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

The parties in the governing coalition have reached an agreement regarding the budget rectification, but the reform of local administration remains a point of divergence. Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan provided the first details about the package of fiscal measures and reached an agreement with the European Commission regarding its level at the end of the ongoing year. In Parliament, the opposition's motion against the Minister of Environment was rejected, while, on a regional level, the agenda of relevant online sources was complemented by the elections in the Republic of Moldova, which generated multiple political reactions in Romania.

Despite a crowded political landscape, data extracted and analyzed with the help of NewsVibe, an AI media monitoring platform, shows that the only party for which mentions increased in Romanian online sources compared to the previous period was AUR. For the parties in the coalition, a steady decline in the number of mentions was recorded.

The increase of AUR, by over 33%, was determined both by events related to the elections in the Republic of Moldova (the withdrawal of AUR Moldova from the election and the entry into the Parliament of Chișinău of the formation later officially supported by the party led by George Simion), as well as by the echoes generated by the motion on the Environment. In contrast, the component formations of the governing coalition recorded significant decreases in visibility compared to the previous week: PNL – 21%, PSD – 38%, USR – 41% and UDMR – 67%.

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

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

The global impact and the total number of mentions about the parties in the coalition significantly decrease compared to the previous week, while for AUR, significant increases are recorded in both categories. Although mentions about AUR represent only 14% of the total, their estimated impact reaches almost 20%, similar to that of mentions about USR.

Despite the increase of AUR, both the estimated impact and the total number of mentions about parties considerably diminish compared to the previous period: the total number of mentions decreased by over 31%, while the projected impact reduced by more than 36%.

NewsVibe Charts. The share of the number of mentions (left), respectively the impact of mentions (right) about each of the parties from the total cumulative mentions about all five

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

NewsVibe Chart. The semantic network associated with the online conversation about the main 5 parliamentary parties, in the last week

What the analysis shows:

• A major core of the debate is built around PSD and, in a secondary plan, PNL, including associated terms such as Ilie Bolojan, Government, UDMR, Sorin Grindeanu, and Nicușor Dan. This core continues to reflect the contradictions of opinion within the coalition on issues such as administrative reform or the package of measures to reduce the deficit, but also political tensions manifesting at the local level – for example, in Iași, where the local PSD leader called for the resignation of the CJ president, a PNL member.
• Another segment of the discussions, considerable in size, is built around the theme of elections in the Republic of Moldova, where AUR appears as a central actor, alongside terms such as Moldova, Europe, or Russia. This core is connected to the one focused on the coalition's activity through the node Romania, which remains the main link of the semantic network.
• A third core, smaller in size, is influenced by the debate generated by the motion initiated by the opposition against the Minister of Environment (USR), rejected this week by the Chamber of Deputies.

SENTIMENT. The NewsVibe platform has created an advanced automated sentiment analysis system, which uses specially trained AI algorithms and LLM tools to detect tonal nuances – favorable, unfavorable, or neutral – in the context of references to relevant entities for an online conversation.

NewsVibe Chart. Automated evaluation of the tone of the online conversation about the main 5 parliamentary parties, in the week

What the analysis shows:

• PSD remains the actor with the most intense media coverage in negative / polarizing / confrontational contexts. This has been a constant in recent months.
• PNL, USR, or AUR also experienced a similar situation in the last week, although less pronounced than in the case of PSD.
• All four parties also enjoyed media coverage in positive contexts, although with a lower frequency.
• From a thematic perspective, negative exposure is noted for entities such as Russia, Kremlin, KGB.
• There is a presentation in positive contexts especially of elements related to Republic of Moldova. Additionally, Romanian politicians who conveyed messages of support for Moldova's European path were positively covered.

*****Summary created with the help of a data monitoring flow provided by the media monitoring platform NewsVibe Romania. The analysis, data, and images presented have been enhanced with the help of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence tools.