{"id":2515,"date":"2017-05-11T12:37:44","date_gmt":"2017-05-11T09:37:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aej-bulgaria.org\/en\/?p=2515"},"modified":"2017-05-11T12:37:44","modified_gmt":"2017-05-11T09:37:44","slug":"representation-of-roma-refugees-and-expats-in-bulgarian-online-media-during-the-2017-election-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aej-bulgaria.org\/en\/representation-of-roma-refugees-and-expats-in-bulgarian-online-media-during-the-2017-election-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"Representation of Roma, refugees, and expats in Bulgarian online media during the 2017 election campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kurdish_refugees,_Aleppo,_Syria\"<\/a>The figures of the Roma, the refugees, and the Bulgarian expats in Turkey have particular dimensions in the Bulgarian media prior to elections. Theodor Spassov, a Bulgarian freelance journalist writing about international relations and human rights and a member of the Association of European Journalists \u2013 Bulgaria (AEJ-Bulgaria), set out to explore their quantitative and qualitative features of the representations of these groups in Bulgarian online media. Below we publish the most important findings from the two studies he conducted during the 2017 parliamentary election campaign in Bulgaria: Representation of the Roma and the Refugees in the Bulgarian Online Media and Representation of the Expats in the Bulgarian Online Media. Both studies were carried out in the context of the official parliamentary election campaign, which ran between 24 February 2017 and 24 March 2017.<\/em>
\nRepresentation of the Roma and the refugees in the Bulgarian online media<\/strong>
\nThe Bulgarian media show a chronic tendency to dehumanize Roma people, who are usually the first to be blamed for most public woes. Since \u201cthe refugee issue\u201d took a central position on the media agenda in Bulgaria in September 2013, the media have helped create another representation of the enemy, namely the refugee.
\nOver the past five years, the statements against refugees have been much more visible and presented in a more understandable language than the statements in their support or in their interest. The media have consistently provided a platform to people using hate speech, and this nasty language has in turn replaced the sensible and expert talk about refugees-related matters. The speculative and almost always incompetent talk about \u201crefugees\u201d, the exploitation of human stereotypes and biases, the conflation of refugees and terrorists, and the lack of a clear distinction between the terms \u201crefugee\u201d and \u201cimmigrant\u201d have gradually put the figure of the refugee on the same footing as the traditional epitome of the enemy in the Bulgarian media, the Roma. The refugee has thus emerged as another enemy in the Bulgarian society. According to polling agency Sova Harris, in the beginning of 2016, 60% of the Bulgarian citizens considered the refugees a threat to national security.
\nThe objects of the study<\/strong>
\nThe study covers the five most popular information-only online media in Bulgaria in 2016 based on the data collected by Gemius, a platform that measures online traffic. These media include, from number to number five in terms of popularity, Blitz.bg, Vesti.bg, Pik.bg, Novini.bg, and Dnes.bg.
\nThe fears and prejudices present in a society, including those in relation to the figures of the enemy, are often exploited for political purposes. This state of affairs provided fertile ground for an abundance of stories on sensitive topics during the 2017 parliamentary election campaign, which enables us to evaluate the presence of the figure of the enemy in the Bulgarian online media in both quantitative and qualitative terms. The abundance of stories further allows us to find out which figure of the enemy \u2013 the Roma or the refugee \u2013 prevailed in the media during the 2017 parliamentary election campaign.
\nBlitz.bg<\/strong>
\nAccording to Gemius, Blitz.bg was the most read Bulgarian online media in 2016. In the current study, which covers the period from 6 March 2017 to 19 March 2017, Blitz.bg ranks second by the number of stories containing the words \u201crefugee(s)\/(im)migrant(s)\u201d and \u201cRoma\u201d or \u201cGypsy\/Gypsies\u201d. The total number of these stories is 100. The terms \u201crefugee(s)\/(im)migrant(s)\u201d appear in 78 of them, which gives an average of 5.6 stories per day. The terms \u201cRoma\/Gypsy\u201d feature in 22 articles (an average of 1.6 stories per day).
