The Pandemic Vacation Home: Media Framing of COVID-19 and Second Home Real Estate Morality Projects

Abstract

This content analysis of 62 local news stories from seven US locations published between March 1 and June 30, 2020, reveals how the migration of seasonal residents and short-term renters into leisure and nature-focused amenity-rich settings during the COVID-19 pandemic changed the social meaning of home for year-round and seasonal or part-time residents. Four themes emerge relating to (a) local economies; (b) health and safety; (c) local government; and (d) insiders and outsiders. These themes are connected to each other in the larger explanatory story of second home real estate morality projects, defined as dilemmas, deliberations, and conflicting considerations made by individual and group stakeholders in the evaluation of acquisition, use, meaning, and dispossession of properties meant for residential use beyond the primary residence. Findings reveal that moral considerations of deservedness and citizenship among local residents and short-term residents are framed as deep and incompatible concerns surrounding economic stability and public health. This COVID-19-induced moral framing of the interplay between economic, health, and social concerns is situated in a cultural-relational analysis of marketplaces, using Viviana Zelizer’s (2005) “connected lives” approach to understanding how everyday economic interactions among and within families and neighborhoods are imbued with social and cultural meaning even in a time of crisis.

Citation

Janning, M., Kautzky, T. and Zhang, M. (2024), "The Pandemic Vacation Home: Media Framing of COVID-19 and Second Home Real Estate Morality Projects", Costa, R.P. and Blair, S.L. (Ed.) More than Just a ‘Home’: Understanding the Living Spaces of Families (Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research, Vol. 25), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 15-35. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1530-353520240000025002