Media Representation of Community Identity: The Romanians Working in Spain

Abstract

This paper proposes an insight into identity delineation reflected in diasporic media, within the recently born Romanian community in Spain. Our research will attempt at revealing how two print publications, The Romanian from Spain (Românul din Spania) and We in Spain (Noi în Spania), produced and consumed by Romanian “diaspora” in Spain, stand for epitomes of stringent issues and essential identity features of a diasporic community. This article presents two approaches of quantitative and qualitative exploratory research; the former is an analysis of the semantic content of the headlines printed on front pages, while the latter is a qualitative content analysis of news frames emerging from dominant topics and themes apparent in the two publications. The two publications support the institutional project of “diasporization” to different extents; they are constructing the image of a “coherent” and engaging Romanian diasporic entity and enhance its group consciousness. Nevertheless, they rather reproduce a schematical, idealized diasporic experience than take into account the diversity of migrants’ identity positioning.