Portrayal of Roma in Hungarian National
Dailies (from the 15th October through
— Research Report —
Introduction
The
data survey included 6 national daily papers (Magyar Hírlap,
Magyar Nemzet, Népszabadság
and Népszava political papers; Blikk
and Mai Nap tabloids) during the period October 16th through
High
Politics
As
for high politics, the press reported three major issues: the Council of Europe
Special Group on Roma/Gypsies visited Hungary, and voiced serious criticism
which remained uncovered by some of the dailies; the European Union’s annual
country report on Hungary was published, which expressed concerns regarding the
situation of the Roma, and the president of the Office on National and Ethnic
Minorities, the government's most important organization on minority affairs
was dismissed. Several articles covered the guesswork regarding the person of
the new president, and later the protests of some organizations after the
candidate was named.
Conflicts
There
were two bigger conflicts which enjoyed extensive press coverage: the eviction
of a Romani family in
Culture
There
were several cultural events which drew media attention during these weeks:
pianist Richard Cleydermann recorded an album
together with the group 101 Gypsy Soloists, the Honvéd
Dance Ensemble staged a new Gypsy show (although the ensemble features only a
few Roma dancers, but the music was performed by Romani
musicians). A more authentic cultural event was the 15th anniversary of the 100
Member Gypsy Ensemble, and the inauguration ceremony
of the future Roma Theater, with the participation of the President of the
Republic.
Crime
There
were three major Roma-related criminal events during these 8 weeks, but only in
one of them were the Roma suspected of criminal offense. In one of the cases an
entrepreneur of dubious reputation was murdered by his girlfriend, and his
family swore a blood feud; in the other one a Hungarian actress was brutally
killed by her own son, and later she turned out to have had written a book on
Roma years before. There was only one criminal case with Romani
suspects involved. In August 1999 a young man traveled to Zámoly
from the neighboring
Article
length, emphases
The
researchers identified 202 Roma related articles in the six dailies during this
2-month-period. The figure indicates a significant increase compared to the
previous figures. A preceding content analysis, involving the same number of
dailies, found 304[1] articles in a six month period. As for quantity, there is
also an important difference between the daily papers: while the highest
circulation daily, Népszabadság published 60 articles
that means one article published per day on average,
the tabloid Blikk published only 4 articles during
the entire period. The receptivity to issues concerning the Romani
community is set more by the genre of the paper than the political orientation
of the specific paper. This means that tabloids devote less attention to Romani issues than political dailies.
Incidence
distribution
|
Paper |
Frequency |
Valid
Percent |
|
1
Népszabadság |
60 |
29,7 |
|
2
Magyar Hírlap |
48 |
23,8 |
|
3
Népszava |
31 |
15,3 |
|
4
Magyar Nemzet |
38 |
18,8 |
|
5
Blikk |
4 |
2,0 |
|
6
Mai Nap |
21 |
10,4 |
|
Total |
202 |
100,0 |
In
70 percent of the survey sample, the entire article or most of it was dedicated
to the Romani issue; consequently there were only a
few articles where the Roma were mentioned in connection with a different
subject. This indicates that the cross-categorization (when Romani
topics are approached through another theme, relevant to the whole society) is
less present in the press, it is more likely that certain issues are defined as
specifically Romani ones.
Length
distribution
|
Length |
Frequency |
Valid
Percent |
|
1
very long |
52 |
25,7 |
|
2
long |
77 |
38,1 |
|
3
short |
57 |
28,2 |
|
4
very short |
16 |
7,9 |
|
Total |
202 |
100,0 |
The
importance of the Romani issues, beside the frequency
of their incidence, is also marked by the length of the articles. Nearly two
thirds of the articles were very long, which clearly shows that the press is
becoming increasingly concerned about the situation of the Roma, as well as
they recognize the issue as one of the most important social problems. As for length,
there is no significant difference between the papers.
