Using humor to disguise racism in television news: the case of the Roma
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Petre Breazu
Petre Breazu is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Institute for Diplomacy and International Governance, Loughborough University, London. Dr. Breazu’s research lies in the area of discourse and racism, with special focus on the representation of the Roma in European media and political discourse. He works under the framework of multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) to examine practices of discrimination and social exclusion with regards to Roma and other marginalised communities. Petre’s previous research has been published in international peer-reviewed journals, such as
Discourse and Communication ,Discourse and Society ,Ethnicities ,Language in Society , andSocial Identities .
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David Machin
David Machin is Professor at Department of Linguistics, School of International Studies, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, People’s Republic of China. Professor Machin is a leading scholar in (Multimodal) Critical Discourse Studies and is the author of
Introduction to Multimodal Analysis (2020),Doing Visual Analysis (2018), andHow to do Critical Discourse Analysis (2012). David is co-editor of the peer reviewed Taylor & Francis journalSocial Semiotics , which publishes papers in the wider field of discourse and critical multimodal studies, and the Bloomsbury books series Advances in Critical Discourse Studies.
Abstract
It has been argued that more research is needed on the role of humor in the expression of racism. One reason is that, in the ‘post racial’ society, overt racism has become publicly unacceptable and, therefore, tends to appear in more concealed forms. In this paper, as part of a larger project on media representations of the Roma, we look at the role of humor in a Romanian television news clip reporting on the financial rewards of begging. We draw on the critical scholarship in humor research and carry out a multimodal critical discourse analysis of a news report selected from a larger corpus. We argue that through humor a recontextualisation of the Roma’s situation takes place, transforming their actual situation of poverty and social marginalisation into a humorous account of cultural failure, incompetence, stupidity and calculated money grabbing. We show that humor is one way by which culture becomes represented as embodied by ethnic minorities.
About the authors
Petre Breazu is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Institute for Diplomacy and International Governance, Loughborough University, London. Dr. Breazu’s research lies in the area of discourse and racism, with special focus on the representation of the Roma in European media and political discourse. He works under the framework of multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) to examine practices of discrimination and social exclusion with regards to Roma and other marginalised communities. Petre’s previous research has been published in international peer-reviewed journals, such as Discourse and Communication, Discourse and Society, Ethnicities, Language in Society, and Social Identities.
David Machin is Professor at Department of Linguistics, School of International Studies, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, People’s Republic of China. Professor Machin is a leading scholar in (Multimodal) Critical Discourse Studies and is the author of Introduction to Multimodal Analysis (2020), Doing Visual Analysis (2018), and How to do Critical Discourse Analysis (2012). David is co-editor of the peer reviewed Taylor & Francis journal Social Semiotics, which publishes papers in the wider field of discourse and critical multimodal studies, and the Bloomsbury books series Advances in Critical Discourse Studies.
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- From the Editor
- From the Editor
- Full Length Articles
- “Some people work a bit more than me, and so we tease them”: the production of an elite student community in an elite French higher education institution
- “If it stops, then I’ll start worrying.” Humor as part of the fire service culture, specifically as part of coping with critical incidents
- Effects of regular and joke dog whistles on perceptions of political candidates
- Using humor to disguise racism in television news: the case of the Roma
- Reliability and validity of the sense of humor scale
- How cognitive, social, and emotional profiles impact humor appreciation: sense of humor in autism spectrum disorder and Williams syndrome
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- From the Editor
- From the Editor
- Full Length Articles
- “Some people work a bit more than me, and so we tease them”: the production of an elite student community in an elite French higher education institution
- “If it stops, then I’ll start worrying.” Humor as part of the fire service culture, specifically as part of coping with critical incidents
- Effects of regular and joke dog whistles on perceptions of political candidates
- Using humor to disguise racism in television news: the case of the Roma
- Reliability and validity of the sense of humor scale
- How cognitive, social, and emotional profiles impact humor appreciation: sense of humor in autism spectrum disorder and Williams syndrome
