Leisure in urban real estate advertisements: explorations on the social construction of planned urban residential enclaves

Abstract

This dissertation presents the results of an exploratory study of the ways leisure representations are used in print media advertisements of planned urban residential enclaves. The research uses a critical and constructivist paradigm to analyse themes and leisure representations in samples of print media advertisements of planned urban residential enclaves from New Zealand, the Philippines and the United States. The findings of the study reveal that notions of exclusion underpin many representations of leisure in the sample of print media advertisements of planned urban residential enclaves. Leisure representations elaborate guarantees of autonomy for the resident and security of residence; and they are suggestive of the way some planned urban residential enclaves are promoted, globally, as universal remedies for the risks, constraints and uncertainties of contemporary urban living.