Identity Politics / Political Identities: Two Months with the Romanian Media

(Case Study of the 2000 General Election campaign)

In lieu of motto:

HUNGARIANISM. A term, expression or phrase specific of the Hungarian language, (unnecessarily) borrowed by another language without adapting it to its system.

ROMANIANISM. 1. National feeling of the Romanians; Romanian spirit. 2. (rare) A word or phrase specific of the Romanian language.

HUNGARIANIZE. 1. To assimilate with the Hungarian people. 2. To change a word, phrase, etc after the structure of the Hungarian language.

ROMANIANIZE. To give a foreign word or phrase introduced in the Romanian language such a form as to fit in with the norms and structure of the Romanian language.

ROMANIZE, Romanian. 1. To adopt or make someone adopt the customs, character and language of the Romanians. 2. To translate into Romanian.

HUNGARIANIZATION. The fact of Hungarianizing or being Hungarianized.

ROMANIANIZATION. The action of Romanianizing and its result.

ROMANIANIZED. 1. That has taken on (in certain historical circumstances) Romanian nationality; that has become Romanian. 2. (About foreign words and phrases that entered the Romanian language) That has taken on a form to fit the structure of the Romanian language.

HUNGARIANIZED – (not explained).

(translated into English from the Dicţionarul Explicativ al Limbii Române, ed. a II-a, 1998)

 

 

Introduction

As a completion to the idea of Jürgen Habermas (1989), who considers the press as one of the main ‘institutions and instruments of the public sphere’, the recent trends are convergent towards rethinking the whole media as public sphere. The means of mass communication, including those in Romania, have reached the main position in the public sphere, and are thus able to emphasize the powerful social position they hold and to act for the resolution of “major social conflicts” in the society. Consequently, if the media (and the press) constitute “a battleground between contending forces”, then the balance between these social forces will depend especially on the mode in which it will respond and mediate the conflict.

Much like that of adapting to the changes in society, the adjustment (of the press, in our case) to the role of “equidistant negotiator or arbiter of competing interest” seems to be a difficult task for the post-communist media. “Recreating the media as a public sphere” is one of the priorities in post-communist countries. The achievement of this objective is meant to fill the space between the society and government, where ‘private individuals exercise formal and informal control over the state’ (Curran 1991a: 29). Furthermore, James Curran (1991b) believes that there is a need to rethink the democratic and informational role of the media, thus facilitating the expression of different alternative viewpoints of the various social groups or organizations, in order to cover the area where compromise and mutual agreements are promoted.

In this process, the media system has become a mechanism for ‘collective self-reflection’. The ‘collective self-reflection mechanisms’ are genuine identity pursuits reflected by the media. This politics of identity must to be understood ‘either starting from or aiming at claimed identities of their protagonists’. However, identity politics is not a new phenomenon, it has been ‘part and parcel of modern politics and social life’, and it stands for collective and public ‘struggles, not merely groping’. The ‘power partially determines outcomes and power relations are changed by struggles’. The politics of identity ‘involve seeking recognition, legitimacy (and sometimes power) not only expression or autonomy; other people, groups and organizations (including states) are called upon to respond’ (Calhoun 1994: 21).

The general democratization process in Eastern Europe has led not only to radical changes in the media systems, but also to controversial issues like nationalism, ethic revival and conflict. Contrary to the ”globalization hypothesis”, the proclamation of territorial identity is widespread media policy’. While during the communist regimes ‘ethnic conflicts were pacified to the detriment of democracy’, the 1989 changes produced a new ‘process of (re)creation of national identity’. This ‘is directly related to the revival of political democracy and its opposite - nationalistic exclusivism’. Many countries of the region have been rocked by ‘struggles for national cultural control and power’, representing ‘an important aspect of power maximization (state) policy on peripheries, particularly in relation to the media’. Nevertheless, the last decade has produced serious changes in the ethic politics affecting the ‘multiethnic communication environments’. Hopefully, there is awareness of the fact that the tendencies of recreating a certain ‘model of multiethnic public sphere must engage explicitly with the principles of media democratization’ (Husband 1995: 203).

