Digital Duel by NewsVibe. TOP 5 parties in the Romanian online space, in the last week

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

Although PSD generates 44% of the total number of mentions about the parties, their estimated impact is 39%. In the case of USR, the proportion of mentions and the proportion of estimated impact are similar. In the cases of PNL, AUR and SOS Romania, the proportion of estimated impact of mentions exceeds that of actual mentions in total, as follows: PNL generates 22% of total mentions, but the estimated impact reaches 23%; AUR generates 6% of total mentions, but they reach a proportional estimated impact of 8%; mentions of SOS Romania account for 3% of total mentions, but their estimated impact is 5%.

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 - allows visualizing the relationships between topics, personalities and themes, based on their co-appearance in the mentions collected from the most influential online sources in Romania. NewsVibe applies advanced methods of artificial intelligence and machine learning to build interaction maps that highlight: the central actors of a conversation, how they are connected to each other, the 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 does the analysis tell us about the parties?

• The largest area of online conversation is being created around PSD,
  
  with numerous connections to governmental and administrative topics. Terms such as "Government", "Parliament", "Chamber of Deputies" appear frequently, as well as names associated with power management, such as Sorin Grindeanu, or involved in controversies, such as the case of Sorina Pintea, recently sentenced definitively by the Justice. Its positioning at the center of the network confirms that PSD dominates the current online conversation through its perceived role in influencing the formation of the new government.
• A secondary area of the debate is centered around the actors PNL, USR, Nicușor Dan, UDMR, bringing together parties and political actors from the right-wing and signaling a network of frequent interactions around policy negotiations and government scenarios. The co-presence of these entities in a single cluster indicates a thematic and semantic association in the public discourse, in a context defined by the Cotroceni negotiations.
• The third area groups AUR and SOS Romania, with a focus on developments in the area of sovereignist formations, with central nodes such as George Simion and Diana Șoșoaca, but also with geopolitical entities such as the USA, the European Commission and the Republic of Moldova. The cluster expresses a clearly separate positioning from the themes of governance, being articulated around narratives of opposition to the political and institutional system, but also regarding foreign issues, such as the elections in the Republic of Moldova.
• A distinct and minor area relates to recent events in Cluj. The first is the incident in which Ciprian Rus, vice-president of USR Cluj, found a packet of drugs under his personal car, triggering a DIICOT investigation. The second is the visit to Cluj of Larry Glick, vice president of the Trump Organization, accompanied by other representatives of the American business environment. This mix of themes has generated an isolated but coherent cluster, reflecting the punctual online interest in Cluj as a space of intersection of notorious topics.

SENTIMENT. The NewsVibe platform has created an advanced sentiment analysis system that uses artificial intelligence, specially trained algorithms and LLM-like language models 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 rating of the main 5 parliamentary parties in the last week

PSD is the actor with the highest visibility and the most pronounced negative tone of online conversations around its name, as a result of its central role in the government formation negotiations and the debate over fiscal measures.

PNL is strongly associated with tense contexts, being directly involved in discussions about the new majority and economic measures.

Ilie Bolojan continues to benefit from positive references, but he is also mentioned in negative contexts, linked to discussions on the measures needed to reduce the budget deficit.

Nicușor Dan is also mentioned in both positive and negative contexts, in comparable measures.

There is not a single actor reflected mostly positively in the online conversation about parties in the last month.

*****Summary compiled using a monitoring feed provided by NewsVibe Romania. The analysis, data and images presented were enhanced with Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence tools.