Keywords

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Introduction

In March 2016, the British newspaper The Guardian published an article entitled “Romania: hellhole or country of romance and mystery?”, debating a survey that indicated that Romania was the very last place that British people would like to live. The explanation lies in the fact that most Britons believe that Romanians come to Britain to “steal their jobs and get their teeth fixed on the NHS” (Cadwalladr 2016). However , the article cites Michael Bird, an English journalist who runs an investigative website based in Bucharest . According to Bird, Romania tends to inspire two extreme reactions in the British press. Either it’s a hellhole for the right-wing press or it has this mysterious romanticism. “It’s where the middle ages meets totalitarianism ” (Cadwalladr 2016).

In the contemporary “age of migration ” (Castles and Miller 2003), people develop transnational identities by traveling between different locations. This phenomenon raises the issue of a politics of belonging (Yuval-Davis 2011), affected by neoliberal ideology and the mobility of the globalized economy. Constructions of self and identity are commonly constructed through medium of boundaries that “sometimes physically, but always symbolically, separate the world population into ‘Us’ and ‘Them’” (Yuval-Davis 2011: 20). In this regard, “identity versus alterity” is a common strategy used by the media when portraying Romanian migrants.

The topic of labor migration to the EU (the new diaspora) is a near constant theme of the media, sometimes involving intense mediatization , depending on social and political contexts. The 2010 crisis associated with Romani expulsions from France, the broader economic crisis, the implications of Romania’s accession to the Schengen Area and subsequent freedom of movement to work in the EU, and, more recently, the EU referendum in the UK, have all served as important contexts for media engagements with Romanian migration. This chapter explores how the media—particularly the British and Romanian media—frame the issue of Romanian immigration to Great Britain. Furthermore, it reveals the stereotypes about Romanian people employed in the British and Romanian press and how they affect Romania’s national image overseas. A further dimension investigated here is that of gender, specifically, the deployment of gender stereotyping in the portrayal of Romanian migrants in the British and Romanian press , comparatively.

On January 1, 2014, the restrictions for Romanians and Bulgarians to work in the EU and, therefore, the UK were lifted. Victor Spirescu was one of the Romanians to arrive in the UK on the first day of unrestricted access. After introducing him as a Romanian who came to Britain to work, the British tabloid press quickly moved on to a framing of the discussion in terms of health benefits, migration, employment, his personal life, and his plans to move his girlfriend over to London (“Romanian migrant No. 1 exposed as brute. VazFootnote 1 shake (sic) newcomer is crook”, The Sun , January 1, 2014; “Washing car in Biggleswade, the Romanian welcomed to UK on New Year’s Day by Keith Vaz…meanwhile, his fiancée is left chopping wood in Transylvania”, Daily Mail, January 3, 2014; “Romanian migrant treated to Costa Coffee by Keith Vaz is accused of being a drug user who beat up his girlfriend and threatened to drown her”, Daily Mail, January 8, 2014; “Now Romanian migrant treated to Costa Coffee by Keith Vaz lands a 60 pounds-a-day building job in London after quitting car wash following just one shift”, Daily Mail, January 18, 2014).

Furthermore, the press pictured him with politicians such as the Labour MP Keith Vaz, who greeted him at Luton airport on his day of arrival in the UK. Victor Spirescu , a 30-year-old man living in a small village in Transylvania, quickly became the symbol of public and media debates around Romanian migration. Following months of stories regarding “the wave” of Romanians and Bulgarians expected to “invade” Great Britain from January 1, 2014, when the working restrictions were lifted, Victor Spirescu was immediately portrayed as a potential threat to the UK by the tabloid press (Daily Mail, Daily Express, and The Sun): he quit his job after the first day, he is a drug user, and he was guilty of assaulting his former girlfriend.

