use of stigmatising discourses such as the deficit discourse and pathologisation of poverty. In response to the question ‘what are the implications of this pattern?’, we argued that delegitimising residents’ voice that matters (Couldry, 2010) in news media contributes to legitimising and entrenching housing inequalities and social injustices. Further, we argued that in order to develop more just alternatives, it is necessary to value the voices of social housing residents as experts in media, and challenge stigmatising discourses of vulnerability and deficiency.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the work of Dr Edgar Liu who co-supervised the Doctoral research this article draws from. They thank Crystal Abidin, EIC of MIA, for helpful feedback on an earlier version of this article.
Consent to participate
Participants provided written consent to participate in the form of a participant information sheet and signed consent form.
Consent for publication
Not applicable.
Data availability statement
Data is cited in this article.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Ethical considerations
This research was approved by the UNSW Human Research Ethics Committee (approval number HC200151).
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the UNSW Scientia PhD scholarship scheme.
