The media construction of remittances and transnational social ties: migrant–non-migrant relationships in the Romanian press

Abstract

The study explores through a ‘transnational lens’ the Romanian media construction of remitting practices and identities within a wider debate on circular migration. It uses a broad definition of remittances (financial, sociocultural and political) and is concerned with the role of the Romanian press in articulating migrant–non-migrant relationships and laying the ground for informed policy debates. The methodology consists of qualitative corpus analysis and discourse analysis applied to a corpus of 221 news articles. The main findings indicate an overall positive evaluation of remittances (with the main exception of family separation), which endows migrants with social recognition as development agents and is used to justify various policy initiatives, but at the same time disempowers them through instrumentalisation. Even though limited in scope, grassroots migrant–non-migrant interaction, combined with a critical journalistic stance in editorials, opens up an avenue towards negotiation and joint transnational actions.

Keywords:

• remittances
• media discourse
• development policies
• migrant–non-migrant relationships
• transnational social field
• Romania

Acknowledgement

I am very grateful to Professor Camelia Beciu (SNSPA, Bucharest), for insightful comments and discussions, and to the two Identities’ anonymous peer-reviewers.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research, CNCS – UEFISCDI [project number PN-II-ID-PCE-2011-3-0968] Diaspora in the Romanian Media and Political Sphere. From Event to the Social Construction of Public Issues.

Notes on contributors

Irina Diana Mădroane

IRINA DIANA MĂDROANE is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures of the West University of Timișoara, Romania.