Turning to the concrete, Katherine Verdery (1991) has a pertinent remark about inter-ethnic relations, stating that during socialism ‘the ethno-national tensions had persisted and perhaps even intensified’. As a proof of the previous statement, it is cited that shortly after the collapse of the Ceauşescu regime in Romania, ‘Romanians and Hungarians began spilling blood in Transylvania’. It is not mentioned in the text, but the place where it happened was Tîrgu Mureş (Marosvásárhely in Hungarian), a Transylvanian middle-sized city, with approximately 180,000 inhabitants, with a Romanians-Hungarians ratio of 1-1. The date of the ‘bloodshed’was 19-20 March 1990.

Among the causes of the emerged conflict, the role of the local and national media was quite important. Starting from this date (March 1990), a kind of precedent, the ‘Hungarian question’ has been a hot issue in the Romanian public sphere from time to time. The role of media in all these cases of public debates, as it was mentioned above, has been very important. The presence and the weight of the ‘question’ in the Romanian mainstream media is not just a result of the nationalistic stereotyped mentality towards ‘otherness’, but it is also an instrument to disturb and manipulate the Romanian public opinion from the real hot issues of the society (e.g. corruption, unemployment, inflation etc.).

The image of the Roma minority, because of the ‘cultural hierarchy’ perceived in the Romanian society, somehow differs from that of the Hungarian one. Nevertheless, the social distance is basically the same. In a media report on ‘hate speech’ written in 1998, Vera Câmpeanu (1999), a Romanian scholar, wrote the followings about the representation of the Roma in the Romanian press:

The papers maintain their attitude to the Roma and Roma-related issues – general distrust and hatred translates into the usual damaging generalization and stereotypes. Rarely do they print positive or neutral items; they always introduce cultural, social or educational initiatives, most of them without comments. (…)

Consistent in their approach, the monitored dailies continue to run articles on the Roma on the front page, under shocking banners, on the last page and most often in the columns on crime and police and court activity; the Pavlovian aspect of the effect upon the reader should in no way be downplayed – this technique is very efficient.

To conclude, the following study is based on a research made in order to investigate some of the aspects of Romanian media - its attitude to representing the Hungarian and the Roma minority - in the political campaign preceding the last general elections (autumn 2000).

Some aspects of methodology

The research within which the present study was written aimed at monitoring the mass-media during the electoral campaign preceding the last general elections (October 10 – december 10, 2000). The focus was mainly on political actors, their behavior and the main topics that were included in the news (newspaper articles, broadcasts) which were connected to the general topic of the present research. The period that was monitored, and especially the results of the elections (first of all, the fact that one quarter of the seats in the Parliament were won by the ‘Great Romania’ Party, and somewhat over a quarter of the votes for the president went to the leader of that party, Corneliu Vadim Tudor) surprised even the politologists and political analysts. The response of the public opinion at home and abroad before the second round of the elections was a clear measure not only of the risk that Romania was about to slip into the “Heiderian paradigm”, but also of the surprise the up-coming Romanian political scene caused.

As for the media, judged from the perspective of the debates that preceded the second round of the presidential elections, it was obviously moving in a vicious circle. First, it was accused of promoting cultural models preponderantly orientated towards meeting the demands of the market, thus neglecting the civic aspect of its mission and forming a segment of ‘deviant’ political culture among the youth. Then, it was attacked for the way in which it understood to reflect the election campaign, attempting (while keeping in mind the stipulations of the National Council for the Audio-Visual regarding the activities of the press during the campaign) to stay independent and equidistant from the offers that different political parties made to the electorate. Finally, the third critique against the media was that in the second round, several of its representatives – in order to ‘save what could be saved’ in the newly-created situation (the full ascent of the Greater Romania Party) – crossed the line of professional deontology and started the anti-Vadim campaign.

The hypotheses that I started from and that our research tried to test were based on some theories of sociology and social psychology, as well as on the results of previous research in the field.

An ethnic minority or a minority group has at least three characteristic features: 1. its members are disadvantaged as a result of discrimination shown by others; 2. as they are subjected to prejudices and discrimination, the members develop a certain sense of solidarity, of belonging to a group, and 3. as they usually live physically and socially isolated from the majority community, communication with other groups is limited, as is the exchange of cultural values and models with members of other communities (Giddens 1992: 245).

Robert Merton (1949), on the other hand, identifies four possible types of members of the majority groups, depending on their attitude and behavior towards minorities: 1. ‘all-weather liberals’, those that have no prejudices against minorities and reject all forms of discrimination, even if this involves personal expense; 2. ‘fair-weather liberals’, who claim they have no prejudices, but they get carried away when it comes to costs; 3. shy bigots, that is all who have prejudices against the minorities, but due to legal constraints or financial interest, they choose the egalitarian way, and 4. active bigots, who have prejudices against all other ethnic groups and practice discrimination against them.

