Translating housing research to policy impact: rethinking policy and creating new publics through podcasts and documentary filmmaking

in 1935, 40 years after the lumière brothers projected the first moving images to a paying audience in Paris, the documentary film Housing Problems was produced in Britain. Housing Problems is a documentary about the poor housing conditions associated with rural to urban labour migration in the late 19th and early 20th century. the 13-minute documentary includes interviews with residents of so-called slum housing and is thought to be one of the first housing documentaries to centre the voices of tenants, although there is debate about whether the resident interviews were scripted. a set of new housing development models are presented in the second half of the film, which gives the documentary a promotional aesthetic, as this quote from the narrator shows: ‘a great deal of thought from architects, engineers and other experts has gone into the design of buildings for rehousing. Here is a model of a block of flats prepared by the British Steel Work association and based on recommendations by the Council for the research on Housing and Construction’ (Elton & anstey, 1935). the housing development politics of the film become even clearer in the last quarter of the film with the narrator suggesting: ‘When a public authority embarks on slum clearance work it must take people just as they are. it is, however, our experience that if you provide people from the slums with decent homes they quickly respond to the improved conditions and keep their homes clean and tidy’ (Elton & anstey, 1935). You can watch Housing Problems in its entirety here https://vimeo.com/4950031 or look for other housing documentaries in this twitter list https://tinyurl.com/y82m6b54 in this editorial we consider the connection between housing research and policy, and reflect on the potential that new media, including documentaries and podcasts, offer housing researchers as modes of intervention in the policy process. this discussion also serves as a frame for the special issue titled ‘Podcasts, documentary filmmaking and housing studies: on the politics and potential of old, new and social media’, curated by the https://doi.org/10.1080/19491247.2022.2105350