DISCRIMINATION OF THE ROMA POPULATION IN ROMANIA
DISCRIMINATION OF THE ROMA POPULATION IN ROMANIA

Summary/Abstract: Over time, society has faced various forms of discrimination. Since the enslavement of people of color or racism against Jews, discrimination has been and is still present in our lives and continues to influence our thinking as well as our actions. After presenting a brief literature review on types of discrimination, we focused our paper on the discrimination of the Roma population. Thus, in Romanian society, there are many stereotypes about the Roma population and their negative way of behaving such as: the Roma are poor and they like to beg for money, they lack education. In this regard, this paper aims to evaluate the way the Romanian online media presents the Roma population in order to find out to what extent does the media maintain and promote these stereotypes. Using content analysis as method of research, we conducted a research on online articles and news from the official websites of several Romanian television channels. Our findings reveal that through the news and information it circulates online, media generally spreads opinions against the Roma population. Most often Roma are referred to as ”gypsies”, and most news present negative information about them. Even more, our study also reveals that, in the online environment, the media scarcely pays attention to the situations in which Roma are victims of discrimination. Considering this findings, in order to help Roma improve their current situation in Romania and improve the perception about them, educational campaigns should be implemented and conducted through the help of media channels.

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