Setting out from these theoretical considerations and adapting them to the realities of the present-day Romanian society, I have chosen the following hypotheses:

  1. hostility for the out-group (the Roma/Hungarian community) depends on the feelings springing from deprivation suffered in the past;
  2. ethnic intolerance depends on the anxiety in anticipating the future of the community/individual.

As I was mentioning, the paper is confined to the presentation of only one of the specific topics that the general methodology of the research aims to monitor, namely the ethnic issue, more precisely that of relating to the Hungarian and the Roma minorities. After the general elections of 1996, the warning on the cover of the fourth issue of Press Monitor (4/5 – 1996-1997) described among others the stages so far of the Romanian press:

The childhood diseases of the Romanian democratic press have started to disappear, the measles

of news has abated, the mumps of information gathered by the ear is healing at the school of

press, chickenpox has left a few marks on the cheeks of some newspapers, but the patient’s

general state is improving.

The “diagnosis” of those from the Media Monitoring Agency – the editors of the press monitor – seemed to catch an intermediate stage, one which – in the natural evolution of a society undergoing a process of democratization – should finally lead to that ‘logic of information’, in which ‘differentiation, balancing and action specific for each component of the public sphere, in accordance with its own structure of legitimacy’ takes place (Dragan, 1993:560). If the press/mass-media in Romania has or has not reached this final stage in which the representation of the minority groups is the wanted one - namely, void of prejudices, stereotypes [1] or other ‘preferential’ approaches to the majority - is to be revealed by the results of the monitoring.

The paper is equally addressed to specialists, press/television consumers and journalists, and it aims to make a presentation in the form of a transversal flash of the media content in what regards the ethnic issue [2]. By choosing this set of data for the research we want to observe the significant changes, as compared to the previous years, in the journalists’ relation to the Hungarian community and its representatives (leaders of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania), and the Roma community and its representatives. In this way, we intend to learn the existing social distance between the majority and the minority groups in Romania, as it was reflected in the central mass media during the election campaign. The choice of these two ethnic communities, the Hungarian and the Roma, was made on the criterion of relevance, as these two minorities are not only the most important in Romania (and not only in Romania), but also the ones that have been paid most attention in the Romanian press since 1989.

As regards social distance, the term defines the degree to which members of a group perceive the separation/closeness to another group, the extent to which they (in-group) accept/reject the members of another group (out-group). In the opinion polls, it is measured in value scales. In our study, this was done by calculating the frequency and the percentage of the parameters included in the measuring grid.

The results of the monitoring

The monitoring grid was the following :

Table no. 1.

C1

T1

A1

P

T2

CC

A2

C/N

T3

C2

O

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

where the codes utilized stand for:

C1 – code (article/newspaper, or program/TV station);
T1- title (of the article/TV program);
A1 – author (signed/anonymous/pseudonym);
P – page (no.);
T2 – topic (brief description of the content and topic of the article)
CC – key words (a list of terms – extended as the monitoring advanced – to cover the main topics in the campaign);
A2 – actor (politician/ political parties/institutions/organizations/others);
C/N – (nature) conflicting/non-conflicting nature of the article/TV program;
T3 – biased (+/0/-);
C2 –political actor’s behavior (A – aggressive; G – aggressed/attacked; N - neutral);
O – opinion (+/-, only in the case of articles presenting opinion/editorials).
The units of measure employed were frequency, in the case of the written press, and time (measured in seconds) in the case of TV programs.

Thus, using this methodology, at the end of the research we have the following results:

The Hungarian minority

First of all, we can observe a significant difference between the printed and electronic Romanian media in representing this minority group: each TV station (Antena 1, Pro Tv and Romania 1) has a 100% neutral attitude towards this subject. On the contrary, the style of reporting (frequencies of positive/negative bias and/or unbiased) of print media is heterogeneous. A part of them (mainly Jurnalul Naţional, Adevărul, Curierul National) reflected a biased and stereotyped attitude in reporting (articles or editorials), while others (mainly National, Curentul, Cronica Romana, Ziua and Ziarul Financiar) a more balanced, unbiased information. Actually, it became almost a common knowledge to say that the first two newspapers– Jurnalul Naţional and Adevărul - are “champions” of the nationalistic discourse in the post/communist Romanian print media. This aspect becomes more relevant if taking into consideration that Adevărul has the highest readership in the Romanian print media.

