Abstract

Roma, Gypsies and Travellers in Britain are marginalised in society and often the subject of negative discourse in media and political debate. This article examines why this matters through an example of a specific discourse incident in late 2013/ early 2014, with the media reporting and political comment on the size and behaviour of the Roma population in the Page Hall area of Sheffield. Using a framework of antagonistic discourse as control startingfrom Foucault’s work and bringing in Laclau and Mouffe, the article adapts concepts such as Galtung and Ruge’s ‘news values’ in this particular episode and places it in the context of the wider Gypsy debate. It offers suggestions to think about taking forward a more positive debate on Roma, Gypsy and Traveller communities in Britain, which could try to counterbalance the hysteria that often takes place in the press.

Introduction

There is a problem in the way that Roma, Gypsies and Travellers are portrayed in media and political debate. The popular media representation of these already misunderstood groups can further feed fear and paranoia and exacerbate community conflict. Where the media and political discourse combine to utilise ‘dog-whistle’ politics in order to get a reaction from a particular segment of the population, the impact can be amplified and tensions heightened further. Why does it matter what the papers say? It matters because anti-Gypsy discourse is hegemonic and can constrain groups’ freedom to practice individual cultures through heightening their ‘otherness’ and therefore subjecting them to increased social surveillance and control.

Torfing (1999) sums this up nicely in terms of hegemonic force of the social construction (and reconstruction) of identities:

Hegemonic articulation ultimately involves some element of force and repression. It involves the negation of identity… [which] … tends to give rise to social antagonism. The hegemonic force, which is responsible for the negation of individual or collective identity, will tend to construct the excluded identity as one of a series of threatening obstacles to the full realization of chosen meanings and options. (pg. 120)

Through a content analysis approach, this articlewill examine a particular, recent example of press and political discourse on the Roma community in Sheffield, and offer a framework which shows the demonisation in the social construction of the public imagining of ‘Roma’. I will reflect on previous research (Richardson, 2006) which looked at the media discourse surrounding Gypsies and Travellers ten years ago and draw parallels in the themes and news values used then and now.

The approach taken in the article focuses on analysis of newspaper stories which searched for particular themes that typify this hegemonic anti-Gypsy debate and that might explain the mostly negative, circular discourse. To do this, I use a framework of ‘news values’ as developed by Galtung and Ruge (1965) and at points during the analysis of the news, I attempt to link to specific values. Galtung and Ruge (1965) observed 12 factors that helped events become news as shown in figure one below. Four of these factors are examined in a little more detail in the next section, but the overall framework of news selection is important to the arguments in this article.

More important though, is the process of selection, distortion and reconstruction of Roma identity within the chain of media and political discourse that frames arguments. I suggest that certain ‘whistle words’ are used that link to some of Galtung and Ruge’s news values which prompt further negative social construction of Roma, Gypsy and Travellers, but that these should also be used as ‘bounce points’ where community members and advocates should interrupt this hegemonic practice with a reassertion of a more realistic and recognisable Roma identity.

This article starts with an explanation of the Roma news event, by analysing a series of news articles against news values, and by identifying ‘whistle words’. There is then a discussion on how, through a discussion of Galtung and Ruge’s news values, and through an adaptation of their understanding of selection and distortion of news, negative discourse by the press and politicians is amplified into a hegemonic cacophony which can control the ‘other’; the work of Foucault (1980) and Laclau and Mouffe (2001) helps to explain this further. A brief debate on the ‘viral’ nature and negative impact of some social media discussion is then followed by conclusions and recommendations.

The Roma in Page Hall, Sheffield, ‘News Event’

I examined news reports over a six-month period from September 2013 to February 2014. Using the Lexis Nexis news database, all UK newspapers over this period were searched on the terms ‘Roma’ and ‘Sheffield’ to be found in the body of the article. Over 300 articles were found, but after discounting irrelevant articles (for example about football) there were 89 articles remaining. The first was from the Sheffield Telegraph on 7th September2013 and it reported a public meeting held at the Pakistan Advice Centre in Page Hall, where over 100 people attended and a number of issues were discussed. The article said: “Problems raised ranged from fly-tipping and litter to intimidating groups of up to 30 people on the street, loud music late at night – and child prostitution and sex grooming of underage girls.” It was also reported in the article that a local voluntary worker from Page Hall “warned police and councillors at the meeting that action needs to be taken urgently – or people’s anger would boil over”. In response Police Inspector Leake was quoted at length where he talked about the use of legal remedies such as a Dispersal Order and asked the community to come forward if they were aware that criminal behaviour was taking place; but he also said: “From a policing perspective, we are telling the community that we want tolerance. We want different parts of the community to respect each other and resolve the issues.”

