Offer för omständigheter eller omoraliska förövare? En kvalitativ studie om konstruerandet av romska EU-migranters tiggeri i den svenska dagspressen

Sammanfattning: This paper explores how begging roman EU-migrants was constructed in the public Swedish press. The study was based on a total of 15 articles, nine from Sydsvenska Dagbladet and six from Expressen, which were later analyzed with a social constructionist approach from a problem perspective. These are some of the major newspapers in Sweden and were therefore chosen for the study. All articles were published somewhere between the 1st of January to the 31st of May 2015. The study found that begging roman EU-migrants were mainly described from three aspects: as victims of structural poverty, discrimination and the defective welfare systems of Romania and Bulgaria; as immoral perpetrators; and as subjects of an organized exploitation of the poor and vulnerable. A significant finding in the study was that begging roman EU-migrants never were claims makers in any of the articles. Instead a clear majority of the claims were made by politicians. Furthermore, the study found that multiple claims on solutions as well as several claims on the problems root causes were made in the articles; illuminating how begging roman EU-migrants was constructed as a complex and multifaceted social problem in the Swedish press.