\nAs far as the headlines are concerned, 14 headlines contain the term \u201crefugee(s)\u201d and 13 contain \u201c(im)migrant(s)\u201d, which makes for a total of 27 headlines with references to the topic of \u201crefugees\u201d. \u201cRoma\u201d as a topic appears in 13 headlines: 12 of the headlines contain the term \u201cRoma\u201d and one contains the term \u201cGypsy\u201d, which is considered inappropriate.
\nIt is worth noting that although it appears in headlines far more rarely than \u201crefugees\u201d, the term \u201cRoma\u201d is almost always associated with negative actions and epithets already in the headline. In 11 out of the 12 headlines containing \u201cRoma\u201d (in the singular or in the plural), Roma people are associated with negative actions: \u201ca Roma beats up\u201d, \u201cRoma people beat and throw\u201d, \u201cRoma people poison\u201d, \u201cRoma people destroyed\u201d, \u201cthe person killed by Roma\u201d, \u201cRoma people caused real horror\u201d, \u201cRoma people ate\u201d, Roma people slaughtered\u201d, \u201csomething terrible caused by Roma\u201d, and \u201cRoma in jail\u201d. Four of the 12 headlines contain negative qualifications: \u201cdrunken Roma\u201d, \u201cRoma on drugs\u201d, and \u201ca Roma horde\u201d (used in two headlines).
\nIn five of the 27 headlines with refugees-related terms, refugee(s)\/(im)migrants are associated with negative epithets and actions: \u201cinfuriated migrants\u201d, \u201cbrazen migrants\u201d, \u201cthe sex assaults by refugees\u201d, \u201crefugee pest\u201d, and \u201cthe refugees are to blame\u201d. One of the headlines refers to \u201cillegal refugees\u201d \u2013 a concept that does not exist in practice simply because a person recognized as a refugee cannot be illegal. Two headlines refer to \u201cillegal migrants\u201d. One of the headlines contains the phrase \u201casylum seekers\u201d, which is more appropriate than \u201cmigrants\u201d or \u201crefugees\u201d with regard to people who have applied for refugee status but still haven\u2019t been recognized as refugees.
\nVesti.bg<\/strong>
\nAccording to Gemius, Vesti.bg was the second most read Bulgarian online media in 2016. In the current study, which covers the period from 6 March 2017 to 19 March 2017, Vesti.bg ranks fifth by the number of stories containing the words \u201crefugee(s)\/(im)migrant(s)\u201d and \u201cRoma\u201d or \u201cGypsy\/Gypsies\u201d. The total number of these stories is 20. The terms \u201crefugee(s)\/(im)migrant(s)\u201d appear in 18 of them, or in 1.9 stories per day. The terms \u201cRoma\u201d and \u201cGypsy\/Gypsies\u201d feature only in two articles during the studied period.
\nThe terms \u201crefugee\/refugees\u201d and \u201c(im)migrant\/(im)migrants\u201d appear in four headlines each. \u201cRoma\u201d and \u201cGypsy\/Gypsies\u201d appear in one headline each, with the latter term considered to be inappropriate. In this particular case, however, the word \u201cGypsies\u201d appears in a positive context: \u201cGypsies are the fathers of flamenco\u201d. Indeed, this is the only headline in the present study in which \u201cRoma\u201d or \u201cGypsy\/Gypsies\u201d is used in a positive context. As a whole, the words \u201cRoma\u201d and \u201cGypsy\/Gypsies\u201d appear in headlines 10 times less often in Vesti.bg than in Blitz.bg. In the case of Vesti.bg, there are just two headlines with negative associations about Roma and refugees: \u201cRoma people smashed\u201d and \u201crefugees export food\u201d.
\nPik.bg<\/strong>
\nAccording to Gemius, Pik.bg was the third most read Bulgarian online media in 2016. In the present study, which covers the period from 6 March 2017 to 19 March 2017, Pik.bg comes first in terms of the number of stories containing the words \u201crefugee(s)\/(im)migrant(s)\u201d and \u201cRoma\u201d or \u201cGypsy\/Gypsies\u201d. The total number of these stories is 104. The terms \u201crefugee(s)\/(im)migrant(s)\u201d appear in 79 of them, or in 5.6 stories per day. The terms \u201cRoma\u201d and \u201cGypsy\/Gypsies\u201d appear in 25 stories, or in 1.8 stories per day.
