MIGRATION REFLECTED IN ROMANIAN NEWSPAPERS HIGHLIGHTS ON THE REFUGEE CRISIS. PRELIMINARY RESEARCH ON TWO NATIONAL DAILY NEWSPAPERS: JURNALUL NATIONAL

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1 Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov Special Issue Series VII: Social Sciences Law Vol. 10 (59) No MIGRATION REFLECTED IN ROMANIAN NEWSPAPERS HIGHLIGHTS ON THE REFUGEE CRISIS. PRELIMINARY RESEARCH ON TWO NATIONAL DAILY NEWSPAPERS: JURNALUL NATIONAL AND LIBERTATEA (MARCH-AUGUST 2016) Mona SIMU 1 Abstract. In the context of the wave of refugees that was entering Europe in the last few years, during March-August 2016 two Romanian newspapers were studied, searching for the articles on these phenomena, to find out about the way press reflected the crisis, and the phenomenon of migration in general. A study came out, based on the analysis of two daily Romanian newspapers - Jurnalul National and Libertatea, aiming to identify the articles on migration which appeared in this period of time (six months), in order to pinpoint the rhetoric of these two publications as reflecting (covering) the phenomenon. The research method was content analysis and frequency analysis. One important result was the identification of three types of articles on migration, besides the revealing of their distribution in the studied period, and the description of the general discourse that these newspapers use when covering the phenomena of migration and refugee crisis, in order to transmit it to the general public. The study helps to show how migration is seen and understood in general, and in particular, in the Romanian society these days. Key-words: migration, `refugee crisis`, press, rhetoric, frequency. 1. Introduction The international migration, and especially the `refugee crisis` are the two topics that `made` newspapers headlines and inflamed public opinion speech in the last few years (being, seemingly, more silent though, these days). When speaking about migration, there are nowadays two kinds of rhetoric: one on the migration phenomenon in general; the other, about the crisis regarding the wave of refugees `assaulting` EU`s `gates`. All the EU member states are confronted with both phenomena of migration and refugees. On its turn, Romania is confronting at least two aspects of the migration phenomenon: on one hand, Romanian people, as migrants, leaving the country, on the other hand, migrants entering the country. As EU member state, Romania has the obligation to receive refugees, within the protocol of the established quota. 1 Research Institute for the Quality of Life, monasimu@yahoo.com

2 42 Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov Series VII Vol. 10 (59) No Indeed, we are living nowadays in a true `era of migration` (Leon-Guerrero, A., 2014), as we can see from the amount of `big` figures accompanying the phenomena. In the year 2015 alone, 65.3 million persons were moved or seeking asylum globally. For the years 2015, 2016, almost 1.3 million people, non-eu citizens were asylum seekers for the first time in EU countries. (Eurostat, 2016, 2017). In the context of great concern regarding the waves of refugees that were `assaulting` the shores and borders of European Union last year, I look in the Romanian newspapers issued during March-August 2016 for the echoes of these phenomena, in order to find out about the way press presented the whole situation, how population saw these facts, and what was the general rhetoric of Romanian written press regarding the crisis, but also migration in general. A study came out, based on the analysis of two daily Romanian newspapers Jurnalul National and Libertatea in the period of March-August 2016 last year, aiming to find all the articles upon migration, to count the articles which appeared in this period of time (six months), as well as to pinpoint the rhetoric of these two publications as reflecting (`covering`) this issue. Both the titles as well as the text of the newspaper articles were considered. The research wasn`t focused especially upon the refugee crisis, observing the fact that presently there are two different and parallel situations regarding migration: first, that of regular migration taking part all over the world in every direction at any time, second, the well-known as so-called `refugee crisis`, which was a new situation, without precedent in recent history, having contextual causes (war, other social crises). There was a thorough search for the articles that covered any information and events related to migration; if one of the results of the analysis would have been that the `refugee crisis` is treated in a special manner, and is occupying most of the `space` among articles on migration, this fact would be clearly specified among the results of the research, as being one of them. So, all the articles regarding migration were searched and counted. The theoretical background is the consideration of press having a role in shaping public opinion (the functionalist approach: the educational role of media in society), and the consideration that looking at newspapers we are looking actually at the `world`, press being generally a `mirror` for the society from which it is part. And that the press not just reflects, but also helps to build the attitudes in society towards a phenomenon or another, towards a social fact or another. 2. Research methodology The researched newspapers are Libertatea, a daily tabloid style publication of general content, having a gross circulation of issues at the time of the study, and Jurnalul National, a daily newspaper of general content, with a gross circulation of issues at that time. Libertatea has 30/ 31 issues per months, while Jurnalul National 21/ 22, lacking the weekend issues. The period of the study was six months from March to August 2016, inclusive. The research was composed of: the selection of documents to be studied (articles); press articles content analysis; relevant words extracting (related to the theme and also expressing an attitude towards the topic), and the frequency analysis (the number of articles on migration per months; per period; per each newspaper, etc.). The in-depth reading of articles made possible the classification of each of them, in terms of having a positive attitude towards the subject, a negative one, or a neutral view of the topic.

