Online political communication: a war between the media and politicians?

Politicians can no longer ignore the power of online media. While some platforms - such as YouTube - are “an enduring source of embarrassment” for them, as Craig showed in “You Tube: Political Headache”, others are weapons of attack in an attempt to win electorate.


The Romanian presidential elections of last year were filled with examples of politicians using social and online media in the battle for winning the highest position in the state. They set up Twitter accounts and created blogs, websites and Facebook pages. I have to specify that youths are generally reached with these instruments in Romania in contrast with the UK where even elderly people know what a tweet is.

But since we are talking about wars between the media and politicians I will stop at two episodes from the elections series.

Traian Basescu versus the TV

The former and yet present president of Romania, Traian Basescu, has (like any other politician one may say) supporters and enemies. Among the most important enemies we find highly influential TV hosts Mircea Badea, Mihai Gadea and Valentin Stan (let’s call them ‘the three musketeers’). Under the slogan “Are you voting the TV?” Traian Basescu ran a campaign in November 2009 meant to show people that his statements are misinterpreted and negatively commented by the three, claiming voters should not let themselves influenced by the TV. The campaign benefited from a website (URL reading ‘television as president’) where parody videos involving the musketeers were uploaded (which of course highly circulated on the internet as well). The parody with Mircea Badea, presenter of “In gura presei” pamphlet press review show, depicted Train Basescu making the ‘simple’ statement “It is raining outside” and the musketeer negatively interpreting the sentence. The reply soon came and Mircea Badea reversed the script during a live TV show. In the new ‘play’ Badea asked Basescu questions regarding controversial topics implicating the president, who simply answered “It is raining outside”. The “war” was highly covered in Romanian media – online and offline. You can see all the videos here but unfortunately the recordings are in Romanian.

Social media is green...or maybe not

The Green Party entered the Romanian political scenery with the occasion of the 2009 presidential elections. They were “fresh” and so was the leader Remus Cernea. He gained electorate, especially teenagers, using social media. At one point, the party sent a press release announcing the green candidate leads the polls on the internet, being among the most covered politicians in the online medium. A journalist from “Academia Catavencu” pamphlet publication made fun of him saying he was good on the internet because he had nothing else to do all day given the fact that he lived with his parents. Email exchanges followed between the journalist and the campaign staff member (this was an indirect "war"). The editor at “Academia Catavencu” continued to make fun asking whether Remus Cernea had his own room in his parents’ house.

Given the above I must say that online political communication has both pros and cons. And the online media represents the battlefield between journalists/media representatives and politicians, politicians and politicians, politicians and enemies and so on.

Update: FYI - Remus Cernea is the first and only Romanian politician in the top 1000 politicians worldwide on Facebook in terms of number of fans, ranking 783 at the end of March (858 at the beginning of the month).