Media accounts of the Romanian migrant heading to Britain were quickly linked to the immigration debate. At the beginning of 2013, the British Government launched the “Don’t Come to Britain” campaign, to discourage potential migrants from Romania and Bulgaria coming to Britain. After a short time, the Romanian newspaper Gândul responded with the “Why don’t you come over?” campaign, hitting back at Britain’s negative portrayal of Romanian immigrants. The debate about migration intensified during 2013 in the British press, especially in the tabloids (Daily Mail, Daily Express). The ways in which Victor Spirescu was portrayed in the British media were understandable as cases of broader framings employed by different newspapers and television channels when debating the theme of Romanian migrants in the UK. The tabloid press focused on the human interest aspect, while the quality press addressed political and economic issues.

However, the theme of Romanian emigration as a public problem (Jean et al. 2001), discussed in the Romanian media, related strongly to the impact of migrants’ actions on Romania’s image abroad—a key element of the “symbolic capital” of the nation (Beciu 2012). Frames of migration directly address the question of national image building. As a public issue, migration is “a factor of modernization independent from the state” (Schifirneț 2012: 46).

In order to explore British and Romanian journalists’ framing of the social issue of Romanian migration to the UK, comparatively, this chapter is structured in three main parts: (1) media frames on migration employed in the British and Romanian media, (2) stereotypes about Romanian people in the British media, and (3) the visual framing of Romanian migrants in the national press. Each section in turn addresses findings associated with the media analysis of Romanian migration both in the context of sending and receiving countries.

The corpus contains a total of 562 news articles from the British and Romanian press: 271 news items from the British quality press (The Guardian, The Independent) and from the tabloids (Daily Mail) discussing the topic of Romanian migrants in the UK, published between January 1, 2013 and March 31, 2014, together with 291 news articles from the Romanian press, discussing the topic of Romanians migrating to the UK, published in the online editions of three national newspapers—Gândul, Adevărul, and Jurnalul Național.

When discussing Romanian migrants in the UK, British and Romanian journalists shape media discourses through the frames they use. The framing analysis employed in this article is based on Entman’s (1993) approach.

The chapter will now address the question of migration as a public issue in the context of the free movement of labor in the EU, and as such the UK. The British and Romanian media are investigated comparatively, in terms of the media frames employed, and in relation to the impact of gender.

Migration as a Public Problem

The neoliberal ideology and the mobility of the globalized economy have affected nationalist political projects of belonging. Thus, constructions of self and identity can be forced on people, constituting a field of contestation. In this case, the boundaries of the politics of belonging are the boundaries which “sometimes physically, but always symbolically, separate the world population into “Us” and “Them” (Yuval-Davis 2011: 20). Nowadays , people develop transnational identities by traveling between different locations for professional and other purposes. This is also the case with the Romanian people who migrated in the UK after January 1, 2014.

Research in the area of migration studies raises the issue of the politics of belonging (Yuval-Davis 2011: 17), describing “not only the construction of boundaries but also the inclusion or exclusion of particular people, social categories and groupings within these boundaries by those who have the power to do this”. Some of the studies concentrate on the role played by mediation in the construction of immigration as a “public problem” (Mawby and Gisby 2009; Pijpers 2006), while others rely on media framings of intra-EU migration (Balabanova and Balch 2010, 2016). Balabanova and Balch (2016) show in their most recent study that communitarian, rather than cosmopolitan, frames dominate discussions of Romanian and Bulgarian migrants. Their study is comparative, analyzing UK newspapers in two different periods: 2006 and 2013.

Compared to other research relying on the media framing of intra-EU migration, this chapter insists both on textual and visual framing of Romanian migrants, leading to multiple understandings of the ways in which migration is constructed as a public problem. The theme of Romanian people migrating to other countries has launched an intense debate in the media about migration and the national image building problem. In Romania, “migration to other countries is a factor of modernization independent from the state” (Schifirneț 2012: 46). Freedom to travel, since 1989, has revolutionized a Romanians’ daily mobility thinking and behavior.

Following the Revolution of 1989, the image of Romania has emerged as an important theme in public discourse. This discourse related to positive and negative evaluations found in the international press but also on the ways in which Romanians were perceived overseas. In this context, the diaspora was seen as “the result of massive migration occurring after the fall of communism, be it the migration of the unskilled labor force, benefiting preeminence both in media and public debates, or the migration of highly-skilled professionals” (Ciocea and Cârlan 2012: 184).

