Romaphobia and the media: mechanisms of power and the politics of representations

ABSTRACT

This special issue of Identities, entitled ‘Romaphobia and the media’, examines entrenched and ongoing media coverage of Roma, Gypsy and Traveller people across Europe. The focus is on how the media problematises the Roma, how it constructs a ‘conceptual map’ about Roma people and what this tells us about the societies we live in. This special issue includes five academic articles all examining the constructions and stereotypes used in the media in various formats and European countries. After these academic articles, this special issue then deviates from the normal journal structure by including three commentary pieces from professionals from varying Roma backgrounds to give their views and experiences on how they tackle Romaphobia and the media. The inclusion of these commentary pieces are very powerful in offering a perspective of active interventions and resistance that we should not forget amidst the depressing continued circulation of racialised stereotypes.

KEYWORDS:

• Media
• representations
• ethnicity
• racism
• Roma
• Gypsy
• stereotypes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Available at The Guardian website. Accessed 21 November 2016: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/15/sheffield-page-hall-roma-slovakia-immigration. Similarly, the then deputy prime minister Nick Clegg (from the Liberal Democrat party) criticised Roma migrants for behaving in a ‘sometimes intimidating, sometimes offensive way’ saying that Roma migrants needed to be more ‘sensitive’ to the British ‘way of life’. Available at the BBC website. Accessed 21 November 2016: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24949349.

2. in May 2015This special issue was inspired by the seminar ‘Romaphobia and the media’, a collaboration between the Centre for European and International Studies (CEISR) at the University of Portsmouth (Dr Annabel Tremlett), and the Centre for Language Discourse & Communication at King’s College London (Professor Ben Rampton). The event was part-funded by a British Academy Small Grant (SG112414 received by Annabel Tremlett). We are also grateful for the ‘Small Incubator’ grant given by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences that enabled Tremlett to visit Messing for a month in Budapest in May 2015 to work on this special issue.

3. The Runnymede Trust Report first used it in 1997.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the British Academy [Grant Number SG112414] and a 'Kis Inkubator' fellowship for Tremlett to work with Messing in Budapest, May 2015. Funding from the Institute for Sociology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest.