Media and migration. Layers of knowledge in Romanian written press

This paper seeks to discuss the image that the media build around the phenomenon of migration in present-day Romanian society. I rely on a content analysis of newspaper articles on migration in order to explore layers of knowledge (understood as evidence which forms the basis of the representation about an issue) by identifying specific elements in each and every piece of news, such as: the current state of migration, the demographic profile of the migrant, geographical location, the orientation of the newspaper, the situation of migrants, the causes and effects of this phenomenon, and the policies implemented in the communities of origin and destination, respectively. All these elements are examined along the lines of emigration and immigration in order to reconstruct strategies of framing external migration within the journalistic discourse, and to identify the information which constitutes a reference point in shaping the attribute agenda on this topic. The discussion relies on the analysis of 473 articles in Romanian newspapers, published between 2007 and 2009, using as a sampling frame the archive of articles available on the website www.ziare.com.