Part 1: Top Popular Culture

WHAT ARE THE “MOST WATCHED” TV PROGRAMS (2017-2018)?

We analyzed 120 episodes selected from 40 of the “most watched” television programs in the United States, determined by the best available data (from Nielsen, Netflix, and HBO) and with considerations of study relevance (i.e. we excluded unscripted, reality programming or sports entertainment).

WE FOUND THAT AMERICA’S “MOST WATCHED” TV PROGRAMS (2017-2018):

• are telling Americans that homelessness is a problem, through an abundance of references to national data and (harmful) narrative stereotypes of homeless victims and charity saviors.
• lacked diversity of storytellers: While more than 40% of people experiencing homelessness in the U.S. are black, and 39% are women, the showrunners who produced the “most watched” TV stories of homelessness were disproportionately white (87%) and male (76.1%).
• didn’t let homeless characters speak. More than 80% of the homeless characters were one-episode only characters, and more than half of them had less than 10 speaking lines. Nearly half of the homeless characters depicted were either ‘seen’ or ‘talked about’; they did not speak.
• misrepresented the causes of homelessness: 76% of the narratives pointed to the characteristics and behavior of the homeless person as the cause of their homelessness (i.e. drug addiction, disability, criminal behavior, or mental illness).
• mischaracterized homelessness as a national issue that looks the same across the country.
• oversimplified how to end homelessness. More than 60% of references to ending homelessness were related to supporting charity organizations. The next most common solution was for individuals to change themselves: to overcome their inclination for criminality (12%), to end their drug addiction (12%), or to get a job (12%). The least cited solution was for improvement in policies or systems of care (6%) related to housing stability and homelessness.
• overrepresented two categories of homelessness: Homeless characters are primarily assigned to one of two broad categories of homelessness (foster child or veteran) in 63% of the episodes containing at least one homeless character. A homeless foster kid was present in 50% of the episodes containing at least one homeless character.
• oversimplified affordable housing issues: 75% of affordable housing references were part of discussions around a character’s struggle to pay bills, rent, mortgage or utilities. The only other reference made was to the threat of eviction for not paying a bill.
• rarely acknowledged the existence of gentrification in American life. When gentrification is portrayed (n=3 out of 120), it’s most often oversimplified. Gentrification is depicted as taking the form of changing communities and buildings, and as creating tensions between “outsiders and insiders.” It is framed as a “national” (rather than local) and “natural” (rather than deliberate or strategic) phenomenon.

Who is telling stories of homelessness?: Race and Gender of showrunners (within “most watched” programing)

WE FOUND THAT AMERICA’S “TOPIC-BASED” TV PROGRAMS (2017-2018 SEASON):

• are showing Americans portrayals and representations of homelessness and housing stability issues at a local level through (transformative) narratives of civic imagination.
• reflect a greater diversity of storytellers. Nearly half (48.5%) of the “topic-based” showrunners are people of color.
• anchored narratives in specific neighborhoods and cities: All but one of these programs contained storylines of homelessness and/ or gentrification that were rooted in the unique contexts of specific cities and neighborhoods. Further, homeless characters were depicted as being part of the social/work/community circle of the show’s main characters in every episode, and outside of the social/work/community circle in none.
• let homeless characters speak. EVERY homeless character that was depicted were series regulars or recurring characters, and all but one of them had more than ten speaking lines.
• identified social systems and structures as potential causes of homelessness: The cause of homelessness is predominantly placed on inequities and failures of social systems and structures (67%), and less frequently on individual characters/choices/actions (33%).
• provided alternative narratives of homelessness and gentrification: By rooting homelessness and gentrification into the core struggles and backgrounds of main characters on the show, many of the episodes provide a space of civic imagination through which avenues of public engagement and broadened understanding of housing stability are made visible.
• depicted affordable housing issues as relating to more than just ‘paying rent’: While the topic of affordable housing primarily rotated around conversations about struggles with “paying bills” (44%), considerable references were also made to Section 8 housing, public housing, housing projects, evictions, displacement, and mortgage.
• made gentrification its focal point: 6 of the 10 shows analyzed are explicitly about a community’s struggle with “gentrification.” They were all created within the last year.
• represented gentrification as complicated and multifaceted: gentrification is depicted as signaling both the arrival of new buildings/ business and the loss of buildings/business, along with the arrival of new communities and the departure of communities. Relations are also made to gentrification and affordable housing issues, evictions, and homelessness. There is a split over whether gentrification is a natural occurrence (31%) or the result of strategic/deliberate decisions by landlords and cities (31%); the majority of episodes (39%) contained references to both perspectives. There is also not a uniform agreement over whether gentrification is a positive (12.5%) or negative phenomenon (37.5%); in half of the episodes (50%), it is depicted as both.
• frequently related gentrification with affordable housing issues: nearly 1 out of every 4 references to gentrification were related to affordable housing issues.