\nThe terms \u201crefugee\/refugees\u201d and \u201c(im)migrant\/(im)migrants\u201d appear in 14 headlines each, and one headline contains both \u201crefugee\/refugees\u201d and \u201c(im)migrant\/(im)migrants\u201d. Thus, the refugee issue features in a total of 29 articles.
\nThe word \u201cRoma\u201d appears in two headlines in Pik.bg, or six times less often than in headlines in Blitz.bg. By contrast, the word \u201cGypsy\u201d, which is considered inappropriate, appears in five headlines in Pik.bg, or five times more often than in headlines in Bltiz.bg. In other words, despite its being seen as inappropriate, the term \u201cGypsy\u201d predominates in the headlines of stories published by Pik.bg. On the whole, Roma as a topic appear in seven headlines in Pik.bg, or almost half as often as in the headlines in Blitz.bg. Pik.bg has four headlines mentioning the word \u201cGypsy\u201d more than Blitz.bg.
\nSome of the headlines in Pik.bg contain negative associations with regard to \u201cRoma\u201d and \u201cGypsy\/Gypsies\u201d as well as \u201crefugee(s)\/(im)migrant\/(im)migrant(s)\u201d. The word \u201cGypsy\u201d is often used instead of \u201cRoma\u201d. Negative associations linked to \u201cRoma\u201d and \u201cGypsy\/Gypsies\u201d are present in four out of the seven headlines containing one of these terms. The associations are as follows: \u201ca Roma person jabbed\u201d, \u201cGypsies\u2026have stolen\u201d, \u201cGypsies\u2026poison\u201d, and \u201cGypsies raped\u201d. The negative associations with \u201crefugee(s)\/(im)migrant(s)\u201d are fewer than those with \u201cRoma\u201d and \u201cGypsy\/Gypsies\u201d: \u201cmigrants took over\u201d, \u201cmigrants fought\u201d, and \u201crefugees take out\u201d. There is also one headline with an element of judgement: \u201cShocking privileges: the refugees in Germany get free tickets to brothels\u201d. Finally, in the two weeks covered by the present study, Pik.bg published four jokes referring to \u201cGypsy\/Gypsies\u201d and two jokes mentioning \u201crefugee(s)\/(im)migrant(s)\u201d.
\nNovini.bg<\/strong>
\nAccording to Gemius, Novini.bg was the fourth most read Bulgarian online media in 2016. In the present study, which covers the period from 6 March 2017 to 19 March 2017, Vesti.bg comes third in terms of the number of stories containing the words \u201crefugee(s)\/(im)migrant(s)\u201d and \u201cRoma\u201d or \u201cGypsy\/Gypsies\u201d. The total number of these stories is 61. The terms \u201crefugee(s)\/(im)migrant(s)\u201d appear in 52 of them, or in 3.7 stories per day. The terms \u201cRoma\u201d and \u201cGypsy\/Gypsies\u201d appear in 9 stories, or in 0.64 stories per day (or approximately one story every two days).
\nThe refugee issue is present in 13 headlines, with seven of them using \u201crefugee\/refugees\u201d and six using \u201c(im)migrant(s)\u201d. The terms \u201cRoma\u201d and \u201cGypsy\/Gypsies\u201d, with the latter considered inappropriate, appear in two headlines each.
\nIn Novini.bg, \u201cRoma\u201d and \u201cGypsy\/Gypsies\u201d come with negative associations in three of the four articles containing one of these terms: \u201cRoma people slaughtered\u201d, \u201cGypsies beat up\u201d, \u201ca Gypsy who hit\u2026\u201d. One of the four titles refers to a \u201cRoma problem\u201d. A negative association in relation to \u201crefugee(s)\/(im)migrant(s)\u201d is only present in one headline: \u201crefugees export food\u201d. One of the headlines contains the term \u201casylum seekers\u201d.
\nDnes.bg<\/strong>
\nAccording to Gemius, Dnes.bg was the fifth most read Bulgarian online media in 2016. In the present study, which covers the period from 6 March 2017 to 19 March 2017, Dnes.bg ranks fourth in terms of the number of stories containing the words \u201crefugee(s)\/(im)migrant(s)\u201d and \u201cRoma\u201d or \u201cGypsy\/Gypsies\u201d. The total number of these stories is 48. The terms \u201crefugee(s)\/(im)migrant(s)\u201d appear in 41 of them, or in 2.93 stories per day. The terms \u201cRoma\u201d and \u201cGypsy\/Gypsies\u201d appear in seven stories, or in one story every two days.
