Dangerous liaisons: The role of traditional and social media in instigating the ethnic riots in Bulgaria

The death of an innocent boy in the Bulgarian village of Katunitsa, victim of a feud between the local population and a Roma oligarch, became the reason for ethicizing a criminal act and triggering unprecedented mass anti-Gypsy and anti-Turkish riots in the country in September 2011. Social discontent was supported by nationalistic parties, football fans and ultra-right elements, but key to the organization of the riots was the role played by the social media, serving as the medium for exchanging, channelling and radicalizing pre-existing discourses of everyday racism (Essed, 1991). Strong anti-Gypsy and anti-Turkish sentiments can be traced historically, to the maintenance and proliferation of which traditional media used to contribute significantly in the previous years.

The paper studies the connection of traditional and social media with nationalistic ideologies and structures of power, the strategies applied by them and their potential for triggering ethnic tensions through discursive means. Applying CDA, it focuses on the linguistic means for creating and sustaining ethnic prejudices and stereotypes and their escalation into strong racists, anti-Gypsy, anti-Muslim sentiments and Nazi slogans expressed in the social media, as witnessed during the ethnic riots. An attempt is made to establish the connection between “racetalk” in such forums and the leap to social action. Racism is studied dynamically, as an ideology, practice and process, operating systematically through culture, seen as an expression of structural conflicts and manifesting itself discursively in interaction (Essed, 1991; Wodak & Reisigl, 1999).

What is concluded is that radicalized anti-Gypsy attitudes in Bulgaria, blaming the Roma for the failed reform and aggravated socio-economic conditions, tend to place greater emphasis on criminality and deviance and ethnicize social problems, presented in the form of incorrigible cultural difference - reactions provoked by fear, anger and despondency, easily mobilized into action by collective nationalist sentiments.