Article
length in individual papers
|
Paper |
Long/
Very long |
Short/
Very short |
Frequency |
|
1
Népszabadság |
63% |
37% |
60 |
|
2
Magyar Hírlap |
73% |
27% |
48 |
|
3
Népszava |
64% |
36% |
31 |
|
4
Magyar Nemzet |
58% |
42% |
38 |
|
5
Blikk |
|
|
4 |
|
6
Mai Nap |
52% |
48% |
21 |
|
Total |
64% |
36% |
202 |
The
highest number of articles was published in Magyar Hírlap,
but this can also be attributed to the larger page layout of the paper.
However, most long and in-depth articles were published by Népszabadság
and Magyar Nemzet (30% of the articles).
The
importance of a certain topic is in correlation with the genre of the article.
The next table shows that one third of the articles were short news items,
while two thirds pertained to genres which allow an insight or a more detailed
description. The number of reportage articles (15%) is relatively high (despite
its otherwise low incidence in the Hungarian press), and the sensitive nature
of certain themes is also marked by the high number of opinion pieces and
background materials.
Genre
distribution
|
Genre |
Frequency |
Valid
Percent |
|
News |
71 |
35,1 |
|
News
analysis |
51 |
25,2 |
|
Reportage |
30 |
14,ö |
|
Interviews |
9 |
4,5 |
|
Opinion
pieces |
19 |
9,4 |
|
Analysis |
14 |
6,9 |
|
Rest
(letters to the editor etc.) |
8 |
4 |
|
Total |
202 |
100,0 |
Main
thematic characteristics of the portrayal of Roma
Thematic
distribution
|
Themes |
Number
of articles |
The
proportion of the articles on the given topic [2] |
|
Government
policies on minorities |
66 |
33% |
|
Romani organizations,
self-governments, Romani politics |
16 |
8% |
|
Discrimination |
43 |
22% |
|
Emigration |
35 |
18% |
|
Roma
abroad |
10 |
5% |
|
Minority
rights |
29 |
15% |
|
General
background |
5 |
3% |
|
Poverty |
30 |
15% |
|
Housing |
33 |
17% |
|
Education |
26 |
13% |
|
Employment |
13 |
7% |
|
|
4 |
2% |
|
Music |
21 |
11% |
|
Culture |
28 |
14% |
|
Medical
care, health care |
5 |
3% |
|
Local
conflict |
31 |
16% |
|
Crime |
42 |
21% |
|
Prejudices
against Roma |
22 |
11% |
|
History |
2 |
1% |
|
Total
number of articles |
200 |
|
According
to the table, the portrayal of the Hungarian Roma – in accordance with the
previous content analysis – was dominated by the government minority policy
issues (33%), social issues (poverty: 15%, housing: 17%), Romani
culture and music (14, and 14 %), crime (21%) and local conflicts (16%). In
contrast with previous results, the present survey indicates that the attention
to the instances of discrimination[3] exhibited by the
press has substantially increased (22%). This might be partially in connection
with the increasing emigration[4] of the Roma (18%).
The constant lack of certain issues is also a tell-tale sign: there is a wide
range of topics consistently missing from the articles. Such issues are the
enterprises run by Roma, economy, history, health care (one would think the
latter is relevant, as the average life expectancy of the Roma population is
10-15 years less than that of the non-Roma.)
Government
Policies on Minorities
The
minority policy of the government gained significant media attention in this
sample. It already did so under the previous content analysis period, where 18%
of the articles were dedicated to state funds and programs; here this
proportion increased to 30 percent. The Romani
civil sphere, the operation of Romani NGO-s and
self-governments did not arouse much interest by the press, not more than 8% of
the articles contained information on these issues. The government
policy dominated the great number of social issues in the sample. Poverty,
which was present in 20% of the articles in 1997, tended to appear in close
connection with “minority policies and funding”.