By contrast the second of the 89 articles was from the Mail on Sunday on 20th October – its headline was Ramshackle Roma Camp Where Greek Maddie Was Discovered (Murphy, 2013). The only reason that ‘Sheffield’ was in the article was because a comparison was made with the Ben Needham child abduction case from 1991, and Ben was from Sheffield. The child in the Greek abduction case that the Mail was reporting on was actually called Maria, but the use of ‘Greek Maddie’ is a classic example of the use of news values 11 and 12 (reference to persons and negative reference) from Galtung and Ruge (1965); as well as values 1 and 7 (frequency and continuity) allowing them to keep the Maddie story alive and linking it to a negative story about Roma. Galtung and Ruge’s framework of news values will be discussed further in this paper in the section on ‘amplification of bad news.’ Eight national newspaper stories, out of the total 89 articles, were focused on the Greek Roma kidnapping story.

On October 31st 2013 The Telegraph’s Hayley Dixon reported under the headline ‘UK’s Roma population much higher than previously thought’: “New research estimates that there are 200,000 Roma living in the UK, despite government claims two years ago that “relatively few” had settled in the country”. The Scottish Express headlined its discussion of the research report: ‘Roma surge will add to our 200,000’ (Dawar, 2013) and said: “An estimated 200,000 Roma gypsies [sic] are already living in Britain – one of the biggest populations in western Europe, research claims. And frontline officers fear the figure will rocket once visa restrictions are lifted at the end of the year according to the University of Salford study.” Six national newspaper articles had headlines on the research estimating the size of the UK Roma population by Brown et al (2013) with headlines showing varying degrees of alarm; for example Perkins (2013) for the Daily Star: ‘ROMA ARMY, 200,000 are here with more on the way.’ The research was debated on the Channel 4 news and was also represented on TV (but that is not included in this analysis).

There was then a collision between the news discourse and political discourse in a series of articles quoting Sheffield MP David Blunkett. For example on November 11th 2013, The Telegraph’s political correspondent (Holehouse, 2013) wrote: “Roma migrants could cause riots in cities, warns Blunkett; British cities could face race riots as an influx of Roma migrants creates “frictions” with local people, David Blunkett warns.” The article quotes an interview that Blunkett gave BBC Radio:

The cultural gulf between the Roma and the settled community is 50 per cent greater than that between white Britons and Pakistani immigrants who came to Britain a generation ago, Mr Blunkett told BBC Radio. “The Roma youngsters have come from a background even more different culturally, because they were living in the edge of woods, not going to school, not used to the norms of everyday life. We’ve got to change that,”  he said. (Holehouse, 2013)

In a blog for the Telegraph online, Gallagher (2013) talked about Blunkett’s comments as being justifiable and challenged the ‘left-wing human rights industry’ representation of Roma. He said, of Blunkett’s riot warnings: “The state’s authority is relatively brittle and in places like Sheffield, there is plenty of seething discontent over having turned into post-industrial reservations. So I believe that Mr Blunkett’s fears are not inflammatory ones.” Riley-Smith (2013) also supported Blunkett in the story headed: “Nigel Farage: ‘Blunkett right to warn Roma migrants could trigger riots’; Ukip leader says former home secretary “should be admired for speaking out about the issue.”

The Daily Star did not disappoint with its headline on page 4 on 13th November: ‘I Predict a Riot over UK Roma Invasion!’ (Nicks, 2013).Over the three days from November 11th to November 13th there were 12 articles discussing Blunkett’s riot warnings identified in the Lexis Nexis search. Then there was the story of Roma migrants in Page Hall offering to sell their baby. This almost fairytale arc to the media discourse on the Roma in Sheffield is not new; ‘stealing babies’ (or in this case selling them) is a well pedalled aspect of the ‘othering’ of Roma, Gypsies and Travellers (Richardson, 2006). There were five articles, in the middle of November, that reported on the baby story.

From November 13th the headlines had turned to the impact of Blunkett’s remarks on the local community in Page Hall, for example with increased local community surveillance as reported in The Daily Mail (Brooke, 2013): ‘After the Blunkett Warning, Residents on Patrol in His City.’ A further four articles talked about the impact of Blunkett’s warning and then a number of articles followed, reflecting the political arguments between Clegg, Cameron and others on whether Blunkett should have said what he did.

The Scottish Express on November 16th ran an ‘Exclusive’ on ‘Roma migrants boast of raking in huge benefits’ (Jeeves, 2013) and Walker (2013) for The Daily Star reported Roma Girls in British ‘Sex shop windows’; ‘Hookers, 12, bonk for £2’. Thus bringing together news values with real ‘grip’ – underage sex and benefits deceit – into the hegemonic anti-Gypsy discourse. These more lurid and ‘outrage’ themes are designed to speak more strongly to certain parts of society. The dog-whistle key themes of selling/stealing babies, under-age prostitution, and claiming benefits are designed to catch the attention of Conservative voters, and it suits the right-leaning political elite that this discourse is perpetuated in the newspapers and in Parliament. Notable in their rarity were the articles that attempted to redress the balance in the way Roma were represented. Townsend (2013) for The Observer on 17th November found “… a huge gap between the perception and reality of Roma life.”

By 21st November, the newspaper stories had turned to critical debate of ‘tax-payer funded’ leaflets telling Roma ‘Don’t spit or have sex in the street or your neighbours will think you’re dirty’ (Webb, 2013). There were four national newspaper articles taking a critical view of a Sheffield City Council leaflet to help Roma settle into local communities.