Romanian migration to the UK has become a more salient issue, both in the Romanian and British media, especially after January 1, 2014, when the restrictions for Romanians and Bulgarians to work in the EU and, therefore, the UK as well were lifted. Identity versus alterity is a common strategy used by the media when portraying Romanian migrants, as demonstrated in the following sections.

Frames and Framing Migration

The concept of “frames” was introduced by Erving Goffman (1987) and was related to the organization and interpretation of life experiences for the purpose of sense-making. Frames, also defined as the “schemata of interpretation ”, enable individuals “to locate, perceive, identify and label” (Goffman 1987: 21) occurrences of information. In the light of Goffman’s contribution, research has come to define frames as patterns of interpretation rooted in culture and articulated by the individual (Entman 1993; Gamson et al. 1992: 384; Pan and Kosicki 1993; Reese 2001; Van Gorp 2007).

From a sociological perspective, frames represent cognitive structures and form an important element of public discourse. The framing process is also a central dynamic in understanding the character and course of social movements (Benford and Snow 2000: 611). Collective action frames are “intended to mobilize potential adherents and constituents, to garner bystander support, and to demobilize antagonists” (Snow and Benford 1988: 198). Put simply, movements are related to the production and maintenance of meaning for protagonists, antagonists, and bystanders. Thus, the constructed meanings are subject to change, as the social context changes.

Brexit and the broader the rise of the right-wing nationalist parties in the UK and Europe (such as the UK Independence Party—UKIP—and the National Front in France) force us to rethink the basis of transnational migration , at both the individual and societal levels. Migration has become a more salient issue in public debates, so it is important to investigate the media discourses and counter-discourses around Romanians migrating to the UK.

According to Entman (1993: 52), framing is the process of selecting “some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation”. Moreover , Van Gorp (2005) claims that frames are part of a culture and that they can be localized quite independently of individuals. In fact, “journalists can construct a news report deliberately starting from a certain frame, but not incorporating the frame itself in the text” (Van Gorp 2005: 487). Frames are not mere heuristic tools, and the connection between the frame and its cultural motive is made by the reader in his perception of the news text.

Thus, a frame is an abstract variable that is hard to identify. There are many different approaches to derive a set of frames in the context of any particular issue (Gamson and Modigliani 1989; Hertog and McLeod 2001; Scheufele 1999; Tankard 2001; Van Gorp 2005), and most of them are inductive. Content analysis of media frames range from completely qualitative interpretive or hermeneutic-qualitative approaches to automated device-oriented methods, such as semantic network analyses (Scheufele and Scheufele 2010). Framing can also be studied from a visual perspective, considering the metaphor of cropping a frame around a picture. The perspective of the image allows the interference of subjectivity, or what Panofsky (1957: 30) calls seeing pictures as “windows of the world”. Visual and verbal elements work together to frame topics, but sometimes images appear more closely linked to reality than words, even if images are “human-made artificial constructions” (Messaris and Abraham 2010: 215). The media presents both visual and verbal elements, while journalists construct additional layers of interpretation in the form of a news story.

Furthermore, attention needs to be paid to the deeper framing which operates in the context of labor migration and to the ways in which migrants are portrayed. Belonging is constructed in relation to particular collectivities, such as Romanian migrants. Balabanova and Balch (2010, 2011, 2016) analyze communitarian and cosmopolitan frames over the topic of intra-EU migration. Their results show that communitarian frames dominate discussions of Romanian and Bulgarian migrants. Their research shows that “welfare chauvinist ideas became more prevalent in the public debate when times were harder economically” (Balabanova and Balch 2016: 32). Moreover, the media generally frame intra-EU migration using nationalist and communitarian arguments.