3 M. SIMU: Migration Reflected in Romanian Newspapers Highlights on the Refugee Crisis Results An important result obtained was that there are three kind of articles on migration in these two publications: 1. Articles on international migration/refugee crisis as it is reflected in other EU countries (based mainly on information from news agencies/other foreign sources: the majority of the found articles (11 articles out of 21). 2. Articles about receiving refugees in Romania and the perception of the Romanian population 8 articles out of Articles about Romanians as immigrants in other countries, mainly in the EU (two articles). This result was important, because it showed the actual picture of reflecting migration in Romanian newspapers, making thus possible to better understand the form and the complex nature of the phenomenon itself. The second result is that of the dynamics of articles, which was made separately for each newspaper. Jurnalul National newspaper: In 85 researched issues (the total of them for a period of four months), 33 have articles about migration. There are 21/22 issues per month. The distribution was as following: - March: 0 articles - April:0 articles - May: 8 articles. - June: 6 articles. - July: 11 articles. - August: 8 articles. We can easily observe that for the month of July, half of the issues contained articles on migration, so the interest on the `activity` of the migration related events was the biggest in the studied period. Libertatea newspaper: In the case of this newspaper the research couldn t be systematical; some of the issues were missing for the study at the time. The simple search of the online version couldn t satisfy the homogeneity of the study, because online versions of newspapers are different from the printed ones. However, the research work for present study is still ongoing, so as the lacking issues will be added to the `corpus` of documents (newspaper articles). In the month of Mars, there were 8 articles about migration in 31 issues per month. For the other months there were found one article for the Months of April, May, June. - March: 8 articles - April: 1 article - May: 1 article - June: 1 article - July: 0 - August: 0.

4 44 Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov Series VII Vol. 10 (59) No One of the explanations for the small number of articles related to migration could be that Libertatea is a tabloid style publication mostly focused on entertainment, but also covering politics, social facts in society and general topics on the everyday life of Romanians. The found articles were, in fact, relevant for their content, the research being one of qualitative kind, and the attitude of each article towards migration being also of great interest, aside frequency and periodicity. The titles of all the found articles are grouped in two tables in the Appendices, one table for each newspaper. One can see from the tables that almost each title contains the word `migrant/refugee`. From each article, one or several `relevant` words to the topic were extracted, and then assigned in positive or negative category. It turned out there were only five positive words or expressions, out of 16 in the Table. The rest of them were of negative approach. In the Table no. 1 below, the words are grouped on two columns: negative/positive. No. Negative words Positive words 1. Wreck Survive 2. Death Promise 3. Tragedy To accept 4. Antimmigration Dream 5. To banish Integration 6. Unsatisfied 7. Xenophobia 8. To fear 10. To abuse 11. To expel 12. To limit 13. Fence 14. To stop 15. Illegal 16. Fugitive Table 1 The study will be continued, being still ongoing, and one table with expressions and relevant syntagms will be added. 4. Conclusions In spite of some `strong` words, the general tone of the studied articles is moderate, having the accent put mainly on information, with a few exceptions where it was put on emotions. Information articles prevail, based on news-agencies press releases. Facts, data and figures were dominant, then opinions and emotions related to the topic; the topic of the articles is mainly linked to its relevance for the Romanian population.