The Roma minority

One of our conclusions, when considering the comparison with data on the Hungarian minority is that the Roma minority is over- represented. (see Adevărul, Naţional, Ziua, but also Libertatea, România Liberă, Cotidianul or Cronica Română). This might be explained by the fact that the Roma community is perceived more in terms of a social problem (in comparison with the Hungarian community, which is perceived mainly as a united community with a strong self - identity). The difference between newspapers becomes significant when comparing the bias in reporting - the percentage of negative bias towards Roma represents the mainstream (in the print media and partially in the electronic media). Special columns/TV programs discuss the ‘Roma question’ in a stereotyped manner (Naţional, Evenimentul Zilei, Libertatea and Adevărul) and just a few dailies try to present the Roma communitys’ in a neutral, or even positively biased style (Curentul and Cronica Română).

The TV stations offer more space to Roma issues than to Hungarian ones. The leader in respect to promoting negative attitudes towards Roma is Antena 1 - the electronic media version of Jurnalul naţional (same owner and editor).

 

A changed paradigm? (in lieu of conclusions)

If we re-model the typology used by Bruno Bettelheim and Morris Janowity (1950) to distinguish the types of veterans with respect to their (anti-Semitic) ethnic attitudes, we can say, based on our experiences, that there are four ‘ideal types’ of Romanian journalists, depending on their attitudes toward ethnic minorities. These are the following:

(a) intensely anti-Hungarian/Roma
(b) outspokenly anti-Hungarian/Roma
(c) stereotyped anti-Hungarian/Roma
(d) tolerant

The preponderance of one or another of these ’ideal types’ in different periods defined the character of the Romanian media system at the specific moment. As we mentioned in the introductory part, the behavior of the Romanian media in the last decade has been defined by periodically taking up the issue of the ‘Hungarian question’ (with variable intensity). Similar attitudes can be found related to Roma issues as well.

Consequently, there has been some noticeable change in the sense that there is a visible difference between the relation of mass media to the Hungarian community and to the Roma community. While in the case of the Roma there is still a preponderantly negative attitude, the presentation of the Hungarian minority has indicated some changes for the better. The cause for this change can be traced to the more relaxed relation between the majority and the Hungarian minority and also as a result of the participation of DAHR in the government.

 

Footnotes:

[1] The use of some phrases that betray in a way certain journalists’ subconscious as regards their perception of belonging to minority groups in the Romanian society. Phrases such as: “Romanians have happily received the visit of the Pope”, “Romanians expect solutions from the government, not promises”, “Romanians have always known to help each other”, “Romanians drink less water than …”, “Romanians will be able to seek employment abroad”, etc are examples that demonstrate, one could almost say, the a priori ignorance/exclusion of non-Romanians.

[2] The data have been obtained through monitoring the following Romanian publications and central television stations: Adevărul, Cotidianul, Cronica Română, Curentul, Curierul Naţional, Evenimentul Zilei, Jurnalul Naţional, Libertatea, Naţional, România Liberă, Ziarul Financiar, Ziua, and TVR1, Antena1, ProTv, respectively.

References:

BETTELHAIM, Bruno and JANOVITY, Morii (1959) ‘The Ethic Tolerance: a Function of Social and Personal Control’ in (eds.) Bernard Berelson and Morris Janovitz Public Opinion and Communication. Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press.

CALHOUN, Craig (1994) ‘Social Theory and the Politics of Identity’ in (eds.) Craig Calhoun Social Theory and the Politics of Identity. Oxford: Blackwell.

CÂMPEANU, Vera (1999) The Image of National and Religious Minorities in the Romanian Press (October 1997-March 1998). Pro Europe League Conference (manuscript).

CULIC, Irina, HORVÁTH, István and RAŢ, Cristina (2000) ‘Ethnobarometer’ in (eds.) Lucian Năstasă and Levente Salat Interethnic Relations in post-communist Romania. Cluj: EDRC.

CURRAN, James (1991a) ‘Rethinking the Media as a Public Sphere’ in (eds.) Peter Dahlgren and Colin Sparks Communication and Citizenship: Journalism and the Public Sphere. London: Routledge.

CURRAN, James (1991b) ’Mass Media and Democracy: A Reappraisal’ in (eds.) James Curran and Michael Gurevitch Mass Media and Society. London, New York: Edward Arnold.

