ROMANIA’S PARTICIPATION TO THE AEGIS BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEM AS REFLECTED BY ROMANIAN NEWSPAPERS’ EVALUATIVE DISCOURSE

This study aims to investigate Romanian media discourse on the current standing of the relations between Romania and the United States of America in the military fi eld. The main topic investigated is connected to Romania’s decision to host the land-based component of the Balllistic Missile Defense System on its ground, an event which attracted signifi cant media coverage during the year 2011. The corpus analyzed consisted of 37 news and opinion items and reports published on the site of three Romanian newspapers. The main research questions were to assess whether the evaluations of this event were positive or negative, who were the actors issuing these statements and what objects were discussed in association to this event. The results showed that positive evaluations were more common than negative evaluations and that the offi cial stances on this topic formed a very coherent perspective, endorsing the project.