To Be or Not to Be a Refugee: Content Analyzing the Mass Media Discourse of the Refugee Crisis in Romania

Abstract

Abstract This paper continues the analyses developed in the article “To Come or Not to Come: A Content Analysis of the Refugee Crisis in the Romanian Mass Media,” published by Saeculum (Number 50, Issue 2, 2020). Based on a sample consisting of 94 news stories and press materials published in a range of Romanian online newspapers, this study explores the mass media discourse focused on the refugee crisis in the European Union. The content analysis performed on this dataset is structured along four dimensions: (1) firstly, it examines how the Romanian media discourse framed the refugee crisis in terms of “international solidarity” versus “national interest”; (2) secondly, it looks at the root causes that are attributed by the media discourse to explain the refugee crisis; (3) thirdly, the analysis evaluates the presence of stereotypes embedded in the media discourse by investigating if connections are made between the refugees’ religious identity and a presumable terrorist threat; (4) and fourthly, the paper examines the ethnicities on which the media discourse is focused in these reports on the refugee crisis.