ABSTRACT
In times of instability—the world wars, the transition out of communism—images associated with Gypsiness appear in the Hungarian media: the dark-haired criminal paraded in handcuffs, the swarming family of 10 living in squalor, the passionate musician. The belief in Gypsy criminality that appears in the Hungarian media is a product of both contemporary reporting and old cultural and political patterns. The years after the fall of communism saw turbulent conflicts over economics and the meaning of Hungarian national identity. They also brought a new dimension of the image of the Roma in the Hungarian media: scapegoat for a society going through a wrenching transition from communism to democracy and capitalism. Majority perceptions of minorities tend to treat individual members of minority groups as the representatives of the whole group. In Hungarian television, for example, pictures of Roma individuals are used interchangeably—regardless of whether they are connected directly to the story being covered.