Many studies have focused on media frames in the context of migration. Some of these employ quantitative research (Fryberg et al. 2012; Van Gorp 2005; Vliegenthart and Roggeband 2007) in order to determine frames, while others use qualitative research (Durham and Carpenter 2014; Polson and Kahle 2010) or some combination of both (Balabanova and Balch 2010). Other works on media framing of immigration insist on political aspects, considering the dominance of ‘conservative’ and ‘progressive’ frames (Lakoff and Ferguson 2006). Compared to previous research on framing migration, this chapter brings a new way of understanding public debates on migration by drawing on Entman’s four function frames in order to explore how British and Romanian journalists frame the issue of Romanians migrating to the UK, both textually and visually. In his opinion, frames diagnose, evaluate, and prescribe issues discussed in the media:

define problems – determine what a causal agent is doing with what costs and benefits, usually measured in terms of common cultural values; diagnose causes – identify the forces creating the problem; make moral judgments – evaluate causal agents and their effect; and suggest remedies – offer and justify treatments for the problems and predict their likely effects. (Entman 1993: 52)

According to Entman’s model, a single sentence may perform more than one of the four framing functions and a frame in any particular text may not necessarily include all four functions. Next, the focus will be on the patterns used by the journalists in the coverage of Romanian migration by the British and Romanian media, immediately following the lifting of restrictions for Romanians and Bulgarians to work in the EU.

The Framing of Migration in the British and Romanian Media: A Comparative Analysis

The results of the framing analysis performed on 562 news articles show that there are 7 media frames present in the British and Romanian media. The frames were identified from a close reading of a 20% sample of texts. Each frame was coded using Entman’s framing functions. The dependent variables employed in the content analysis were: define problems, diagnose causes, make moral judgments, and suggest remedies. In fact, the coded variables were systematically grouped together, leading to seven dominant frames. A frame is, therefore, the sum of frame elements (define problems, diagnose causes, make moral judgments, and suggest remedies).

First of all, the economic frame insists on the migration costs and economic consequences of migration. The educational frame is based on the impact of Romanian students who study in the UK, considering the maintenance they receive from the state. The political frame is linked with the political voices present in the debate over Romanian migration. The social benefits frame refers to the Romanian migrants abusing the social benefits system in Great Britain (NHS, housing, benefits for families, child, etc.). The employment frame focuses on the working practices of Romanians in the UK. The public security frame emphasizes the fact that Romanians are a threat to the security of the UK citizens, often focusing on crimes such as begging and pickpocketing. Finally, the EU policy frame concerns the question of freedom of movement in relation with migration.

When comparing the frames used by the British and Romanian journalists in the 562 news articles analyzed (Fig. 14.1), one notices that all seven frames are employed more frequently in the British press. The use of economic, political, and employment frames are predominant in the case of British newspapers, whereas EU policy and political frames feature most in the case of Romanian newspapers. Significant differences are to be seen when using the economic, employment, or public security frames. The British press tend to place an emphasis on migration costs and the impact on the economy of the receiving country, tending to make reference to the poverty characterizing Romanian society. The Romanian press reinforces this frame too, by quoting many articles published in the Daily Mail or Daily Express . As for the employment frame, the British newspapers commonly focus on the status of jobs offered to the migrants, implicitly or explicitly asserting that these jobs are stolen from British people. Conversely, the Romanian newspapers tend to use this frame to present successful cases of Romanians working in the UK.

Fig. 14.1
figure 1

Frame frequencies in the British and Romanian press

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The public security frame constructs Romanian men and women as a threat to the security of UK citizens, highlighting crimes associated, among other things, with begging, and pickpocketing. This frame is employed both in the sending and receiving countries, but with intense coverage in the British media. In both cases, images of Roma people are directly associated with a framing of threat. Both the British and Romanian press present images of both men and women in this context, but with a slight predominance of men. Even though men are slightly more frequently represented than women, both at a textual and visual level, there is no gender difference in terms of the stereotypical portrayal of Romanian migrants. Romania is metonymically represented by Romanian Roma people. In its use of the public security frame, the Romanian press reinforces anti-Roma discourses, blaming Romas for the negative portrayal of the Romanians, as a whole, in the British press.