It
is obviously impossible to say how much the current situation of the Romani communities is reflected by the quantitative
proportions. Undoubtedly poverty, unemployment, bad housing conditions are
everyday reality for most Roma families: according to the last representative
research conducted by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1993/4, 70% of Roma
capable of work were ousted from the labor market; and a research on poverty by
the World Bank stated that being Roma is the first among the factors which
render lasting impoverishment possible, more than the level of education, age
or housing condition. In the entire sample – in the face of the abundant news
on state support – there was only one article on Romani
enterprises, which we found very characteristic. In the previous content
analysis there was no article on Romani entrepreneurs
at all, while here the only article identified was about the criminal case of a
Romani entrepreneur. Similarly, the number of
articles presenting the active participation of Roma in shaping their own
future is very low. This means that most journalists rest content with
reporting press releases and press conferences, and the lack of investigative
articles and reportage materials reinforces the stereotypical view of the idle
Roma who passively wait for the state benefits. (In a
research into prejudices in 1994[5], nine tenths of the interviewees agreed to
the statement “all problems of the Roma could be solved if they started to work
finally”.)
The
government policy on Roma affairs received more emphasis through articles
reporting the visit of the Council of Europe Specialist Group on Roma/Gypsies
and through the publication of the European Commission’s annual report on
Differences
between the newspaper interpretations may be accounted for through the
different standpoints and perspectives the papers take: Népszabadság
refrained to the text of the country report, and underlined that further
efforts were required; Népszava tried to place the
report into the context of current events, labeling the chapter on Roma
“restrained”, while urging further measures. In terms of the report it was
Magyar Nemzet which assumed the government’s
communication strategy. None of the six newspapers, however, offered an
opportunity to Romani organizations to communicate
their view on the report.
Culture
Romani culture is also a
determinant feature in this sample, just like it was in the previous analysis
with its 21% presence. Although Romani culture
appears to have an emphatic presence in the Hungarian mainstream media, the
in-depth analysis shows that most of the articles are short and quite tedious
news items on Romani cultural events, like
exhibitions, dance performances, and concerts. These news items tell little
about the culture itself, only about its presence[6].
The
other major part of the culture-related articles are artist-portrayals,
which are supposed to present positive examples to the Hungarian and Romani readers. Scrutinizing the Romani
characters’ activity indicates that the artists and other Roma working in the
fields of culture are the ones mostly interviewed: 43% could express their
views directly, compared to the 29% of Roma self-governments).
Crime
Based
on the results one could think that the portrayal of the Roma in the Hungarian
mainstream media is defined by the 21% presence of criminal issues. However, this
is due to the small sample and the consequent distortion. In 1997 the results
of the one-year-research[7] showed that 25% of the
Roma were portrayed in the context of criminality, but in the same year, 1997,
the ombudsman for Data Protection and Minorities considered the ethnic labeling
of suspects and perpetrators unlawful. After the announcement, the indication
of the criminals’ and suspects’ ethnic background radically decreased in the
media. Later, ethnic labeling increased again, but it never surpassed half of
the previous period. Today we can barely find any instances.
The
distortion of the sample is largely the outcome of the media portrayal of three
cases, which only partially concern the Roma: a blood feud vowed by the family
of an assassinated Romani entrepreneur; a Hungarian
actress murdered during the sampling period, who turned out to have had written
about Roma before — so Roma were not portrayed as criminals in these cases. The
only criminal case with Romani suspects was that of a
young Hungarian killed in Zámoly. The court hearing
started during the research timeframe, nearly at the same time when the Zámoly Roma took class action and sued the local municipality[8] for violating their rights to their persons.
It well describes the distorted attention of the dailies, that while the
criminal case received attention galore from the mainstream media, most of the
papers did not report on the civil case at all, or only to a very limited
extent. At the same time the assassination of the Hungarian youth from Csákvár appeared as an issue which may undermine the well-groundedness of the asylum claim and human rights
complaints of the Zámoly Roma in
Local
conflicts
16%
of all news items dealt with local conflicts, just like in the 1997 content analysis[9]. Magyar Hírlap
distinguished itself in reporting local conflicts: 25% of its articles mention
such issues. In the case of the Monor evictions,
which was the most widely discussed local conflict in the period, there was a
palpable divergence between the different papers: while Magyar Hírlap and Népszava reported the
conflict in a balanced manner, offering equal space to both parties, the
conservative-right wing Magyar Nemzet portrayed the Romani legal activists (who were present during the
evictions) in a satirical way, and barely asked the evicted Roma, but quoted
extensively what municipal representatives said on suspicious “transactions” of
the evicted family.
