News Coverage of Housing Matters: Examining Housing Crises During the Great Recession and the Covid-19 Pandemic
Housing is an issue that affects all individuals in society. People have firsthand experiences with housing daily. Housing is also a macro issue that is affected by and has implications for the nation’s economy and public policy. Despite the centrality of housing for individuals and society, few scholars have examined media coverage of housing issues and housing policy. This gap is especially problematic when considering the critical role of the housing market collapse in the 2008 Great Recession, the landmark housing policies instituted during the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the media's potential to shape perceptions of housing policy and the economy. In this study, I use content analysis to examine the media agenda-setting and framing of housing and housing policies from 2005 to 2010 and 2020 in the New York Times. I investigate whether housing is framed in episodic or thematic ways and how housing media frames changed in response to the economic collapse and the pandemic. I also examine the context of media agenda-setting using housing topics. Lastly, I pay particular attention to whether housing media frames and housing topics are racialized. The data for this project was collected from the New York Times between 2005 - 2010 and 2020. The search terms used to identify relevant news articles were housing policy, subprime, affordable housing, foreclosure, homeownership, and eviction. The articles identified are all from the front page of the New York Times.
Funding
Bilsland Fellowship
History
Degree Type
- Doctor of Philosophy
Department
- Political Science
Campus location
- West Lafayette