Research Seminar for Mediated Culture and Information: Jessica Enevold, House Dreams for Sale. Hemnet, Home-making and Strong Sustainability

Today, Jessica Enevold Duncan presents work-in-progress from her ongoing study of house dreams [husdrömmar]. She studies practices and re/presentations related to the buying and selling of real-estate and one of her important fields is the site Hemnet.se. She will talk about how Hemnet markets itself as a place where dreams are made; as the “best tool” for people to find their “dream house” (Hemnet 2021). Relative to visits per capita, it is the world’s most popular website for real-estate browsers, reaching a large audience of window shoppers as well as consumers ‘ready-to-purchase’. Focusing on themes and words commonly used by real estate agents, she problematizes the discursive home-making of real-estate ads in relation to strong sustainability.