The
eviction of a Romani family in
Depiction
of the conflicts
59%
of the surveyed articles covered some sort of conflicts. This is a very high
proportion, and may contribute to deepening the perceived gap between the Roma
and the non-Roma. The majority of articles which reported conflicts (70% of the
articles) gave account of conflicts between the Roma and the non-Roma, making
the formulation of groups and stressing the differences between these groups
all the more conspicuous (although the Roma are not the only social group with
housing problems, and individual crimes committed by Roma are not
disadvantageous solely for the majority).
Conflict
content distribution
|
Conflict
type |
Frequency |
Valid Percent |
|
1
political |
25 |
20,5 |
|
2
economic interest |
12 |
9,8 |
|
3
social |
21 |
17,2 |
|
4
cultural |
4 |
3,3 |
|
5
criminal |
31 |
25,4 |
|
6
ethnic |
22 |
18,0 |
|
9
other |
7 |
5,7 |
|
Total |
122 |
100,0 |
The
content of the conflicts is dominated by four themes which are identical with
the most deeply rooted majority stereotypes: criminality, politics, interethnic
and social oppositions.
In
the 1997 research the most frequent topic was social conflicts, but the stories
on political and ethnic conflicts were also characteristic. Within that
research 90% of the articles were interpreted as conflicts between the minority
and the majority.
Character
responsible for the conflict
|
Character
type |
Institution,
organization |
Person |
|
|
Roma |
11
(34%) |
21
(66%) |
32
(40%) |
|
Majority |
36
(73%) |
13
(27%) |
49
(60%) |
|
Undecided |
47 |
34 |
81 |
One
third (41 pieces) of the reports on conflicts do not name the character
responsible. In 40% of the remaining articles the Roma are marked as
responsible, in 60% the non-Roma are marked. It is striking that in cases of a
Roma character found responsible the character is usually a specific
individual, while in other cases this is not so, and only 27% of the non-Roma
found responsible are individuals. In all other cases the non-Roma individuals
responsible are unidentifiable behind the masks of institutions.
We
also investigated what sort of conflicts does the media
portray as “conflict-burdened”. The below table indicates the percentage
of the articles on specific issues, in terms whether the article places them in
a conflict-environment.
Contrastive
distribution of the presence of conflicts in specific themes
|
Theme |
Conflict
is present in the situation |
Situation
is free of conflicts |
Number
of articles |
|
Government
policies on minorities |
53% |
47% |
66 |
|
Romani organizations,
self-governments, Romani politics |
50% |
50% |
16 |
|
Discrimination |
86% |
14% |
43 |
|
Emigration |
74% |
26% |
35 |
|
Roma
abroad |
60% |
40% |
10 |
|
Minority
rights |
55% |
45% |
29 |
|
General
background |
80% |
20% |
5 |
|
Poverty |
60% |
40% |
30 |
|
Housing |
94% |
6% |
33 |
|
Education |
46% |
54% |
26 |
|
Employment |
54% |
46% |
13 |
|
|
50% |
50% |
4 |
|
Music |
24% |
76% |
21 |
|
Culture |
50% |
50% |
28 |
|
Medical
care, health care |
80% |
20% |
5 |
|
Local
conflict |
94% |
6% |
31 |
|
Crime |
98% |
2% |
42 |
|
Prejudices
against Roma |
86% |
14% |
22 |
|
History |
- |
100% |
2 |
|
Total |
68% |
32% |
200 |
It
is clear that the news and other materials in the media are strongly dominated
by conflicts: more than two thirds of the articles present the Roma-related
issues in the light of conflicts. The media’s constant lookout for conflicts
greatly contributes to this effect, but a previous content analysis confirmed
that the portrayal of majority issues or those of other minorities are much
less dominated by such conflicts. The specific themes are different in terms of
how much they are associated with conflicts in the papers, and some of the
themes, due to their nature, appear almost exclusively in conflictual
environments: such themes include crime, local conflicts, discrimination, etc.