Furthermore, the rhetorical structures used by the Romanian journalists in framing the theme of migration reveal a critical position regarding the anti-immigration discourses of the British tabloid press: “the rhetoric against immigration which dominated the political British discourse” ( Adevarul , January 13, 2014), “anti-immigration British rhetoric” (Adevarul, March 14, 2013), “Romanian people invasion” (Adevarul, March 20, 2014), and “myth of the Romanian invader” (Adevarul, March 21, 2014). The word “anti-immigration” is mentioned in the news headlines as well, being a frame device, and appealing to intertextuality. In fact, the journalists create a story within a story by using counter-discourses to fight against negative stereotypes found in the British press.

News headlines such as “The anti-Romanians campaign in Great Britain intensifies. From the invasion of 29 millions of “bulgoromanians ” to aliens who look like Victor Ciorbea ” (Andrei Luca Popescu, Gândul , December 6, 2013); “The anti-immigration campaign from Great Britain challenges a new issue: interdicted areas for Roma people” (Diana Rusu, Adevarul, December 22, 2013); “London plans an anti-immigration campaign for Romanians: “Please, do not come to Great Britain!” (Veronica Micu, Jurnalul Național, January 28, 2013); “Stinging attack to the Romanians, launched by an anti-immigration British leader” (Jurnalul Național, September 20, 2013); “The British publication Daily Express affirms that the petition against immigration is now signed by 150,000 people” (Adevarul, November 25, 2013); “Bloomberg: R is for Romania, Roma people and Racism in the European Debate on Immigration” (Alina Vasile, Adevarul, March 14, 2013); or “Romanians do no hurry to emigrate in a “racist” Great Britain” (Diana Rusu, Adevarul, January 13, 2014) suggest that the subject of Romanian immigrants in Great Britain is controversial. Furthermore, there are no gender differences in portraying the Romanian migrants; both men and women are referred through the term “migrants”. Thus, the Romanian press emphasizes positive stories of well-integrated Romanians, compared to the British tabloid press, who insists on negative examples of Romanians living in the UK.

The official sources quoted in the Romanian newspapers were the Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta , Ion Jinga , the Ambassador of Romania in Great Britain, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Titus Corlățean , the UK Prime Minister David Cameron, UKIP, and Nigel Farage. In this way, the journalists position themselves by citing credible sources which have a contribution in shaping the discourses about Romanian migrants. Conversely, the most quoted official sources in the British quality and tabloid press were the British Prime Minister, David Cameron; the UK Immigration Minister, Mark Harper ; the Labour Government; the Home Secretary, Theresa May; the Bulgarian President, Rosen Plevneliev ; the Romanian Prime Minister, Victor Ponta ; the Romanian Ambassador to the UK, Ion Jinga; UKIP, Nigel Farage; and the pressure group arguing for tighter immigration controls, Migration Watch .Footnote 2 Quoting political actors may also function as an argument to sustain a certain position about migration. Therefore, when the press quotes chiefly expert or elite, recognized sources, it is liable to overlook lay knowledge and hence construct groups—such as migrants—from a distance, without exploring their beliefs, identities, and lives in host societies (Beciu 2011: 166). This way, the tabloid press may employ expert or elite knowledge to gain a false legitimacy through the use of fallacies (such as hasty generalization).

Another frame covered by both Romanian and British press is EU policy, mentioning the effects of the freedom of movement on the migration issue. In fact, the British press employs this frame more frequently, discussing the implications of EU policies in terms of advantages and disadvantages for the UK (social benefits, labor market, economic growth).

