NEWS FOCUS: Elena Udrea, released from prison. Impact and trends in online conversation
Elena Udrea's parole after four years in prison was one of the main media events of the last week. According to data from NewsVibe, an AI-supported media monitoring platform, of the approximately 3,000 mentions of Elena Udrea in the most relevant online sources in the last month, more than 1,300 were concentrated in the last week, most of them on the very day of her release. Interest from online sources - and the media in general - has been very high. Similarly, almost half of the impact (the volume of estimated views) in the last month was generated by content published in the last few days.
The day of the release drew much more attention from online sources than the surgery Elena Udrea underwent in recent weeks or the initial court decision, which had given the first signal that the former political leader could be released on parole.
Graphic NewsVibe. Evolution in the number of mentions of Elena Udrea and their total impact over the last month
Predominant sources
At the level of the sources that mentioned Elena Udrea the most in the last week, a mix of generalist, news, social and tabloid digital platforms stands out. There are also numerous Facebook pages associated with these types of media sources.
Revista VIVA!, Libertatea and Libertatea pentru Femei Facebook pages, as well as the BZI.ro website, each of which recorded more than 20 mentions of Elena Udrea. In particular, the top two spots stand out, with over 60 and over 40 mentions respectively.
Grafic NewsVibe. Top relevant online sources that have covered Elena Udrea in the last week
Top keywords mentioned
The entities most frequently associated with Elena Udrea, in articles from web sources and social media posts, are: Tribunal Prahova (the court that decided her release), Penitenciarul Târgșor (where Elena Udrea was incarcerated), Adrian Alexandrov (her partner), Ploiești, DNA Ploiești, Judecătoria Ploiești and Gala Bute (the subject of the case in which the former political leader was convicted).
On a marginal level, the names of public personalities such as Dana Budeanu, Gigi Becali, Florian Coldea or Traian Băsescu also appear.
Grafic NewsVibe. Top entities mentioned in the context of references to Elena Udrea in the last week
Evaluating the tone of communication
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. Automatically assessing the tone of online conversation about Elena Udrea over the past week
Although the majority of mentions about Elena Udrea are categorized by the NewsVibe algorithm as neutral (84%), the proportion of positive mentions is slightly higher than negative mentions (9% vs. 7%).
The positive media coverage was mainly generated by aspects of personal life - such as the relationship with a daughter or life partner. These topics have been intensively covered by tabloid sources, which have paid special attention to Elena Udrea in recent days.
Emoji and hashtags
The most commonly used emoji in Facebook posts mentioning Elena Udrea symbolize breaking news, awe, emotion, sadness or, in general, news.
Grafic NewsVibe. Top emoji used on Facebook in online conversations about Elena Udrea in the last week
The most frequently used hashtags in Facebook posts in which Elena Udrea was mentioned are: #justiție, #corupție, #eliberare, #libertate, #eliberata, #controverse, #liberare and #dna.
It is worth noting the presence of several hashtags that refer, in fact, to the accusations against Elena Udrea.
Grafic NewsVibe. Top hashtags used on Facebook in online conversations about Elena Udrea, in the last week
Elena Udrea's parole has temporarily put her back in the media spotlight, generating a significant spike in mentions and reactions online, especially in the area of tabloid and mainstream sources. However, interest remains focused on exceptional moments in her life without a constant presence in online conversations.
*****Summary compiled using a monitoring feed provided by the media monitoring platform NewsVibe Romania. The analysis, data and images presented have been enhanced using Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence tools.