\nThe refugee issue is present in 13 headlines, with six of them using \u201crefugee\/refugees\u201d and seven using \u201c(im)migrant(s)\u201d. The term \u201cRoma\u201d appears in two headlines, while the term \u201cGypsy\/Gypsies\u201d, which is considered inappropriate, does not appear in headlines at all. As with some of the other media covered by this study, Novini.bg sometimes publishes headlines linking fears, which are traditionally associated with refugees, to Roma people. Examples include: \u201cRadical Islam is crawling toward the Roma\u201d, \u201cFakulteta [the most famous Roma neighborhood in the capital city of Sofia] \u2013 taken over\u201d, \u201cSmugglers hid migrants in Roma neighborhoods in Sofia\u201d. There is only one headline with a negative association with respect to migrants: \u201cProposal: Legalize the shooting of migrants\u201d. There is also just one headline with a negative association with respect to Roma people: \u201cRoma people responsible for the death\u2026\u201d The headlines do not contain any negative epithets. One headline presents the refugee issue in a positive context: \u201cSix years later: Japan\u2019s nuclear refugees in oblivion\u201d.
\nRepresentation of Roma and refugees: summary of findings<\/strong>
\nThe present study covered a total of 387 communication units published between 6 March 2017 and 19 March 2017. The number of communication units per each of the five online media is as follows: Blitz.bg \u2013 112, Vesti.bg \u2013 27, Pik.bg \u2013 121, Novini.bg \u2013 69, and Dnes.bg \u2013 58.
\nAccording to the number of stories containing the words \u201crefugee(s)\/(im)migrant(s)\u201d and \u201cRoma\u201d or \u201cGypsy\/Gypsies\u201d, the five media outlets rank as follows:
\nFirst place:<\/strong> Pik.bg (104 stories)
\nSecond place:<\/strong> Blitz.bg (100 stories)
\nThird place:<\/strong> Novini.bg (61)
\nFourth place:<\/strong> Dnes.bg (48 stories)
\nFifth place:<\/strong> Vesti.bg (20 stories)
\nThe words \u201cRoma\u201d and \u201cGypsy\u201d appear in headlines in Vesti.bg (fifth place) 10 times less often than in headlines in Blitz.bg (second place). Dnes.bg (fourth place) is the only media of the five outlets covered by the present study that did not use the word \u201cGypsy\u201d, which is considered inappropriate, at all during the period of the study.
\nOne of the main differences between Pik.bg (first place) and Blitz.bg (second place) is that Pik.bg almost always uses \u201cGypsy\/Gypsies\u201d instead of \u201cRoma\u201d, despite the fact that the former is considered inappropriate, whereas Blitz.bg uses \u201cRoma\u201d in the headlines of all Roma-related articles except for one in which it uses \u201cGypsy\u201d.
\nThe only headline in the present study which uses \u201cRoma\/Gypsies\u201d in a positive context is \u201cGypsies are the fathers of flamenco\u201d, published in Vesti.bg. The only headline covered by the study in which one of the terms \u201crefugee(s)\/(im)migrant(s) is used in a positive context is \u201cSix years later: Japan\u2019s nuclear refugees in oblivion\u201d, published in Dnes.bg.
\nThe present study confirms the hypothesis that the topic \u201crefugees\u201d appeared in the media during the 2017 parliamentary election campaign more often than the topic \u201cRoma\u201d, while disproving the other two hypotheses. At the same time, it reveals that in at least one of the media the negative associations in relation to Roma in the headlines are much more prominent than the negative associations with regard to the refugees.
\nRepresentation of Bulgarian expats in Turkey: summary of findings<\/strong>
\nDuring the 2017 parliamentary election campaign, references to the Bulgarian expats in Turkey were exploited for political purposes. The present study aimed to test the following two hypotheses:
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0The term \u201cTurks\/expats\u201d appeared more often in the Bulgarian media during the election campaign than \u201cRoma\u201d and \u201crefugees\/migrants\u201d did
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0References to the Bulgarian expats in Turkey appeared in the Bulgarian media more often in the last five working days before the elections (20-24 March 2017)
\nThe present study covered a total of 185 communication units. Of these, 111 were published between 6 March 2017 and 19 March 2017 and 74 were published between 20 March 2017 and 24 March 2017.
