The Dominant Media Discourse of Swedish Newspapers About Romanian Beggars in Sweden and Their Perceived Effects
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Department of Informatics and Media Master’s Programme in Social Sciences, Digital Media and Society specialization Two-year Master’s Thesis The dominant media discourse of Swedish newspapers about Romanian beggars in Sweden and their perceived effects Student: Vlad Valentin Tarmure 5th of September 2019 Abstract The focus of the study is the representation in the Swedish Printed Media of a group of Romanian beggars, living in Sweden. This research explores the relationship between visibility of Romanian beggars in the Swedish media and its perceived effects on that group.The study has two dimensions; one which examines the dominant media discourse on Romanian beggars (from the viewpoint of the printed media), and the other, which examines a group of Romanian beggars’ sense-making of their media representation (the Romanian beggars’ angle). It is the first study to research media representation of Romanian beggars from the beggars’ view. The study has academic relevance because it helps understand better how the Romanian beggars in Sweden live and relate to all the media exposure they have. The findings of the study add to the scarce body of media and communications literature about the beggars from Sweden. The study used methods, such as the content analysis of media frames and visual ethnography, as well the analytical category of visibility, as proposed by Brighenti (2007), as its overarching theoretical framework. It also employed second level agenda setting and framing theoretical concepts to complement the Visibility Theory and to develop a customised theoretical model of media visibility for the issue of Romanian beggars. The study’s results reveal that the dominant media discourse uses a mainly negative tone of voice, which elicits an aggressive emotional response from the reader. Furthermore, other findings in the study also suggest that the participants in the study were mostly unaware of their media visibility. Those, who were aware of the power of media visibility, better perceived the potential effects of it, both positive and negative. 1 Table of Contents Abstract ....................................................................................................................1 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................6 Marginalised EU Citizens’ Immigration to Sweden ....................................................................9 2. Background ...................................................................................................12 The Roma- a Minority Group with a Long History of Discrimination ......................................12 The Right to Free Movement within the E.U. ...........................................................................15 Immigration to Sweden from Romania and Bulgaria ................................................................17 Roma Beggars in Sweden ..........................................................................................................18 3. Literature Review .........................................................................................21 4. Theoretical Framework ...............................................................................27 Visibility, Visible and the Invisible ............................................................................................27 Visibility as a form of social life ..........................................................................................................28 Models of visibility ..............................................................................................................................31 The model of visibility as “recognition” .........................................................................................31 The model of visibility as “control” ................................................................................................33 The model of visibility as “the spectacular” ...................................................................................34 Visibility and power .............................................................................................................................35 Visibility and the role of communication media ..................................................................................36 Media, visibility and publicness ..........................................................................................................38 Social Representations .........................................................................................................................39 Effects of Mediated Visibility ..............................................................................................................41 Agenda Setting and Framing in Mediating Visibility ................................................................42 Agenda Setting Theory ........................................................................................................................43 Second-level Agenda Setting .....................................................................................................45 Framing Theory .........................................................................................................................47 A Mediated Visibility Model for Roma Beggars .......................................................................50 Identification of the concept ................................................................................................................50 Dimensions of the model .....................................................................................................................51 Conceptualisation of dominant media discourse of Romanian beggars ..............................................52 Conceptualisation of ‘perceived’” media effects .................................................................................54 2 5. Methodology ..................................................................................................57 Research Design .........................................................................................................................57 Content Analysis of Media Frames ............................................................................................58 Visual Ethnography ....................................................................................................................61 Data Gathering Process ..............................................................................................................63 Quantitative data gathering ..................................................................................................................63 Computer generated analysis -extraction of patterns of frame (“topics’) ............................................65 Computer generated analysis – negative vs positive word usage ........................................................66 Computer generated emotions triggered in the analysed sample ........................................................66 Qualitative data gathering ..........................................................................................................67 In-field interviews ................................................................................................................................68 The Interview Participants ..............................................................................................................68 Processing and Transcribing Data ..............................................................................................69 6. Ethics ..............................................................................................................70 Ethical Considerations ...............................................................................................................70 Personal Motivation ...................................................................................................................71 Reflections on the In-field Interviews ........................................................................................72 7. Presentation and Interpretation of the Results ..........................................74 Results of the Content Analysis .................................................................................................74 Presentation of the results of content analysis .....................................................................................75 Interpretation of the results of content analysis .........................................................................84 Interview Results .......................................................................................................................86 Presentation and interpretation of results regarding level of awareness among the group of Romanian beggars .................................................................................................................................................87 Low level of awareness ....................................................................................................................88 Presentation and interpretation of results regarding the perceived effects ................................89 Perceived negative effects ................................................................................................................90 Misrepresentation and Distortion of Reality ..............................................................................92