It is noteworthy, however, that almost all reports on housing problems appear
as conflictual, and deeper analysis shows that the
conflict is always between the Roma and the majority population. This
characteristic may greatly contribute to the emphasis on the ethnic nature of
the conflicts: squatters and bad payers will be increasingly identified as
Roma.
Characters
and social roles
The
next subject is the social roles the press attributes to the Roma. The social
roles in which the Roma are presented strongly indicates the possible theme- and
role-stereotypes the media reflects. The below table shows the social roles in
which the Roma appear, and how characteristic these collective and individual
portrayals are.
Collective
and individual social roles
|
Social
role |
Number
of articles |
Percentage
of appearance of the characters in the given role |
|
Romani legal defense
organization |
20 |
11% |
|
Romani political
organization |
10 |
7% |
|
Romani
self-government |
8 |
5% |
|
Romani cultural
organization |
12 |
7% |
|
Romani educational
organization |
4 |
2% |
|
Other
Roma organization |
12 |
6% |
|
Organizations
total |
66
(24%) |
|
|
Romani lawyer/legal
defense activist |
10 |
5% |
|
Romani politician |
38 |
19% |
|
Roma
self-government representative |
8 |
4% |
|
Romani artist |
19 |
10% |
|
Romani employee |
7 |
4% |
|
Romani criminal |
18 |
9% |
|
Romani victim |
14 |
7% |
|
Parent |
12 |
6% |
|
Child |
14 |
7% |
|
Roma,
without a specific role |
15 |
8% |
|
Romani individuals
total |
155
(55%) |
|
|
Roma
mentioned in general |
58
(21%) |
29% |
|
TOTAL |
279 |
|
The
above table shows the occurrence frequency of the characters presented by the
articles and the proportion of this occurrence compared to the number of
articles. The first half of the table lists Roma organizations (collective
roles), the second the individuals.
The
first important conclusion is that the dominance of the collective presentation
of the Roma does not characterize the press any more. In 55% of the cases the
Roma appeared as individuals, and in 45% as groups (organizations or as Roma in
general). Compared to the 1996-97 survey, the depiction of Roma as homogenous
groups deprived of their social roles is much less characteristic. While in the
earlier survey in 60% of the articles the Roma were referred to as Roma in
general, this proportion shrank to under 30% by now. Unfortunately the Roma self-governments
– the most important characters in the interest-representation scheme of the
Roma – received hardly any coverage. This confirms the findings of our
interview research, which indicated that the PR of the minority
self-governments was weak, and their relation to the mainstream media was
incidental and not standardized.
It
is clear that the most frequent role is that of the politician: in 19% of the
articles a Roma politician, in 7% a political organization appeared. The
increasing presence of human rights thematics and the
improving influencing capacity of legal defense organizations is marked by the appearance (11%) of legal defense
organizations, and lawyers (5%). The emphatic presence of the minority
self-governments in 1997 has dropped back significantly. The other major category of characters present are the representatives of Romani culture: Romani artists
appear in one tenth of the articles, and cultural organizations also appear in
an additional 7%.
Proportion
of speaking and non-speaking Roma characters
|
|
Asked |
Not
asked |
Total
(in proportion of the characters) |
|
Legal |
14
(47%) |
16
(53%) |
30
(11%) |
|
Political
|
29
(60%) |
19
(40%) |
48
(17%) |
|
Minority
self-government |
7
(44%) |
9
(56%) |
16
(6%) |
|
Culture |
8
(26%) |
23
(74%) |
31
(11%) |
|
Romani civil
organization |
2
(50%) |
2
(50%) |
4
(1%) |
|
Economy |
5
(70%) |
2
(30%) |
7
(2%) |
|
Education |
2
(50%) |
2
(50%) |
4
(1%) |
|
Criminal/victim |
6
(19%) |
26
(81%) |
32
(11%) |
|
Civil
(parent, child) |
5
(19%) |
21
(81%) |
26
(9%) |
|
Without
a role |
5
(7%) |
68
(93%) |
73
(26%) |
|
Other
|
5
(63%) |
3
(37%) |
8
(3%) |
|
Organizations
total |
88
(31%) |
191
(69%) |
279 |
The
media presents the Roma most often as people without particular social roles:
more than one quarter of the characters had no specific social role beside
their ethnic background. The role of the politician is the most frequent role
introduced by the articles: 07% of the characters belonged to this category,
followed by crime-, law- and culture-related articles (
It
is clear from the above table, that only less than one third of the characters
were allowed an opportunity to speak, and two thirds were either quoted or
their opinions were referred to. This proportion is somewhat better than the
one outlined in the 1996-97 content analysis (25%-75%). The opportunities to
speak, however, are very different according to the nature of the different
characters: most often it is the representatives of the political and legal
spheres who have an opportunity to voice their concerns in the media. Ordinary
people continue to be very seldom asked by journalists, even if they are the
victims in certain cases like evictions.
