Publication |
2012.
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Summary/Abstract |
This article traces how Roma are crafting and changing their representation in the media and thus discursively moving from passive victims to active subjects by engaging in strategic framing and advocacy. I focus on public discussions of the French expulsion of Roma in the summer of 2010. The nature of the coverage and the engagement of Romani voices mark a shift away from the traditional trope of Roma as criminal, victim, or absent. This is part of a shifting process where Roma use media as a political tactic, even to mobilize transnationally as a subaltern counterpublic. This article demonstrates how the tactic of counterframing is employed within Romani and mainstream English-language media and how Roma engage in media activist strategies to shift the frame away from demands for Roma to prove their worth as humans to the need for members of the European Union to prove they are not engaged in systemic economic, political, and social human rights abuses.
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