Portraying Romanian People in the British Media: Representations and Stereotypes

In portraying Romanian migrants, British journalists from the tabloid press drew on metaphors suggesting natural disasters, such as “flood” (“a flood of Romanians coming to the UK), “tsunami”, the expression “invader”, and a lot of arguments about the huge number of Romanians coming to the UK (“hordes of Romanians and Bulgarians”). Conversely, the Romanian journalists used a military-infused discourse (“British crusade against Romanians”, “Romanians are used as ammunition in the crusade”) in order to challenge the anti-immigration discourses of the British tabloid press. In this regard, Romanian migrants were presented as victims. In the British quality and tabloid press, Romanians and Bulgarians were often referred to as “EU migrants”, “A2 nationals ”, or “EU nationals”, raising the question of the number of people that are likely to come to Britain on January 1, 2014, when EU restrictions will be lifted. By framing Romanian people as “EU migrants ”, the British journalists (especially from tabloid newspapers such as Daily Mail) construct a negative stereotype, linking this to the idea that migrants are a threat to the welfare state. They also mention the fear of invasion, comparing this phenomenon with the invasion of Poles in 2004.

In terms of gender, there are some differences when portraying Romanian migrants. For instance, the British press focuses predominantly on males, mainly professionally unsuccessful (such as Victor Spirescu), while the Romanian press gives examples of both professionally successful men and women living and working in Great Britain. Here, the British media offers a one-dimensional view of Romanian migrants in the UK. Conversely, the Romanian media offers positive narratives of well-integrated Romanians (both men and women), in order to provide a more balanced view on Romanian migration to the UK. Overall, Romanians are portrayed as being fraudsters, criminals, beggars, pickpockets, and poor. There is a slight predominance of male references, in terms of gender, but the focus is not on emphasizing differences between men and women from the Romanian community. In fact, the British journalists offer a biased view of Romanian migrants, insisting on over-generalization from a minority (Romanian Roma people). For example, one headline from Daily Mail stated: “Romanians arrested at seven times rate of Britons: 800 held in London last month” (Chris Greenwood, 13 December 2013). In the article, the British journalist also cited statistics to strengthen the case: “for every 1,000 Romanians in London 183 are arrested”. This discursive strategy is based on differentiation, as the journalist from the Daily Mail compares the delinquency rate of Britons with the number of Romanian people arrested in London.

The Visual Framing of Romanian Migrants in the National Press

Now that we have seen how the British and Romanian journalists frame the issue of Romanians migrating to the UK, special attention is given to the visual framing of Romanian migrants in the national press. In fact, “visual and verbal messages occur simultaneously in the media, and audiences process them simultaneously” (Coleman 2010: 235). Thus, even if verbal and visual elements work together to frame topics, sometimes “visual elements frame stories independently of the verbal elements” (Coleman 2010: 236). Therefore , framing refers to the selection of one view, scene, or angle, when making the image, cropping, editing, or selecting it. In this section, the focus is on the role 101 news photographs from three Romanian newspapers (Adevărul, Gândul, Jurnalul Național) play in framing the issue of Romanian migration to the UK, considering images as “largely analogical system of communication ” (Messaris and Abraham 2010: 216). The unit of analysis was still photographs from newspapers, along with their associated captions. This period in particular is linked with the intensification of the migration issue in the Romanian and foreign media, hence providing not only more material for study but also capturing the debate at its highest intensity. The data was collected from the online editions of the newspapers, searching for key terms such as “Romanian migrants”, “anti-immigration discourses”, “Romanians migrating to the UK”, or “’January 1 2014”. In the early stage, 271 news articles were found about Romanian migration to Great Britain, containing 290 photographs. Duplicate photos were removed from the analysis, along with photos illustrating political leaders, landscapes, or flags. By focusing on the depiction of Romanian migrants, only 101 were relevant for the analysis.

The main objective was to reveal how journalists construct the social issue of migration through images. As “mirrors of the events ” (Zelizer 2010), press photographs are valued by the journalists for their “eyewitness” authority and the act of “having been there” that they imply (Zelizer 2010: 16–17). By reducing complex issues such as migration to memorable visual frames, news images draw public attention. The results show that the Romanian media reinforce especially the categorization of Roma people, ostracizing one of Romania’s many ethnic groups. A total of 67 out of 101 news photographs are representing Roma people. Some images show big families, other show portraits of Roma children, while others reveal people rough sleeping. A total of 13 news photographs are representing Roma women in different situations: holding their child, sitting next to men or next to other women, dressed in traditional or poor clothes. Although there is no gender difference, one can notice the predominance of men in the photographs. The focus is on the over-generalization of a minority , leading to a metonymical image of Romania, specifically represented by the Romanian Roma people. The majority of the press photographs were imported from the British tabloid press, especially from newspapers such as Daily Mail, Daily Express, or The Sun, the tabloids that fueled in part the British anti-immigration frenzy.