Categories,
activity
The
collective vs. individualized nature of the portrayal of the Roma
|
|
Frequency |
Proportion |
|
Specific
person |
41 |
16% |
|
Public
figure, politician |
37 |
14% |
|
Family |
10 |
4% |
|
Small
communities (e.g. villagers) |
52 |
20% |
|
Organizations |
26 |
10% |
|
Romani subgroup |
7 |
3% |
|
Roma
in general |
88 |
34% |
|
TOTAL |
262 |
|
We
recorded the individualized nature of the portrayal of all 262 characters in
the 202 articles surveyed. This is important, because one of the most important
preconditions of the stereotypical (prejudiced) portrayal is that minority
characters receive few opportunities to appear as individuals, and that media
depicts the minority as a collective group. Only 30% of the Romani
characters were (public or private) individuals, the remaining Roma characters
were smaller or larger Romani groups. More than one
third of the Roma characters were highly collectivized, in the sense that Roma
were discussed as a homogenous group.
If
we compare the themes of the articles with the nature of the presence of Romani characters we can state that the individualized portrayal
was characteristic in 4 topics (music, minority’s internal politics, housing
and crime). Smaller minorities were mentioned in articles dealing with poverty,
emigration and crime. This latter is a very important observation, since crime
is always a personal issue, while the Hungarian media (probably in terms of the
Zámoly issue) presents a community as the culprit.
Poverty, which is a macro- level social problem, appears in the media on a
community level. Completely collectivized portrayal only appears in terms of
issues that concern the entire Roma community (education, majority’s minority
politics, discrimination), but it appears on more individual levels as well,
like the operation of minority organizations or employment, also suggesting
that the employment-related problems do have an ethnic character.
Activity
of the Roma as portrayed in the articles, in a thematic distribution[10]
|
Theme |
Active/ rather active |
Passive / rather passive |
Total |
|
Government
policies on minorities |
41% |
59% |
44 |
|
Romani organizations,
self-governments, Romani politics |
83% |
17% |
12 |
|
Discrimination |
45% |
55% |
40 |
|
Emigration |
53% |
47% |
32 |
|
Roma
abroad |
- |
- |
7 |
|
Minority
rights |
44% |
56% |
25 |
|
General
background |
- |
- |
1 |
|
Poverty |
46% |
54% |
26 |
|
Housing |
69% |
31% |
26 |
|
Education |
37% |
63% |
19 |
|
Employment |
37% |
63% |
11 |
|
|
- |
- |
3 |
|
Music |
94% |
6% |
16 |
|
Culture |
79% |
21% |
24 |
|
Medical
care, health care |
- |
- |
4 |
|
Local
conflict |
67% |
33% |
27 |
|
Crime |
61% |
39% |
38 |
|
Prejudices
against Roma |
58% |
42% |
19 |
|
History |
- |
- |
2 |
|
Total
number of articles |
59% |
41% |
377 |
It
is obvious from the table, that the activity of the Romani
characters is different in each theme. Bearing the differences between the
themes in mind (it would be hard to write about a music group with the members
portrayed as passive, while people usually suffer the discrimination) this all
hints at those trends, in which the media offers an active role to the
portrayed Roma. These trends outline an image where Roma are mainly active in the
fields of music, culture and minority organizations, while they are most
passive in the areas of education and employment. These trends coincide with
the data recorded in 1997, when Roma were portrayed typically in passive
situations in terms of social (54%) and economic issues (79%), and actively
when it came to the issues of self-governments (78%), and minority culture
(70%). According to this image the Romani community shape their lives actively in the fields of
politics, self-governance and arts, but only in these fields. The analysis of
the individual role-groups also justifies this statement.