Who is telling stories of homelessness?: Race and Gender of showrunners (within “topic-based” programing)

How do we hear from people experiencing homelessness?: Role size and lines of dialogue (within “topic-based” programing)

WE FOUND THAT AMERICA’S MOST READ NEWS OUTLETS, FROM JAN. 1 TO DEC. 31, 2018:

• grossly underreported issues of homelessness, affordable housing, and gentrification: In 2018, just 1,696 news articles were published, in total, on housing stability related issues across 12 of the country’s “most read” newspapers. This means that a meager total of 5 stories each day on housing stability were published nationwide, across the twelve leading newspapers, in 2018. In other words, homelessness and other housing stability related issues garnered less than 0.002 percent of attention on the news agenda in 2018.
• covered housing stability far less if its political partisanship leaned center or right: Center and right-leaning newspapers cover housing stability far less than left-leaning newspapers. The newspapers which covered housing stability the most were left-leaning outlets on the west coast. Outlets with the least coverage of housing stability were in the South or South Atlantic and were much more likely to be center or right-leaning.
• oversimplified and isolated housing stability issues: nearly 90% of articles about housing stability focused exclusively on one of the three main issues (homelessness, affordable housing, or gentrification). In other words, the intersections and relationships between these issues are overwhelmingly being ignored. A mere one percent of the newspaper coverage (n=18) included a thematic engagement with all three aspects of issues surrounding housing insecurity.
• often only referenced homelessness as fleeting: 50% of news articles that mention “homelessness” are single mentions. That is, when the keyword “homeless*” is employed, it is just as likely to be a single mention within an article about some other topic as it is to be a more substantive mention (two or more times) reflecting the issue itself.
• overwhelmingly promoted philanthropic efforts: 1 in 5 articles about homelessness were focused on philanthropy and charity efforts. And about 1 in 3 of the solutions promoted to end homelessness pointed to philanthropic efforts, more than any other solution.
• primarily represented homelessness as a policy story: The most common subtopics within news coverage on homelessness were policy conversations (33%), followed by philanthropy (19%), shelters (18%), encampments (14%), crime (14%), and, lastly, profiles of individuals who were experiencing homelessness (7%).
• disproportionately linked race and ethnicity (especially indigenous peoples) with coverage on encampments, while ignoring race and ethnicity in coverage of shelters, policy and philanthropy: When reporting about homelessness coverage on encampments, it was dominated by language of race and ethnicity (44% of mentions), specifically about indigenous peoples. Yet, race and ethnicity were largely invisible within reporting on sheltering (2%), philanthropy (3%) and policy (8%) efforts. In other words, race and ethnicity is not mentioned when the news discusses helping or sheltering of the homeless. Race and ethnicity dominate, however, within discussions of sweeps, evictions, criminalization and decriminalization policies, dangerous spaces, health scares, and health interventions.
• cited structural causes as the leading contributor to homelessness, affordable housing, and gentrification: the driving forces of homelessness are predominantly attributed more to structural causes (62%) than to individual causes (38%). Similarly, within affordable housing and gentrification coverage, about 90% of references are attributed to structural over individuals causes.
• rarely acknowledged the existence of gentrification in American life: Almost 70% of news articles on housing stability focus on or mention issues relating to homelessness; 38% focus on or mention issues relating to affordable housing; and less than seven percent include some mention of gentrification.

Focus of newspaper coverage: About 90% of articles about housing stability focused exclusively on one of the three main issues. The intersections and relationships between these issues are overwhelmingly being ignored.

Focus of homelessness coverage: Primarily represented homelessness as a policy story

Depictions of Cause: When about the individual, focus is on substance abuse

Depictions of Cause: When about structures/systems, focus is on rising rent and availability of housing

Solutions in homelessness coverage: Focus on philanthropy