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

The last week brought to the public agenda and in the most relevant Romanian online sources a surge of themes related to governance: the Government took responsibility in Parliament for components of the second package to reduce the budget deficit; the reform of local administration was postponed due to divergences within the coalition; several categories of public employees are threatening protests, and speculation regarding a possible resignation of Prime Minister Bolojan has intensified. According to data collected and analyzed by NewsVibe, an AI media monitoring platform, in this very dynamic internal political context, the total number of mentions about parties, as well as their projected impact, has significantly increased compared to the previous period.
Despite this general increase, the individual developments of the parties outline a nuanced picture: while PSD, PNL, UDMR, and AUR recorded increases in the number of mentions, USR, although in government, noted a decrease compared to the previous period. The most notable increases were recorded by PSD, with over 27%, and UDMR, with over 130%, marking the first time that the party led by Kelemen Hunor surpasses AUR in ranking.

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 ability of political actors to penetrate the online space, directly compared to their competitors.
The total volume of mentions about the top five parties, as well as their projected impact, recorded an increase compared to last week, continuing the trend observed in the previous period. PSD and PNL account for nearly 70% of the total mentions and over 60% of the projected impact, confirming their central position on the agenda of online sources in recent days. This high visibility has been significantly influenced by the dispute regarding the reform of local administration, in which representatives of the two parties were the main protagonists.

NewsVibe Graphs. 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 us:
• A solid core built around PSD, related to terms such as Sorin Grindeanu, Ilie Bolojan, Kelemen Hunor, Nicușor Dan, or Government, which mainly reflects discussions on governance measures and, in particular, those aimed at the reform of local public administration by PSD (which has returned to the discussion table).
• Another important core is generated around PNL, primarily, and USR, related both to elements concerning the Government's responsibility engagement in Parliament, such as the Plenary of Parliament, as well as to exchanges of remarks between the two political areas, on the topic of elections for the Capital City Hall, through terms such as Bucharest or Ciprian Ciucu.
• An important center of convergence with all areas is Romania, even though in its proximity is primarily AUR and resulting terms from various subjects that have gravitated around this party in recent days – announcements regarding the submission of censure motions against the Bolojan Government, but also accusations that it encourages extremist behaviors in society, formulated by other political actors.
• Two smaller, isolated cores are also noted, around institutions such as ASF and ANRE, targeted by reforms, or Beijing, which captures reactions of internal actors to the Summit in China, where Vladimir Putin also participated.

SENTIMENT. The NewsVibe platform has created an advanced automated sentiment analysis system, which uses specially trained AI algorithms and LLM tools to detect nuances of tone – favorable, unfavorable, or neutral – in the context of references to relevant entities for 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 us:
• PSD remains at the center of a media coverage dominated by tense and polarizing contexts during this period. These contexts have been generated by online conversations about tensions within the coalition, especially regarding the reform of local administration.
• Ilie Bolojan and USR also find themselves in predominantly negative online coverage, but less pronounced than in the case of PSD.
• For both PNL and AUR, mentions in tense contexts also predominate.
• As noted before, the presentation of political actors within the parties in predominantly positive contexts tends to be more of an exception, considering the recent events on the public stage, marked by both political and social tensions.

*****Synthesis made 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.