E-Politics. Top Romanian MEPs active online

Over the last month, the communication of Romania's newly elected MEPs reached peaks in terms of volume on the days associated with the European elections and on the day of the decisive match Romania - Slovakia at Euro 2024, while the rest of the time the pace of their Facebook communication was lower. Diana Șoșoaca definitely dominated in terms of frequency of posts, but in terms of their estimated impact, Luis Lazarus takes the first position, due to the large number of followers on this channel, according to data processed and analyzed by the media intelligence platform NewsVibe from relevant online sources.

Graphic NewsVibe. Evolution of the volume of Facebook posts of the new Romanian MEPs in the last month.

The absolute leader in terms of intensity of communication is the MEP elected from SOS, Diana Șoșoaca, who has posted at least double the volume of posts in the last month compared to the next top-ranked MEPs, Gheorghe Piperea and Maria Grapini.

Grafic NewsVibe. Most prolific Romanian MEPs, by number of Facebook posts in the last month

In contrast, the ranking by impact - i.e. the potential audience reached by these posts - is led by Luis Lazarus, followed by Gabriela Firea and Diana Șoșoaca. They have Facebook pages with large numbers of followers and, therefore, high estimated impact. In addition to the two SOS representatives, three MEPs elected from the AUR are also in the top 10 in terms of estimated impact.

Grafic NewsVibe. The most popular Romanian MEPs, by estimated impact of Facebook pages in the last month

The most frequently used terms in Romanian MEPs' posts are associated with the institution they represent, but also with the parties they belong to, with PSD and PNL being mentioned more than UDMR.

Graphic NewsVibe. The most frequently used keywords in Romanian MEPs' Facebook communication over the last month

The domains they communicated more intensively about during the period analyzed are Elections, Domestic Policy and Europe, as well as "Facts", which mainly groups their posts on personal, extra-professional topics, including birthdays, attending family events or weekend posts.

Graphic NewsVibe. Topics Romanian MEPs have posted most about in the last month

The extension of the election-specific discourse with slogan-like formulations is noticeable in the analysis of the main hashtags included in MEPs' posts. Here we also notice a sustained effort of communication on the part of Claudiu Târziu, as well as the visibility of some hashtags denoting conservative messages (#unitipentrufamilie, #familiatraditionala).

Grafic NewsVibe. Top hashtags used in the communication of Romanian MEPs in the last month.

Note. 32 Romanian MEPs with active and public Facebook pages were included in the analysis.