Television shows can create a normalizing effect on viewers, helping to signal cultural attributes and values through repetition of certain themes. This project examines three similar programs involving the “tiny house movement” - “Tiny House Hunters,” “Tiny House Nation,” “Tiny House, Big Living” - and connects these programs to a delay of adulthood. This paper provides a textual analysis of these programs and finds that a plurality of “tiny house movement” show episodes feature twenty-something protagonists hoping to place a tiny house on the property of their parents, providing an illusion of freedom and independence while maintaining the security of closer family ties. This paper connects these “tiny house movement” shows to broader cultural and legal touchstones of delayed adulthood, including California’s law raising the legal age for purchasing tobacco products to 21 and the Affordable Care Act’s provision allowing individuals to maintain their parents’ health insurance until the age of 26, as well as similar efforts.
About the presenterThomas M. Gallagher
Thomas M. Gallagher is an Assistant Professor of Communication at La Salle University. The presenter earned an M.A. in Communication and Mass Media from Fordham University in 2010 and a Ph.D. in Media and Communication from Temple University in 2016.