Between Gypsies and Roma: discrimination and stereotypes in the Ukrainian online newspapers

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to define the features of discrimination against the Roma people in the Ukrainian online newspapers illustrated by the case of one news break –Loschynivka village (Odessa region, Ukraine) decided to forcibly evict Roma people from the village, before that there were destruction of the Roma homes by the local population. The necessity of such work was entailed by frequent use of hate speech and discrimination of the Roma community in Ukraine. This problem is particularly acute in the western region, home to most of the Roma. Special attention is paid to methods of media manipulation and their implementation. A sample of online newspaper articles, dedicated to this case, was made and titles were analyzed. We can say that rejection of the exonym of Gypsies in favor of ethnonym Roma is indicator of positive changes at the language level. Despite this, the Internet media depict the Roma primarily as representatives of the criminal world: thieves, killers, drug dealers. Generalization of negative features from representatives of the group leads to the criminalization of the entire nationality. Such news are of an evaluative character, journalists exploit the fears of people to become victims of a crime. Sometimes such suggestions occur through the use of selective opinions contained within Facebook leaders’ posts. Some representative feedback under the articles has been also analyzed. Consideration of the online newspapers in terms of hate speech and ethnic stereotypes functioning can be an effective way to formulate linguistic expertise criteria and implementation of language of tolerance.