Diverse media practices and economies of Australian home renovators: budgeting, self-education and documentation

Abstract

This paper seeks to uncover a diversity of economic practices and engagement by home renovators, predominantly homeowners. In particular, we explore how different forms of media consumption and production intertwine to shape home renovation projects. While the Australian renovation market is a multi-billion-dollar industry, it is cut through with small-scale, informal modes of knowledge production and economic exchange. How people use media to learn, share and document their renovations reflects the diversity of this economic landscape. From how-to videos on YouTube and the curated homewear pages of Pinterest to the mainstream impact of The Block, media platforms occupy a significant place in the ways in which people renovate. Yet, few studies actually examine the specificity of media use. In response, this paper traces the renovators’ media practices involved in the everyday labour of home renovation; projects which require substantial social and emotional resources, diverse literacies and enterprise. Our conceptual framework draws from the logic of ‘double articulation’, an enduring insight offered by Silverstone, Livingstone, Hirsch and others to examine the pivotal discursive and instrumental role played by media in home renovation.

Acknowledgements

This article is an outcome of a project supported by the CRC for Low Carbon Living (LCL) whose activities are funded by the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centre Programme. The authors would like to acknowledge the CRC LCL Program III Leader, Dr Stephen White, members of the project steering committee, and the project industry partners: Sustainability Victoria, Master Builders Australia, Housing Industry Association, BlueScope Steel, and CSR for their interest and support. We would like to thank members of the project team Prof. Kath Hulse, Tomi Winfree, Dr Gavin Melles together with Ph.D. students Aggeliki Aggelli and Shae Hunter. Last but not least, we would like to thank all the renovators and expert interviewees who were part of this project for sharing their thoughts and ideas.

Notes

1. http://www.communitypartnering.info/diverse25.html.

2. In Maller, Horne, and Dalton (2012), online second-hand markets are found important for a sub-category of ‘green renovators’ they studied.