Activity
of the Roma as portrayed in the articles, in a distribution of the character
types
|
Character
type |
Active and rather active |
Passive and rather passive |
|
Legal
defense activist |
22 (79%) |
6 (21%) |
|
Political
|
31 (70%) |
13 (30%) |
|
Minority
self-government |
11 (65%) |
6 (35%) |
|
Culture |
22 (81%) |
5 (19%) |
|
Romani civil
organizations |
4 |
0 |
|
Economic |
6 |
0 |
|
Education |
0 |
3 |
|
Criminal
and victim |
16 (59%) |
11 (41%) |
|
Parent,
child |
11 (55%) |
9 (45%) |
|
Without
a role |
18 (37%) |
31 (63%) |
|
Other
|
5 |
3 |
[1]
The cited content analysis included articles on national and ethnic minorities
published between November 1996 and October 1997 in two national dailies (Népszabadság, Mai Nap) and four county newspapers (Hajdú-Bihari Napló, Dél-Magyarország, Észak-Magyarország,
Kisalföld). See: Bernáth-Messing:
As cutaways, only in mute” — Roma in the Hungarian Media; NEKH 1998
[2]
The percentages indicate what percent of the articles covered the given topic,
but as an article may cover more than one issue, the total may exceed 100%.
[3]
According to different human rights reports there is no reason to believe that
there had been less discrimination against Roma in
[4]
Nevertheless, many of the articles published on Romani
migration reflected the majority point of view. A good example for this is the
correspondent of Népszabadság in Pécs,
who – after 35 Romani families had left the country –
failed to interview anyone else but the representative of the local
municipality, and the only issue he was willing to write about was that the
relatives of the families kept receiving social benefits concerning the migrant
Roma. He did not detail the reasons of migration, nor did he let the families
speak about their reasons. See: Content Analysis Kata
Bognár - Dorka Sik - András Kovács:
Romani migration in the Hungarian Press, 1997-2000. Research paper for the International Organization on Migration,
manuscript.
[5]
Research by Ferenc Erős
- Zsolt Enyedi - Zoltán Fábián - Zoltán Fleck. See Ferenc Erős: Prejudice and ethnicity, Magyar Tudomány, 1997/6.
[6]
Or they do not even inform about the presence of the culture, as we can see in
the case of the German pianist Richard Cleyderman’s
recording with the 101 Gypsy soloists. Despite the fact that in each article
they named the ensemble, Blikk had a title “The
prince of the romance played with 101 Gypsies”; at the same time Cleyderman said in one of the interviews that there were
hardly any Roma playing in the ensemble. Some of the articles reporting this
event set good examples of romantic stereotypes about the ancient Romani culture. See Magyar Nemzet
(3rd November) “they wandered the times and spaces of the imaginary regions of
this incomparable culture that exhales the humid air of
[7]
See Vera Messing-Gábor Bernáth:
As cutaways, only in mute.
[8]
In October 1997, a storm destroyed the roof of one of the houses owned and
occupied by a group of 6 Roma families in the
Following the destruction of their homes, the Roma families were housed first
in a cultural center in Zámoly, and then in temporary
wooden structures. While at the latter location, they received numerous oral
and written death threats. Then on
In April 2000, the Zámoly Roma were again forced to
move, this time to the village of Csór where, with
the assistance only of a relative, they were sheltered in a basement garage, a
coal cellar and a furnace room with no heat, lighting or warm water. Mr. Dezső Csete, the mayor of Csór, stated on national television on
[9]
In fear of reprisals from the villagers, the families refused to move back to Zámoly to occupy the houses. On
[10]
Messing: Shifting attitudes in a changing society as reflected by the media. The Representation of Roma in the Hungarian Press. 2000, PhD
dissertation BUES
When
analyzing the activity we took two kinds of aspects into consideration: whether
the character is willing to speak out directly, and how active they seem in the
article.