Disempowered by the media: causes and consequences of the lack of media voice of Roma communities

ABSTRACT

Roma communities have experienced widespread historical exclusion in most European countries. The media can be a powerful instrument of a group’s inclusion into the mental map of a society, or, on the contrary, it can contribute to the group’s exclusion and disempowerment. This article builds on a series of content and discursive analyses of the news media’s coverage of Hungarian Roma communities since 1993, interviews with stakeholders and focus group discussions in Roma communities. It scrutinises media reporting about Roma and argues that, in general, the scope and the agenda of Roma’s portrayal coincide with mainstream society’s stereotypes about the group. The article will additionally look at the media’s disempowering role from two perspectives: on the one hand, the extent to which Roma have access to influencing media content, and on the other hand, it will consider the role of minority communities in challenging stereotypical images.

KEYWORDS:

• Roma
• media coverage
• empowerment
• Hungary
• discourse analysis
• struggle for representation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Collating the two words into one is a special feature of the Hungarian language which – through such a structure – expresses that criminality and ‘Gypsiness’ are bound together.

2. RTL Klub and TV2 are the two most significant commercial TV channels with the highest audience.

3. For details see Traub James. Shuttered Factories and Rants Against the Roma http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/29/shuttered-factories-and-rants-against-the-roma-miskolc-viktor-orban-hungary/.

4. http://dev.neki.hu/miskolci-szamozott-utcak-mar-minden-letezo-forumon-elmarasztaltak-a-magyar-hatosagok-miskolc-onkormanyzatat.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund [K113250].