Unwrapping Stock Transfers: Applying Discourse Analysis to Landlord Communication Strategies

Abstract

This paper applies the principles of critical discourse analysis to material produced by public landlords to inform tenants about transfer proposals. It refers in particular to the case of Scottish Homes, a quango landlord currently seeking to transfer all its tenanted housing stock to alternative landlords. It starts by setting out some background on the policy context for stock transfer in the UK as a whole and from Scottish Homes in particular. Recent Scottish Homes material is then examined with reference to Fairclough's framework for critical discourse analysis. The paper concludes that it may be too difficult for disposing landlords to counteract the strength of resistant readings from competing informal discourse, however skilful their own marketing, and that discourse analysis is a useful public policy research tool for specific pieces of discourse, particularly in helping to investigate the management of communication.