News Focus: The crime that shocked Romania: the Cosmopolis murder. Impact online
The murder of young Teodora Marcu, shot dead on the street in the Cosmopolis residential complex, was the shocking event of the last period. The murder has generated widespread reactions, including from opinion formers and political leaders, analysis on how such tragedies can be prevented, protests and legislative initiatives.
The strong impact of this case was also reflected in the online space, where, in just 11 days, the topic registered more than 3,600 mentions in the most relevant online sources, with an estimated impact of almost 50 million views, according to data extracted and processed with the help of NewsVibe, an advanced media intelligence platform.
The peak of visibility was reached immediately after the crime was committed, when the collective emotion was strongly felt in the media and in public reactions.
As often happens with such events, after the initial shock, interest gradually wanes even when there are developments - for example, the funeral of Theodora Marcu did not bring a comparable new wave of media coverage.
Grafic NewsVibe. Evolution in the number of mentions of the Cosmopolis murder and their total impact from May 30 to June 9
Predominant sources
The top sources that mentioned the Cosmopolis murder the most are dominated, to a very large extent, by Facebook pages and tabloid and social media sites. Of these, the Facebook pages Revista Viva! and WOWWbiz.ro, each with over 100 mentions, and the Cancan website, also with over 100 mentions, stand out. None of the sources in the top 15 had fewer than 50 mentions of the Cosmopolis murder.
One explanation for the intense media coverage of the case in tabloid online sources is that the victim was a former TV show contestant.
General or news publications (such as Libertatea or Stirile Kanal D) are also among the top.
Grafic NewsVibe. Top relevant web sources that covered the Cosmopolis murder from May 30 to June 9
Top keywords mentioned
The most frequent entities associated with the Cosmopolis murder are Teodora Marcu (the victim), Robert Lupu (the perpetrator), the name of the real estate complex where the tragic event took place - Cosmopolis, Insula Iubirii (the show in which the victim had participated in the past), Ilfov (the county where the residential complex is located) or Alex Marcu (the victim's husband).
Secondarily, there are also associations with names of political leaders who have had reactions on the subject, such as Cătălin Predoiu or Nicușor Dan, as well as with protests organized after this event (e.g. Piața Victoriei).
Graphic NewsVibe. Top entities mentioned in the context of Cosmopolis murder mentions from May 30 to June 9
Evaluating the tone of communication
The NewsVibe platform has created an advanced sentiment analysis system that uses artificial intelligence, specially trained algorithms, and LLM 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. Automated evaluation of the tone of the online conversation about the Cosmopolis murder from May 30 to June 9
The tone of online conversation around the topic was deeply negative. Nearly 50% of the mentions that reflected a clearly expressed tone were negative - a very rare proportion, indicating a highly polarized public debate.
Emoji and hashtags
The most commonly used emoji in social media posts express deep sadness, sorrow, regret, alertness or breaking news.
The dominant sentiment in these posts is clearly one of collective grief and shock, with a clear proportion of emoji depicting explicit emotions.
Grafic NewsVibe. Top emoji used on Facebook in conversations about the Cosmopolis murder from May 30 to June 9
The most used hashtags in social media posts where such elements were used were #cosmopolis, #crime, #robertlupu, #teodoramarcu and #insulaiubirii.
These posts indicate an increased interest of the sources in the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator.
Grafic NewsVibe. Top hashtags used on Facebook in conversations about the Cosmopolis murder from May 30 to June 9
The tragedy in the residential complex in Ilfov has generated a strong wave of emotional reactions in the online space. The high visibility, the dominant negative tone and the focus on personal details reflect the profound impact that such events can have on society.
*****Syndicated using a monitoring feed provided by NewsVibe Romania. The analysis, data and images presented were enhanced with Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence tools.
