Loughborough University
Browse
- No file added yet -

Ridicule, humour and anti-Roma racism in Romanian television news: a multimodal critical discourse analysis

Download (9.19 MB)
journal contribution
posted on 2023-02-01, 10:13 authored by Petre Breazu
Research shows that the public image of Roma on television reinforces existing prejudice and stereotypes in relation to illiteracy, criminality, primitiveness, or refusal to comply with societal norms and values. Scholars have drawn attention to the various forms of racism, both overt and covert, we find in media and political discourse.  Yet, one aspect that is less explored is the role of humor and ridicule in communicating anti-Roma racism. In this article, I conduct a multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) of two news clips aired by one of the leading audio-visual stations in Romania. I draw attention to the use of humor and ridicule on public television as discursive strategies to belittle or conceal anti-Roma racism. I argue that such representations­—where buffoonery, bad taste, cultural incompetence, and arrogance are highlighted—go beyond simple entertainment and cheap laughs but reinforce the inferior and marginalised status that Romani people have held for centuries on Romanian territories.

History

School

  • Loughborough University London

Published in

International Journal of Roma Studies

Volume

4

Issue

1

Pages

38 - 65

Publisher

Hipatia Press

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Rights holder

© Petre Breazu

Publisher statement

This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Hipatia Press under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Publication date

2022-03-15

Copyright date

2022

ISSN

2462-425X

eISSN

2462-425X

Language

  • en

Depositor

Dr Petre Breazu. Deposit date: 31 January 2023

Usage metrics

    Loughborough Publications

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Licence

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC