This article investigates the narratives employed by the Romanian media in covering the development of COVID-19 in Roma communities in Romania. This paper aims to contribute to academic literature on Romani studies, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, by adopting as its case study the town of Ţăndărei, a small town in the south of Romania, which in early 2020 was widely reported by Romanian media during both the pre- and post-quarantine period. The contributions rest on anchoring the study in post-foundational theory and media studies to understand the performativity of Roma identity and the discursive-performative practices of control employed by the Romania media in the first half of 2020. Aroused by the influx of ethnic Romani returning from Western Europe, the Romanian mainstream media expanded its coverage through sensationalist narratives and depictions of lawlessness and criminality. These branded the ethnic minority as a scapegoat for the spreading of the virus. Relying on critical social theory, this study attempts to understand how Roma have been portrayed during the Coronavirus crisis. Simultaneously, this paper resonates with current Roma theories about media discourses maintaining and reinforcing a sense of marginality for Roma communities. To understand the dynamics of Romanian media discourses, this study employs NVivo software tools and language-in-use discourse analysis to examine the headlines and sub headlines of approximately 300 articles that have covered COVID-19 developments in Roma communities between February and July 2020. The findings from the study indicate that the media first focused on exploiting the sensationalism of the episodes involving Roma. Second, the media employed a logic of polarization to assist the authorities in retaking control of the pandemic and health crisis from Romania. The impact of the current study underlines the need to pay close attention to the dynamics of crises when activating historical patterns of stigma vis-à-vis Roma communities in Eastern Europe.

This article investigates how political strategies interrelate populist rhetoric with memory issues. By looking at the case of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) from Romania, between 2017–2019, this article reveals how the slide to populism, generated by cyclical confrontations with the rule of law institutions, steered the psd to adopt conspirational beliefs and appeal to traumatic memories to frame the judiciary as the new Securitate. Through the use of discourse analysis and virtual ethnography, this article analyses party resolutions and political rallies. This article explains how the populist rhetoric created a new hegemonic narrative of the judiciary, by intersecting its values and symbolism with the memory of the former Securitate from the Communist period.

This article is an exploratory analysis of the political style of the Romanian Social Democratic Party (PSD), which despite being a mainstream centre-left party, has shifted from a latent to a crystalized populist rhetoric. Using qualitative content analysis of party speeches and press statements from 2015-2019, the article shows how the political style of the party becomes more populist when the domestic justice system begins to pressure leading PSD politicians. The data reveal an intersection between populist rhetoric and institutionalist discourse when PSD is trying to amend the rule of law institutions.

This study investigates the far-right counter-hegemonic discourses employed in Romania during the Covid-19 vaccine roll-out and the promotion of green certificates. Using an array of traditional and occult symbols as well as religious iconography, the protests held by the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) employed ritualistic ceremonies and espoused counter-hegemonic discourses that confronted the authorities’ with the extreme religio-nationalist idea of “Romanianness”. Methodologically, this study combines digital ethnography of more than 30 protests in 2021-2022, with data collected from both social and conventional media as well as visual analysis of relevant discourses. The results show that the  iconography of analysed protests can be interpreted as new rituals of rebellion against the authorities’ decisions to restrict the movement of people. Likewise, AUR’s on-the-ground discourse conveyed new counter-hegemonic that rejected neo-liberal ideals. Moreover, the analysis reveals that the performance styles used during the demonstrations show striking similarities with the January 6th Insurrection in the United States.