DRĂGAN, Ioan (1993) ‘Mass-media in the Public Sphere in the Post-totalitarian Transition’ in Sociologie Românească (Romanian Sociology), New edition, Year IV, no. 6, 559-577, Bucharest.

ANTHONY, Giddens (1992). Sociology. Cambridge: Polity Press.

HABERMAS, Jürgen (1989) The Structural Transformation of the Public Space. Cambridge: Polity Press.

HUSBAN, Charles (1995) ‘Communicating Sameness and Containing diversity: Communication Policies and Ethno-National Policies in the European Union’ in (eds.) Farrel Corcoran and Paschal Preston Democracy and Communication in the New Europe: Change and Continuity in East and west. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

MERTON, Robert (1949) ‘Discrimination and the American creed’, in R. M. McIver, Discrimination and National welfare. New York: Harper and Row.

VERDERY, Katherine (1991) Ethnic Relations, the ‘Economy of Shortage’, and the Transition in Eastern Europe. ABA Conference (manuscript).

 

Bias vs. Neutrality in Reporting Hungarian Topics (in Romanian Language Central Daily Newspapers)
monitoring period: October 10 - December 10 2000

Daily

Frequency

Negative Bias

Neutral report

Positive Bias

Adevarul

12

3

7

0

Cotidianul

9

1

7

0

Cronica Romana

10

1

8

1

Curentul

5

0

4

1

Curierul National

5

4

1

0

Evenimentul Zilei

3

1

2

0

Jurnalul National

21

8

9

2

Libertatea

0

0

0

0

National

3

0

3

0

Romania Libera

0

0

0

0

Ziarul Financiar

3

0

3

0

Ziua

8

1

5

1

TOTAL

79

19

49

5

 

Bias vs. Neutrality in Reporting Roma Topics (in Romanian Language Central Daily Newspapers)
monitoring period: October 10 - December 10 2000

Daily

Frequency

Negative Bias

Neutral report

Positive Bias

Adevarul

20

13

5

2

Cotidianul

11

5

5

1

Cronica Romana

11

2

5

4

Curentul

7

0

4

3

Curierul National

10

4

3

1

Evenimentul Zilei

12

8

3

1

Jurnalul National

8

3

3

2

Libertatea

13

7

6

0

National

16

12

2

1

Romania Libera

12

5

5

1

Ziarul Financiar

0

0

0

0

Ziua

15

9

4

2

TOTAL

135

68

45

18

 

Bias vs. Neutrality in Reporting Minorities Topics (Roma and Hungarian) (in Romanian Language Central Daily Newspapers)
monitoring period: October 10 - December 10 2000

Daily

Frequency

Negative Bias

Neutral report

Positive Bias

Adevarul

32

16

12

2

Cotidianul

20

6

12

1

Cronica Romana

21

3

13

5

Curentul

12

0

8

4

Curierul National

15

8

4

1

Evenimentul Zilei

15

9

5

1

Jurnalul National

29

11

12

4

Libertatea

13

7

6

0

National

19

12

5

1

Romania Libera

12

5

5

1

Ziarul Financiar

3

0

3

0

Ziua

23

10

9

3

TOTAL

214

87

94

23

 

Bias vs. Neutrality in Reporting Hungarian Topics (in Romanian Language TV Stations)
monitoring period: November 7 - December 8 2000

TV Station

Time (seconds)

Negative Bias

Neutral report

Positive Bias

Antena 1

6096

0

4994

0

Pro TV

2732

0

2732

0

Romania 1

3930

0

3752

0

TOTAL

12758

0

11478

0

 

 

Bias vs. Neutrality in Reporting Roma Topics (in Romanian Language TV Stations)
monitoring period: November 7 - December 8 2000

TV Station

Time (seconds)

Negative Bias

Neutral report

Positive Bias

Antena 1

326

208

118

0

Pro TV

129

129

0

0

Romania 1

115

0

115

0

TOTAL

570

337

233

0

 

Bias vs. Neutrality in Reporting Minorities Topics (Roma and Hungarian) (in Romanian Language TV Stations)
monitoring period: November 7 - December 8 2000

TV Station

Time (seconds)

Negative Bias

Neutral report

Positive Bias

Antena 1

6422

208

5112

0

Pro TV

2861

129

2732

0

Romania 1

4045

0

3867

0

TOTAL

13328

337

11711

0