DIGITAL DUEL by NewsVibe. TOP 5 matches in the Romanian online space, in the last week

The last week has been marked by important international events - the meetings in Alaska and Washington on the situation in Ukraine - which have attracted significant media attention, also impacting on the visibility of domestic political actors, especially parties. According to the data collected and analyzed by NewsVibe, an AI media monitoring platform, with the exception of AUR, which recorded a slight increase in the number of mentions, PSD, PNL, USR and UDMR recorded decreases, some of them very consistent, compared to the previous period.

Internally, discussions continued about the disputes in the coalition over government measures, especially related to local projects financed by the Anghel Saligny program, ministers communicated about new decisions on spending cuts, and the whole government communication anticipates the 2nd package of measures to reduce the budget deficit. Against this backdrop, President Nicușor Dan's vacation in the country or his interventions on international events were visible - the President has been much less interested in messages on the domestic situation in the last few days.

Despite the domestic agenda, the main governing parties have registered drops across the board, the most consistent being in the cases of PSD, with over 65%, USR, with over 55%, and UDMR, with over 45%.

NEWSVIBE CHART. Top 5 parties by volume of mentions in relevant online and social media sources (sources validated by the NewsVibe platform), in the last week.

COMPETITIVE VISIBILITY AND IMPACT. The competitive analysis engine created by NewsVibe assesses the strength of political actors to penetrate the online space, directly compared to their competitors.

The total volume of mentions about the five major parties dropped significantly compared to the previous week, as did their impact. More than 40% of the total number of mentions and almost 40% of the total impact of mentions target PSD.

We note that the impact of mentions of AUR is approaching the impact of mentions of USR, after last week's notable increase in the number of mentions and impact of the party led by Dominic Fritz.

NewsVibe charts. Share of the number of mentions (left) and impact of mentions (right) about each of the parties, respectively, of the cumulative total of mentions about all five

NETWORK ANALYSIS. The tool created by NewsVibe - semantic network analysis - uses advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning methods to build maps of interactions that highlight: the central actors in a conversation, the connections between them, the groups (clusters) of topics, concepts and influencers (personalities and organizations) that have formed around an event, topic or idea.

Grafic NewsVibe. Semantic network semantics associated with online conversation about the main 5 parliamentary parties in the last week

What the analysis shows:

• The most consistent debate zone was organized around the PSD (again the dominant node of the network). Around PSD gravitate terms such as Romania, Ilie Bolojan, Bolojan Government, Sorin Grindeanu, Anghel Saligny or PNRR, reflecting the dispute within the coalition over deficit reduction measures.
• The PNL is part of the PNL discussion, which has a dual thematic development: Government and USR (as a result of the intense communication of the ministers of this party), respectively the upcoming elections in Bucharest, a theme reflected by terms such as Ciprian Ciucu, where speculations are made about the possible support of a joint candidate PSD-PNL.
• AUR remains a generally isolated thematic nucleus, with George Simion in the foreground, although links with the PSD debate area are still maintained these days, following the reactions of the social democrats, rejecting a possible joint government.
• There is also the existence of a cluster of discussions around Ukraine, about which there has been communication mainly from governmental and sovereignist areas.
• The most peripheral segment of debates is built around the name Nicușor Dan, influenced by his vacation in recent days, but also by his external messages, with few links with other domestic political actors.

SENTIMENT. NewsVibe's platform has created an advanced automated sentiment analysis system that uses specially trained AI algorithms and LLM tools to detect nuances of tone - favorable, unfavorable or neutral - in the context of references to entities relevant to an online conversation.

Grafic NewsVibe. Automated online conversation tone ratings of the top 5 parliamentary parties by week

What the analysis shows:

• PSD remains the central actor most often mentioned in negative/tense/polarizing contexts.
• Negative contexts also dominate in the case of mentions of Ilie Bolojan.
• We notice a rather balanced mention of PNL and AUR, in both types of contexts.
• The invocation in positive contexts of the names of some USR ministers, such as Diana Buzoianu, stands out, even though the party itself is mentioned in both positive and negative contexts.
• Thematically, it highlights the predominantly positive contexts in which PNRR was communicated about PNRR.

*****Synthesis realized with the help of a data monitoring feed provided by the media monitoring platform NewsVibe Romania. The analysis, data and images presented were enhanced with Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence tools.