Televised Territorial Stigma: How Social Housing Tenants Experience the Fictional Media Representation of Estates in Australia

Abstract

This paper explores the issue of territorial stigmatisation through tenantdriven research chronicling the experiences of social housing tenants as they examined and reflected upon the Australian television series Housos. The television series aired on an independent, part publicly funded, television station in 2011 and depicts the lifestyles of fictional tenant characters on an imaginary social housing estate. The series presents satirical and exaggerated parodies about everyday life on the estate, drawing on a range of stereotypes of social housing tenants. Tenants are portrayed as feckless and antisocial individuals who engage in a range of irresponsible and sometimes criminal behaviour in order to avoid work and whose family and other relationships are dysfunctional. Public tenants are far from passive victims of stigmatisation and conducted the analysis presented in this study. They reveal a sophisticated understanding of how stigma operates through the media, various agencies, and the nonresident community. While economic and political forces, and changing modes for governing poverty, have resulted in geographical confinement of residents on estates, tenants reflected on their own 'real-life' experiences and provide accounts of deliberate and self-conscious use of 'negative' social status to produce positive collective identities. Alternatively, nontenant participants repeated common prejudices about public housing, and reflected on their belief that the system was not effectively preventing welfare cheats and 'bludgers' from loafing at their (taxpayers') expense.

Re‐scripting Place: Managing Social Class Stigma in a Former Steel‐Making Region

“…Even so, Arthurson et al. () remark on the different opinions held by those who were tenants and non‐tenants; the former viewing the latter as “welfare cheats” or “bludgers”, living off taxpayers’ expenses. This at least suggests differing views according to the types of backgrounds and multiple identities inhabited by residents.…”

“…As Arthurson et al. (:1336) suggest in their analysis of Housos , “media is a key medium through which distinctions of class and territorial stigma are shaped, imposed and reproduced”. Where Housos is a fictional comedy series, “which aims to reflect the multicultural nature of Australian society” (Arthurson et al.…”

“…Where Housos is a fictional comedy series, “which aims to reflect the multicultural nature of Australian society” (Arthurson et al. :1334), I focus upon the impact of the “reality” television series Benefits Street and a screening of Location Live on Teesside residents. This is significant as the pseudo‐documentary genre of Benefits Street and the live production of Location work to further substantiate the authenticity and thereby credibility of these programmes.…”

Territorial Stigmatization and Territorial Destigmatization: A Cultural Sociology of Symbolic Strategy in the Gentrification of Parkdale (Toronto)

“…Public housing has been a central focus of literature on territorial stigmatization (Hancock and Mooney, ; Arthurson et al ., ). This research uncovers confluences between territorial stigmatization and the contradictory logic of state disinvestment and the rhetoric of ‘revitalization’ (Slater and Anderson, ; Slater, 2015).…”

Exploring the stigmatization of energy efficiency in the UK: An emerging research agenda

“…This argument has already been well developed and explored within Housing Studies research, most notably the work of Allen (2008), Arthurson et al, (2014), Batty and Flint (2013), Flint and Rowlands (2003), McKee (2008, 2012), McKee (2011b) and Rowlands and Gurney (2001). The work of Damer (1989) and Hastings (2004) in particular draw attention to the key role of external actors and influences in these processes.…”