\nAccording to the number of stories containing the words \u201cTurks\/expats\u201d, the five media outlets rank as follows:
\nFirst place:<\/strong> Pik.bg (39 stories)
\nSecond place:<\/strong> Novini.bg (21 stories)
\nThird place:<\/strong> Vesti.bg (19 stories)
\nFourth place:<\/strong> Blitz.bg and Dnes.bg (16 stories each)
\nAccording to the number of stories containing the words \u201cTurks\/expats\u201d in comparison to the number of stories mentioning \u201crefugee(s)\/(im)migrant(s)\u201d and \u201cRoma\u201d or \u201cGypsy\/Gypsies\u201d in the same media, the ranking is as follows:
\nFirst place:<\/strong> Vesti.bg (the number of stories published between 6 March 2017 and 19 March 2017 that contain the words \u201cTurks\/expats\u201d exceeds the number of stories mentioning \u201crefugee\/immigrant\u201d and \u201cRoma\/Gypsy\u201d more than in the other media)
\nSecond place:<\/strong> Pik.bg, Novini.bg, and Dnes.bg (the number of stories published between 6 March 2017 and 19 March 2017 that contain the words \u201cTurks\/expats\u201d compared with the number of stories mentioning \u201crefugee\/immigrant\u201d and \u201cRoma\/Gypsy\u201d is average in comparison with the other media covered by the study)
\nThird place:<\/strong> Blitz.bg (the number of stories published between 6 March 2017 and 19 March 2017 that contain the words \u201cTurks\/expats\u201d compared with the number of stories mentioning \u201crefugee\/immigrant\u201d and \u201cRoma\/Gypsy\u201d is the smallest in comparison with the other media covered by the study)
\nIn all five media outlets, there was an increase of several times in the number of stories mentioning \u201cTurk\/expat\u201d in the five working days before the elections. In terms of the size of the increase, the five media outlets rank as follows:
\nFirst place:<\/strong> Novini.bg (an increase of 3.6 times in the number of stories mentioning \u201cTurk\/expat\u201d published in the period 20-24 March 2017 compared with the number of stories published in the period 6-19 March 2017)
\nSecond place:<\/strong> Blitz.bg and Dnes.bg (2.36 times)
\nThird place:<\/strong> Pik.bg (1.94 times)
\nFourth place:<\/strong> Vesti.bg (1.32 times)
\nThe hypothesis that the term \u201cTurks\/expats\u201d appeared more often in the Bulgarian media during the election campaign than the terms \u201cRoma\u201d and \u201crefugees\/migrants\u201d was confirmed in the case of only one of the five media outlets, namely Vesti.bg. In four of the five media outlets, the term \u201cTurks\/expats\u201d appeared more often than the term \u201cRoma\/Gypsy\u201d. The exception is Blitz.bg, where the term \u201cTurks\/expats\u201d appears the least often.
\nThe hypothesis that references to the Bulgarian expats in Turkey appeared in the Bulgarian media more often in the period 20-24 March 2017 than in the period 6-19 March 2017 was confirmed in all five cases.
\nAuthor: Theodor Spassov (AEJ-Bulgaria)<\/em>
\n*This text is part of AEJ-Bulgaria\u2019s project \u201cMediator 2: A Bridge Between Ethical Journalism and the Society\u201d, supported by the America for Bulgaria Foundation.<\/em>
\nPicture: James Gordon<\/a>\/CC BY 2.0<\/a>
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The figures of the Roma, the refugees, and the Bulgarian expats in Turkey have particular dimensions in the Bulgarian media prior to elections. Theodor Spassov, a Bulgarian freelance journalist writing about international relations and human rights and a member of the Association of European Journalists \u2013 Bulgaria (AEJ-Bulgaria), set out to explore their quantitative and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13141,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[960],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-analyses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aej-bulgaria.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aej-bulgaria.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aej-bulgaria.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aej-bulgaria.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aej-bulgaria.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aej-bulgaria.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aej-bulgaria.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aej-bulgaria.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aej-bulgaria.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aej-bulgaria.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}