Imaginea migrantului român pe forumurile diasporice. Studiu de caz ItaliaRomania.com
The image of the Romanian migrant in Diaspora forums. Case study: ItaliaRomania.com

Summary/Abstract: Once with the opening of the Romanian borders, after 1989, and especially after January 2007, when European Union opened its borders to us, the professional migration phenomena (from the famous „strawberrymen“ and people working in construction, to doctors, engineers, researchers and students) witnessed an important evolution. The last few years, due to IT&C and especially the Internet, those migrants are more and more visible on the discussion forums on the web. In this empirical context and taking into account the current theoretical trends, we’ll analyze the way social identity is constructed at the level of the forum mediated discussions and interaction – a forum on the Internet dedicated especially, but not exclusively, to Romanians in Italy (ItaliaRomania.com). The conceptual framework will gather theories on the „connected migrant“, who’s endemic to the „mobility culture“ we live in (Diminescu, 2007), on the „un-territorialized home” which appears once with the electronic media and especially the Internet (Morley, 2003), on the virtualization of the „local” which should be thought as dependant to the „neighborhood”, as a social interaction and not otherwise (Appadurai, 1996), on the new „diasporic public space” who owes so much tp the Internet and other electronic media (idem) etc. In conclusion, we can say, as a result of analyzing the three items (how is named/understood/perceived Romania, feelings towards Romania and the concept of being Romanian) through the oscillation between negative and positive (Romania is as well criticized and appreciated, but the feelings towards it are prevailing positive feelings, quite contrary to the concept of being Romanian, where views expressed are more on the negative side) that the research indicates a permanent construction and reconstruction of the forum users, in both ethnic and technical respect.

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