‘Don’t wake papa bear!’ Understanding media representations of landlord-tenant relations

In Defense of ‘Landlord’: Why the term ‘landlord’ continues to be essential to rental housing

“…It is important to note that evidence from the Canadian and Australian contexts suggests that contemporary media portrayals of landlords are mixed, as I demonstrated in earlier research (Kerrigan, 2022) there is a prevalence of portrayals of the landlord as a valorized 'rational' figure strictly responding to broader economic trends (and therefore largely without responsibility) in addition to less common portrayals of landlords as exploitative and even as 'victims' of tenants or rental regulations. Hulse et al (2020) go further to showcase a common 'mum-and-dad' image of landlords as 'essential housing providers.'…”

“…Given the traditional emphasis on private property rights in capitalist countries, this class power is conferred by the State, giving landlords significant power to control the lives of their tenants, not unlike the case of lords and serfs in feudal Europe. The comparative media valorization of landlords' (legal) right to profit and govern their property as opposed to tenants' (philosophical or moral) right to housing (Kerrigan, 2022) can be seen in the legal structuring of this relationship. In many jurisdictions landlords have a legal basis to implement clauses forbidding guests, pets, and requiring onerous upfront deposits.…”

“…This imaginary that presents renters as transitory non-subjects and landlords as valorized property-owning actors reflects the political conditions across the majority of Anglo-American countries. Landlords are portrayed as rational actors by popular media (Kerrigan, 2022) and tend to be treated deferentially by politicians across the mainstream political spectrum.…”

“…Many alternatives to landlord have been proposed or are used to some extent, including 'rental housing provider' or 'lessor.' Frequently these alternatives completely erase the figure of the tenant, particularly terms such as 'investor' or 'property owner', or references to the housing unit itself as a 'mortgage helper' (Kerrigan, 2022;Holmer, 2016). 'Mortgage helper' in particular points to how it is in fact the tenant helping to provide housing for the landlord, as opposed to the landlord providing housing for the tenant.…”

“…I noted the arguments being made to jettison the term 'landlord' as well as those in favor of proposed alternatives and the assumptions they relied on to illuminate the discursive construction of 'landlord' and the contention around its contemporary meaning. This paper is part of a broader research project on 'Rethinking the Landlord' that in addition to key document analysis, involved a discourse analysis of the media portrayal of landlords and tenants (Kerrigan, 2022) and 50 semi-structured interviews with landlords, housing organizers and key housing policy actors (including real estate professionals, planners, legislators, and non-profit employees).…”