Three dominant visual frames also emerge: the public security (images of homeless Romanians rough sleeping), economic (images of pauper Romanian villages) and employment (images of job seekers and unemployed) frames. The photographs represent both men and women, with a predominance of male images. A total of 70 out of 101 news photographs are representing Roma men, but there is no gender difference in terms of stereotyping. The negative portrayal is present both in images with males and females, focusing on pauperization, unemployment, and homelessness. The frames are also semiotic resources, because they insist on signifiers, observable actions, and objects that have been drawn into the domain of social communication. The main semiotic resources employed by the Romanian journalist are the three dominant visual frames. As one can see in Fig. 14.2, the public security frame is most employed by the Romanian journalists, presenting images with homeless Romanians and beggars threatening the British citizens’ security:

Fig. 14.2
figure 2

The visual framing of Romanian migrants in three Romanian national newspapers

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Adevărul newspaper mostly uses the economic frame to depict Romanian migrants (32 news images out of 74); Gândul concentrates on the employment frame (seven news images out of 13) and Jurnalul Național on the public security frame (nine news images out of 14).

Firstly, the public security frame presents images of homeless Romanians rough sleeping on London streets (Adevărul, December 29, 2013, January 7, Jurnalul Național, January 14, 2014), implying that Romanians are a threat to the security of the UK citizens. The photograph representing a family of Roma people walking down the streets with luggage is used three times after the headlines about Romanian migration (“Daily Mail: ‘The economy of Great Britain will suffer because of Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants”, Adevărul, December 29, 2013, “Be careful, in only six days: the Romanians are coming! The ugly face of Great Britain, Romanian immigrants and the myth of the Polish plummer”, Adevărul, December 26, 2013, “The Daily Mail: Romanians and Bulgarians snapped up 175.000 jobs in Great Britain until 2012”, Adevărul, March 3, 2013). Another photograph from the public security frame is representing a homeless Romanian Roma man, rough sleeping in a park, with clothes and luggage around him (Adevărul, January 7, 2013). Last, but not least, another image portrays a Romanian Roma woman walking down the streets with luggage, followed by a group of British police officers (Jurnalul Național, January 14, 2014).

The economic frame highlights pauper Romanian villages, implying that for migrants from poor countries such as Romania, it is the economic prosperity of more developed countries (such as the UK) that presents the attraction (Adevărul, November 11, November 25, December 2, 2013). To emphasize the differences between the respective development and underdevelopment of the UK and Romania, the visual representations portray Roma villages and piles of junk. One of the news photographs shows a deserted blue house, surrounded by detritus, while another image portrays Romanian Roma children playing near a landfill. A third image represents a Roma family sitting in front of a blue clay house, in pauper conditions (Franț & Silaghi 2013).

Another frame regularly employed by Romanian journalists is the employment frame, presenting images of job seekers, the unemployed, or Romanians that work in the UK (Gândul, January 3, 2014, January 15, 2014, February 7, 2014). The majority of visual images represent unemployed migrants searching for a job, both men and women, with a predominance of men. There is no gender difference in terms of stereotyping, both images with men and women serve to reinforce underlying negative representations of unemployment. Conversely, there are some images presenting Romanian men and women who are successful professionally. With a focus on the lower class (only nine pictures portraying Romanians from middle- and upper-class backgrounds), the images are emphasizing a similar negative frame of economic underdevelopment.

