Media Representation of the Discrimination against the Roma in Eastern Europe: The Case of Slovenia

Abstract

The aim of this article is to show how the thematic and form structures of the news report work to legitimate and naturalize discrimination against the Roma. The syntactic structure of discriminatory discourse offered the readers categories which differed very little: the headline and the lead constructed a closed interpretation of the situation and the rest of the news report strengthened, legitimated and naturalized this interpretation especially with its use of evaluation. In order to create a coherent meaning of the news text, journalists first reduced the definition of the situation to only one event, which presented the majority population in a positive light. To construct only one, natural dominant interpretation of the ethnic discrimination they selectively (mis)used information, used discourse of difference with colonization of common-sense language, and the strategies of denial of discriminatory discourse. The majority population was the dominant group, responsible for the process of doing and saying as actors and sayers. The study of the Slovenia media adheres to the analytic paradigm of critical discourse analysis (CDA).

Discourses of sameness: Expressions of nationalism in newspaper discourse on French urban violence in 2005

“…Tekin, 2010) and in other contexts (e.g. Crawford, 2011;Erjavec, 2001;Krzyżanowski and Wodak, 2008;Neiger and Rimmer-Tsory, 2013;Oktar, 2001;Van Dijk, 2006). The current discussion draws on these and other studies to argue that emphasis on positive characteristics of the Self and distance from negative characteristics of the Other permits a clear distinction to be drawn between the French people (us) and the immigrant minorities living in the banlieues (them).…”

Talking about Gypsies: The Notion of Discourse as Control

“…Indeed, Turner's (2002) work was summarised into themes, in Figure six. Erjavec (2001) discussed the `normalisation' of discriminatory discourse, and this can be linked to Berger and Luckmann's (1966) objective and subjective reality and the circular route of definition and redefinition examined earlier, in the theoretical framework. Erjavec (2001) also hit upon the theme of newsworthiness of Gypsies and Travellers, which links with the motive behind the media using controlling discourse to `other' them.…”

“…However, there are a small number of research papers which deal with the issue of discourse and are relevant to the literature review here. Firstly, Erjavec (2001) examines the representation of the Roma of Slovenia in the media.…”

“…They were, in the words of one features writer... `fair game' and a group that could help `sell copy'; their perceived `exotic otherness' combined with their `scrounging refugee' label gave newspaper columnists and editors a license to wax lyrical. (Clark and Campbell, 2000: 41) These pieces of work by Erjavec (2001), Leudar and Nekvapil (2000), and Clark and Campbell (2000), demonstrate the presence of discriminatory discourse in the media and they are pertinent to this research. They also focus specifically on the media, rather 165 than any other discourse.…”

Migrant Roma in the United Kingdom and the need to estimate population size

“…A number of commentators have already highlighted examples of negative media representations in relation to migration more broadly (King and Wood, 2002), and particular groups of migrants -for example refugees and asylum seekers (Kaye, 2002) and Roma (Erjavec, 2001). Additionally, it is argued that there has been a change in journalist culture with an increasing commitment to entertainment (ICAR, 2012) or 'infotainment', which is described by Greenslade (2005: 10) as a 'subtle combination' of information and entertainment.…”