Romanians’ Etno-image in the National Press: A Comparative Study of 2011 and 2012

AbstractThe paper inquires the Romanians’ ethno-image spread-out by the national press, by looking into the content of the media message and underlining the fact that when referring to the Romanian people mass media reinforce the ethno stereotypes and induce a negative component of the image. This representation becomes social and has a high influence in the way Romanians see themselves as a group. Our analysis is based on a particular content analysis methodology, image indicators system, with which we measure the image levels of the Romanian people through the help of an evaluation grid established according to the desirable image of the Romanians: historical, national, social, political, economical, financial, cultural, confessional, human, European. This evaluation grid was used for monitoring all the media articles encountered in the most read online newspapers in Romania during 2011 and 2012. We can say that the content of the ethno image is strongly connected with the characterizations and labels used by the mass media, so our paper's goal is to find out how the image of the Romanians is being shaped and spread out by the media