Protest, Citizen Engagement and The Coproduction of Political Communication: The Case of Romania’s 2014 Presidential Elections

Abstract

This article examines how voters and politicians interact through social media to communicate salient issues in highly mobilising contexts, such as elections and protests. It analyses the case of Romania’s 2014 presidential elections, where voters played an active role in promoting themes that candidates had not initially addressed in their campaigns. Two topics emerged as particularly important from the voters’ perspective: systemic corruption and accusations of the government deliberately hindering the voting process in Romanian diaspora communities. A mixed approach of automated and manual content analysis of user comments and campaign materials on social media reveals that, while it is difficult to make precise causal claims, voter demands with regards to these topics had an active role in influencing changes in candidates’ campaign strategies.