NEWS FOCUS: The online conversation about austerity. Impact, tone, keywords
The last month has been marked by intense public and media debates about the measures that could be taken to reduce the budget deficit. The common denominator of all these discussions has been that Romania is in a difficult situation and that unpopular decisions will be needed. After the installation of the new government led by Ilie Bolojan, the first concrete plan of measures was announced, and yesterday the new executive committed itself to Parliament for these measures.
In this analysis, we aim to highlight how the concept of austerity has been associated with the online conversation about deficit reduction measures. In other words, we are interested in whether this concept was central or marginal to the debate.
Austerity is an economic and political concept that refers to a set of policies whereby a government cuts public spending, raises taxes, or applies other restrictive measures to reduce budget deficits and public debt. The aim of austerity is to stabilize government finances and regain the confidence of markets and creditors. However, these measures can have negative effects on the economy in the short term, such as reduced consumption, rising unemployment and reduced public services. Austerity is generally applied in times of economic crisis or when public debt reaches levels considered unsustainable.
According to data aggregated and analyzed with NewsVibe, an AI-powered media intelligence platform, austerity has been one of the central concepts used in the online space to define deficit reduction policies, especially after their announcement. We are talking about almost 4,000 mentions of the concept, which generated an estimated 67 million views.
Graphic NewsVibe. Changes in the number of mentions of austerity and their total impact over the last month
Predominant sources
The top most frequently used sources are dominated by generalist and news websites, as well as Facebook pages associated with these online sources. Among these, the Adevărul, EVZ.ro, Ziare.com and Romania websites stand out, as well as the Facebook pages stiripesurse.ro, Sinteza Zilei Oficial and Sinteza Zilei Oficial and Stiri Antena 3 CNN.
Notable absence of economic sources from this top. This is not to say that mentions are completely missing from such sources, but indicates that the mainstream press has much more intensively publicized the concept of austerity in the context of discussions about deficit reduction measures.
Grafic NewsVibe. Top relevant web sources on austerity in the last month
Top keywords mentioned
The entities that were most frequently mentioned in the context of references to the concept of austerity in articles from web sources and Facebook posts are Romania, Ilie Bolojan, Government, Parliament, Bolojan government, Nicusor Dan, PSD, AUR, PNL, USR.
The associations are, therefore, with those presented in the online conversations as the decision-makers on deficit reduction measures - where the Prime Minister Bolojan and the Government he leads, together with the President Nicusor Dan - and the main opposition voice, represented by AUR, stand out.
Only secondary are associations with trade unions - confederations and leaders of trade union confederations.
Grafic NewsVibe. Top entities mentioned in the context of austerity mentions in the last month
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 austerity in the last month
Discussion about deficit reduction measures, when defined as austerity, is highly polarized and with a pronounced negative undertone. This is characteristic of a context with numerous disputes in the public space, with attacks and criticisms of the measures decided by the government, but also with various forms of protests.
On very rare are the occasions when the context of the online conversation about a topic is as negative as in this case - only 50% of mentions are classified as neutral, and 49% are classified as negative. These data indicate a very intense tone of debate in the space of the most relevant online sources in Romania.
Emoji and hashtags
The most used emoji in Facebook posts where the concept of austerity was used in relation to deficit reduction measures symbolize alertness, economy, money, breaking news or protests.
Grafic NewsVibe. Top emoji used on Facebook in conversations about austerity in the last month
The most frequently used hashtags in social media posts in which the concept of austerity was used in relation to deficit reduction measures are #government, #romania, #bolojan, #economy, #iliebolojan.
Hashtags are also seen, secondarily, that indicate the existence of protest posts against government measures - #farauasteritate, #stopausteritatii - or associated with trade union organizations - #bloculnationalsindical.
Grafic NewsVibe. Top hashtags used on Facebook in conversations about austerity in the last month
The concept of austerity has become a central benchmark in online conversations about deficit reduction measures, generating a wave of backlash and a high intensity of public debate. The analysis clearly shows how strong the emotional impact of the topic is and how sensitive the context is in public communication.
*****Synthesis made with the help of a monitoring feed provided by NewsVibe Romania. The analysis, data and images presented were enhanced with Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence tools.
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