Romanian journalists have commonly imported pictures from the British tabloid press, misleading the reader unfamiliar with the context to believe that the portrayals of Romania and Romanians were overly negative, with an emphasis on poverty, otherness, risk, and threat. Some visuals were more salient than others, and some images were used several times in different articles (such as the photograph representing a family of Roma people walking down the streets with luggage, used three times in articles from Adevărul newspaper). The majority of the news photographs specifically represent Roma people, reinforcing anti-Roma discourses, in a manner common to the textual narratives of the news articles. The deployment of images and narratives of the Roma serve to locate the causes and culprits responsible for Romania’s tainted image abroad.

Conclusion

One of the main questions addressed in this chapter is how the British and Romanian journalists textually and visually frame the public issue of migration, considering that this issue impacts both the individual and society. Seven frames have emerged from analyzing the British and Romanian media : the economic, educational, political, social benefits, employment, public security, and EU policy frames.

The Romanian press mainly reinforce the frames used by the British journalists. The use of economic, political, and employment frames in the case of British newspapers contrasts with the use of political, EU policy and employment frames in the case of Romanian newspapers. The Romanian journalists quote many articles published in Daily Mail or Daily Express, on the topic of Romanian migration. An interesting case is to be found when employing the public security frame both in the sending and receiving countries, with an intense coverage in the British media. In both cases, images with Roma people are used to present them as a potential threat. By using the public security frame, the Romanian press reinforces anti-Roma discourses, blaming Romas for the negative portrayal of the Romanians in the British press. There are some differences in terms of gender when portraying Romanian migrants in the British and Romanian press, comparatively. For instance, the British press focuses on professionally unsuccessful males, while the Romanian press offers positive narratives of well-integrated Romanians (both men and women). This leads to the fact that the British media offers a unilateral view of Romanian migrants in the UK, while the Romanian media provides a more balanced view on the public issue of migration to Great Britain.

The stereotypes about Romanian people circulated in British newspapers such as The Guardian , The Independent , or Daily Mail (“beggars”, “murderers”, “criminals”, “fraudsters”, “corrupt”) are linked to Romania’s image overseas. As a matter of fact, the British journalist legitimates his position by framing the Romanian migrants in terms of economy, politics, social benefits, employment, national security, and EU policy.

As for the visual framing of Romanian migrants in the national newspapers, journalists have imported many pictures from the British tabloid press, misleading the reader unfamiliar with the context to believe that the portrayals of Romania and Romanians were overly negative, with an emphasis on poverty, otherness, risk and threat. Some news images are more powerful than others and one possible explanation is the ideological weight carried by photographs. In terms of gender, the news photographs represent both men and women, with a predominance of images of men. A total of 70 out of 101 news photographs are representing Roma men, but there is no gender difference in terms of stereotyping. The negative portrayal is present both in images with males and females, focusing on pauperization, unemployment, and homelessness.

This chapter also shows that there are three dominant visual frames of migrants emerging in the Romanian national press: the public security (images of homeless Romanians rough sleeping), economic (images of pauper Romanian villages), and employment (images of job seekers and unemployed) frames. The majority of the news photographs represent Roma people. This confirms Boia’s (2001) claim that Romas continue to be blamed for many of the ills of Romanian society. While reinforcing the anti-Roma discourses found in the Romanian society, the images tell a more complex story about legitimization and validation of national values and about definitions of national image. To a degree, these images highlight an unspoken effort to identify causes and culprits contributing to Romania’s tainted image abroad. In so doing, they exonerate those not fitting the stereotypes portrayed. In demonstrating the prevalence of negative, threatening, and demeaning framings of Romanians and Romas, through the analysis of both textual and visual representations, of Romanian migration and immigration, this chapter draws attention to the important role news plays in portraying current events. Seen as “mirrors of the event” (Zelizer, 2010), images capture media discourses that attempt either to define, explain, or judge the context of news and of reality. In this respect, images should be further explored in relation to the function they play within the story and function frame they serve.

In the context of the increasing importance of journalism mediated by technology, observing the dynamics and interactions between various communicative actors is important. What this analysis shows is that although Europe is legislatively and rhetorically open to Romanians, visual and media discourses from home and abroad are seeking, contesting, and constantly reshaping what in fact is at the heart of Romania’s identity and its contribution to Europe.