The stories in the Roma/Sheffield news event in late 2013/ early 2014 started with the reporting of community disquiet in Page Hall, Sheffield, about the number and behaviour of Roma in the community. In late October this was followed by news reporting of research (Brown et al., 2013, see Brown et al, this issue) estimating the size of the Roma population in the UK; providing an opportunity for the media panic about a number of issues including the scale of immigration from Europe and ‘other’ cultural behaviour of Roma. The story arc then brought into play political voices from Blunkett and colleagues, but also took in fantasmatic themes such as under-age prostitution and selling babies, in addition to themes of anti-social behaviour and dumping rubbish. These ‘whistle words’ chime with previous research (Richardson, 2006) that found ‘mess’ and ‘cost’ were two key themes that gripped in the media and political debate on Roma and accession from new EU countries ten years ago.

The words most regularly used, through a content analysis in Nvivo, were unsurprisingly Roma, Sheffield and Blunkett. Further ‘whistle words’ used in the news event were:

• Migrants (186)/ Immigrants (135)
• Benefits (81)
• Rioting (80)
• Work (78)
• Behaviour (77)
• Tensions (71)
• Influx (48)
• Rubbish (38)
• Intimidating (33)
• Sex (24)
• Fear (23)

These are just a selection of key whistle words identified in the analysis of the articles that represent key moments in the story arc. The figure below represents the usage of different words in the sample of 89 articles analysed.

There were additional national newspaper stories reporting on Roma that fell outside of this content analysis. Because the article had wanted to look more closely at the Page Hall, Sheffield news event I had used the search terms ‘Roma’ and ‘Sheffield’ – therefore news reports just talking about Roma and not mentioning Sheffield anywhere did not show in the 89 articles analysed. One news report outside the 89 sample (Reid, 2013) for the Mail Online gave a very detailed account of a Roma family living in Paris and it talked about the strain of immigration on health services in the UK but also provided a nuanced account of personal stories of Roma affected by camp clearances across Europe with examples in France and Germany. The report went beyond the ‘grip’ of negative news values and demonstrates the complexity of news representation of the issue – it goes beyond the binary assumption Guardian – good/ Daily Mail – bad and shows that just as there are inconsistencies and arguments amongst community members and scholars in this Roma debate, so there are differences of opinion amongst journalists – even within the right-leaning tabloid press. Considered news articles like these glimmer and gleam in their rarity, and those agitating for change should use these examples to ‘bounce’ journalists and politicians into a more positive and nuanced debate.

The political and media discourse ‘event’ that occurred in November 2013 was intense, disturbing and had a negative impact on the local community in Sheffield – not just for the Roma, but it heightened tensions for the whole community. Was it a new phenomenon? Certainly not: ten years ago in discussing the accession to the EU of the A8 countries and the ‘influx’ of Roma, The Daily Express, for example, used a war-like image to show the Roma ‘invasion’ and the media debate at that time used many of the ‘whistle words’ seen in the recent Roma news event in 2013/14.

The amplification of bad news about Roma; discourse in the news: a theoretical framework for othering

There is an inter-relationship between the factors and also sub-factors to be considered by Galtung and Ruge (1965) in their news value framework (outlined in Figure 1 earlier in the article). Galtung and Ruge were talking about the structure of foreign news in their original work and so some of the factors in Figure 2 may not be so relevant to domestic media reporting of Roma, Gypsy and Traveller issues. However, some factors are very relevant; two in particular strike a chord:

• ‘Reference to persons’, or ‘personalization’ (promoting feelings of identification, empathy and disapproval). What do Roma, Gypsies and Travellers ‘stand for’? Media analysis research on Gypsies and Travellers (Richardson, 2006) showed themedia reflection of them as ‘standing for’ a cost to the taxpayer, causing a mess and being ‘other’ to the settled community.
• ‘Meaningfulness’ (including ‘cultural proximity’ and ‘relevance’ this relates to consensus and conforming to norms). The ramifications of stereotyping in the press are clear, when an event is reported in the news it reinforces the stereotype; and the fact that a stereotype is part of the event makes it more newsworthy.

Less convincing, in this context, are conditions like F3 ‘Unambiguity’ in the Galtung and Ruge framework considering what we know about media reporting on Roma. A related point on the importance of ‘empty signifiers’ in the hegemonic practice of discursive control, will be discussed shortly. Ambiguity and the opportunities to refix identities through shifting discursive frames and ‘whistle words’ is a prominent and recurring aspect of the debate on Roma in media and political discourse.

Galtung and Ruge propose a binary approach to either presence or absence of a particular factor – so if all factors are present then the score is 12 and if none are, then 0. The higher the score the more likely the event is to make the news. This is an interesting approach and one which can be adapted for specific types of news events. However, the key message I take away from Galtung and Ruge’s work is their idea on selection and distortion. At each stage of a chain of communication there is scope for the receiver to select a message and then distort it. This can create an ever decreasing circle of reality as the distortion becomes the new image, which becomes the new perception, which is distorted, and so on. This is how social identities are constructed and re-constructed. An adaptation of this selection and distortion cycle of news is shown in Figure 3.