Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, 4,8 million of Ukrainians fled to the neighbouring countries - the largest human displacement crisis in the world today (UNHCR Regional Bureau for Europe, 2022). Romania currently hosts 89,710 Ukrainian refugees (European Council, 2023). The large-scale mobilization at individual and national level to support Ukrainian refugees indicates a “maturation of Romanian civil society” (Anghel & Trandafoiu, 2022), moving from the lack of trust in public authorities and discussions about corruption to partnering with the Government and high involvement in community action in the defence of freedom and democracy for Ukrainians. 9 months after the invasion, 74% of the Romanian people believe that Romania should still welcome Ukrainian refugees, if that is needed (Romania’s Security Barometer, 2022).
In this context, our paper focuses on platforms developed by the Romanian government and the civil society to support Ukrainian refugees with information about their rights in Romania (such as: Dopomoha.ro – a platform with information on accommodation, donations, and other services; the Emergency Support platform – coordinating the efforts of several political and social actors involved in supporting Ukrainian refugees; the public Facebook group Uniți pentru Ucraina/United for Ukraine – totalling 283,500 members). We hold that digital technologies, particularly the spaces that permit social interaction – such as the platforms developed by the government and the civil society to help the refugees, may facilitate forms of political engagement (Koc-Michalska & Lilleker, 2017), involving rewards through interaction.
At the beginning of the crisis, there was a conflict between the NGOs and the public authorities in Romania, attributed to the lack of coordination between institutions. The media framed this conflict in terms of disownership of the Ukrainian refugee crisis, highlighting the construction of the refugees through “symbolic bordering” and the renegotiation of the boundaries of “our” own community of belonging (Chouliaraki, 2017). Several months into the conflict, our analysis focuses on media discourses concerning the topic of citizen mobilization on the platforms helping Ukrainian refugees. How are civil society actions being constructed in the Romanian media? What are the claims made by actors towards public action in the case of Ukrainian refugees and how are power relations configured by the actors involved in the debate?
To answer these questions, we treat the debate within the broader framework of the sociology of public problems (Gusfield, 1981; Cefaï, 1996; Beciu & al., 2018), with a focus on the claims made by the Government, civil society and citizens to mobilise in order to help Ukrainian refugees. In terms of methodological design, we employ multimodal discourse analysis (MMDA) (Kress, 2010, 2012; van Leeuwen, 2013) to explore the community mobilisation strategies used on these platforms, and in news articles published in the Romanian mainstream media, between February and November 2022. Our analytical perspective and methodological approach will allow us to investigate new forms of political participation and in what ways they are connected to increased and enhanced levels of engagement on the part of citizens in order to help Ukrainian refugees.
