Victims or Perpetrators? Explaining Media Framing of Roma Across Europe

• In Event: Ethnicity and Race Concerns Across Europe

Abstract

Discrimination against Roma is a reality all over Europe. The extent to which problematic beliefs of this minority group are reflected or reinforced by news media, has received only limited attention. Therefore, this study sets out to investigate the factors that account for variation in how European news media frame Roma diagnostically and prognostically. We content analyzed 825 news articles from newspapers in the Netherlands, Germany, Slovakia, Czech Republic and the United Kingdom in the timespan 2010 – 2012. Results show that attention for Roma is clustered around key-events and differs between countries. Our analyses of frame variation, based on multilevel modelling, indicate a duality in the use of frames, with Roma being both portrayed as victims and perpetrators. Variation in these portrayals could be ascribed to temporal, content-specific and country characteristics. This study contributes to our understanding of the factors that account for (problematic) portrayals of Roma in European countries.

Authors

• Anne Cornelia Kroon, University of Amsterdam, ASCOR

• Alena Kluknavská, Comenius U Bratislava

• Rens Vliegenthart, U of Amsterdam

• Hajo G. Boomgaarden, U of Vienna