Shifting news values to value voice: the case of social housing residents in Australian news media throughout 2020

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.