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

According to the data extracted and analyzed with the help of NewsVibe, we are in a new period where both mentions about parties and their estimated impact are decreasing compared to the previous week. This, despite an internal political agenda that remains dynamic.

The campaign for the elections on December 7 – where the attention of the most relevant online sources is focused on the race for the Capital City Hall – has officially begun. Against this backdrop, new polling data continues to emerge, fueling the competition among candidates, a competition increasingly marked by attacks and replies. In parallel, the coalition parties have revisited some still unclear government projects, such as the administration reform, or have launched legislative proposals in decision-making transparency that have recently reached an agreement – restricting the accumulation of pension-salary and the retirement regime of magistrates.

Internal political themes have been accompanied by an intensification of external ones: developments in Ukraine have generated particular attention following new agreement proposals sent by the White House administration and entered into a process of revision/negotiation.

All parties in the governing coalition recorded notable decreases in the number of mentions last week: mentions about PSD decreased by over 30%, those about PNL by almost 16%, those about USR by almost 24%, and those about UDMR by almost 43%. Only AUR recorded a slight increase in the number of mentions compared to the previous week.

NEWSVIBE GRAPHIC. Top 5 parties based on 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 ability of political actors to penetrate the online space, directly compared to their competitors.

Compared to last week, the total number of mentions about parties decreased by almost 2,000, and their estimated impact by about 50 million. PSD, PNL, USR, and UDMR remain at the forefront in terms of visibility, accounting for over 90% of the total number of mentions and over 90% of the impact.

If we look at the volume of mentions, the hierarchy among PSD, PNL, and USR is relatively clear, while in terms of estimated impact, PSD and PNL are practically equal, with a very slight lead for the party led by Ilie Bolojan. The impact of mentions about UDMR – the lowest among all analyzed parties – is over ten times smaller than that of mentions about PNL.

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

What the analysis shows: 

• A power zone – where the main actor is PSD, around which entities and names such as Ilie Bolojan, Sorin Grindeanu, CCR, Government of Romania, UDMR, Parliament of Romania, but also Nicușor Dan or Ludovic Orban gravitate. This zone is influenced both by online conversations about government policies – including the CCR decision regarding private pensions – and by the president's decision not to keep Ludovic Orban in the advisory team, a subject that has generated numerous debates regarding the possible motivations behind the presidential gesture.
• Another consistent segment of online communication is focused exclusively on the elections for the Capital City Hall, where the discussions center around USR and PNL, closely connected with candidate names such as Ciprian Ciucu, Daniel Băluță, Cătălin Drulă, as well as with institutions associated with the administrative area of the Capital.
• A third distinct segment is influenced by discussions about the support given by AUR for Anca Alexandrescu, in the context of the elections for the Capital City Hall. Thus, the candidate's name appears positioned more in proximity to AUR than in the center of the conversation about the elections in Bucharest – a zone that remains connected nonetheless.

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 the entities relevant to an online conversation.

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

What the analysis shows: 

• PSD (especially), PNL, USR, and AUR are the actors that constantly appear in predominantly negative contexts in the online environment. The parties are recurrently associated with the names of some leaders involved in the electoral campaigns, visible in discussions especially through the lens of confrontations, tensions, and momentary competitions.
• For these leaders, the tone of the media coverage is rather mixed: alongside the specific campaign attacks or the tensions generated by the electoral calendar, there are also numerous elements of promotion and self-promotion, which brings a partial balance in online conversations.
• Even under these conditions, the dominant tone of discussions about parties remains strongly negative. Moreover, this type of tone intensifies week by week, regardless of the variations recorded in the total volume of mentions.

*****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.