The dominant media discourse of Swedish newspapers about Romanian beggars in Sweden and their perceived effects

Abstract: The focus of the study is the representation in the Swedish Printed Media, of a group of Romanian beggars, living in Sweden. This research explores the relationship between the visibility of Romanian beggars in the Swedish media and its perceived effects on that group.The study has two dimensions; one which examines the dominant media discourse on Romanian beggars (from the viewpoint of the printed media), and the other, which examines a group of Romanian beggars’ sense-making of their media representation (the Romanian beggars’ angle). It is the first study to research media representation of Romanian beggars from the beggars’ view. The study has academic relevance because it helps understand better how the Romanian beggars in Sweden live and relate to all the media exposure they have. The findings of the study add to the scarce body of media&communication literature about the beggars from Sweden. The study used methods, such as the content analysis of media frames and visual ethnography, as well the analytical category of visibility, as proposed by Brighenti (2007), as its overarching theoretical framework. It also employed second level agenda setting and framing theoretical concepts to complement the Visibility Theory and to develop a customised theoretical model of media visibility for the issue of Romanian beggars. The study’s results reveal that the dominant media discourse uses a mainly negative tone of voice, which elicits an aggressive emotional response from the reader. Furthermore, other findings in the study also suggest that the participants in the study were mostly unaware of their media visibility. Those, who were aware of the power of media visibility, better perceived the potential effects of it, both positive and negative.