5 M. SIMU: Migration Reflected in Romanian Newspapers Highlights on the Refugee Crisis 45 Articles about the `refugee crisis` in other EU countries are in their majority more negative in their tone of `voice` (e.g., title: `Germans are sick of immigrants`, Jurnalul National). When the Romanian population is involved in the covered event or action, the discourse of the articles become more `negative`, at least unfavorable when reporting about reactions of the Romanian population faced with receiving refugees (e.g.: title: `Our lives are based on tourism and we also have children. We refuse`, Libertatea (to accept a refugee camp nearby). In what concerns the number of articles on migration, there is a moderate, not big, but constant attention on the issue. The number is directly proportional with the contact that Romania had with refugees and refugee crisis: we are receiving only a small number of refugees, there are not many of them who want to reach Romania and to stay here; if they are entering Romania, is only for transit towards Western countries in the EU.. In what concerns the general discourse, there are also articles using derogatory speech, but they aren`t numerous, their number doesn`t prevail (e.g.: `Muslims on a beach for nudists` - Jurnalul National), and they are not derogatory whatsoever in what it concerns the refugee themselves, but rather the situations there are put into. However, if the `stakes` of the Romanian population are concerned, the tone tends to became less friendly. The Appendices No Day Article title 1 March 17 Muslim migrants - hosted on the nudist beach Table A Jurnalul National 2 May 3 Estonia is preparing to attract immigrants using online methods 3 May 11 Referendum on immigrants quotas 4 May 18 The refugees from Greece running scared of Romania 5 May 19 President Iohannis on migrants crisis: the sanctions are not a solution; some solutions are weak 6 May 20 The citizens, asked not to help the migrants 7 May 25 Illegal migrants in Hungary 8 May 26 The Germans are sick of immigrants 9 May 30 Record of refugees accepted in US 10 June 01 Black statistics in Mediterranean Sea 11 June 14 Law against migrants 12 June 20 The number of migrants reaches 3 times the pop. of Romania

6 46 Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov Series VII Vol. 10 (59) No No Day Article title Table B Libertatea 1. Mars 2 Filiera nigeriana a evazionistilor (Zeci de imigranti in Romania ) 2. Mars 4 The first group of refugees from Syria have arrived in Romania 3. Mars 9 The three routes of immigrants reaching Romania 4. Mars 13 They dreamed about Germany, they reached Galati 5. Mars 16 Crazy idea for stopping the flow of Romanian immigrants (to Great Britain) 6. Mars 17 Our lives are based on tourism and we also have children. We refuse (the refugee camp) 7. Mars 27 Refugees returned from their route 8. April 1 Five million euro study for the integration of immigrants in Bucharest 9. May 18 Prometeu - the giant guardian from the Black Sea One of five (Romanian) immigrants is in favor of the Brexit References Leon-Guerrero, A. (2016). Social Problems. Community, policy and social action (Fifth edition). Los Angeles: Sage. Rubington, E., Martin, S. W. (1989). The study of social problems: six perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Serban, M. (2011). Dinamica migratiei internationale: un exercitiu asupra migratiei romanesti in Spania [Dynamics of International Migration: An Exercise on Romanian Migration in Spain]. Iasi: Ed. Lumen. ***Eurostat, 2016, 2017.

Paper prepared for the Second Euroacademia Global Conference Europe Inside-Out: Europe and Europeaness Exposed to Plural Observers,

Paper prepared for the Second Euroacademia Global Conference Europe Inside-Out: Europe and Europeaness Exposed to Plural Observers, Paris, 27 27 April 2012 This paper is a draft Please do not cite 1 Dorin