(iPoster) Coverage of Romania’s Presidential Elections and Macro- and Meso-Level Factors

• In Event: Poster Sessions: Polarization, Identity, and Democratic Vulnerability & Political Communication I
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Political Communication I

Abstract

Going into 2024, a year with elections at every level in Romania, influential expert observers (Nord et al, 2025) and journalists (Ionita, 2024, Turturica, 2024) saw the country as standing at a democratic crossroads. Considering a significant rise in inflation, hints of democratic regression, the emergence of new populist parties, and a purported rise in cyber attacks and informational warfare, leading journalists declared that in 2024, the media's democratic mission was particularly important. This paper asks whether the media fell short and, if so, why. As such, it has both descriptive and causal objectives, looking at coverage patterns and testing theory-driven hypotheses about its determinants, thereby contributing to ongoing debates about the roots and appropriate remedies for media shortcomings in democracy under threat.

The 2024 Romanian presidential election is an interesting test case for how and why media fell short of normative expectations for at least two reasons. First, mainstream media appeared to miss the meteoric rise of political newcomer Calin Georgescu, a virtual unknown with a radical populist-nationalist agenda, who shocked large swaths of the country by becoming runner up in the initial round of the presidential election in December 2024. A development that due to novelty and impact met multiple newsworthiness criteria (Harcup & O’Neill, 2017, Schulz, 2007), as well as being democratically relevant (Zaller, 2003, Williams & Delli Carpini, 2001). Second, in what disputing factions characterized as an attack on democracy or, conversely, as a last-ditch rescue operation, the Constitutional Court nullified the first round results and called for a re-do, citing corruption of the information environment by foreign-backed pro-Georgescu cyber campaigns. In such unprecedented times, did the media break with past coverage habits or choose continuity? Did it act like a “watchdog” (Mellado, 2015, Waisbord, 2000) or take a non-interventionist or even a cooperative approach to state institutions (Mellado, 2015, Mellado et al., 2020) and why?

The paper analyzes the election-related coverage and organizational practices of four market-leading outlets, during two election cycles: 2019 and 2024. The outlets are: 1) Pro TV, a Romanian broadcast channel owned by European conglomerate CME; 2) Hotnews, a Romanian digital native news and public affairs website; 3) Libertatea, a national tabloid newspaper, digital-only since 2024; and 4) Adevarul, one of the few remaining national print newspapers.

The paper deploys a design-based supervised learning (DSL) method for large language model-assisted coding of news content (Benoit et al., 2025, Choi et al., 2025, Egami et al., 2024) for substantive coverage and policy area representation (Boydstun et al., 2020) and journalistic roles enacted (Mellado et al, 2020). Three theoretically- and normatively relevant clusters are followed: 1) Substance (substantive coverage; coverage of presidential/democracy-relevant topics: democratic institutions and balance of power, rights and rule of law, and foreign policy; personalization of coverage; coverage of political corruption/ethics); 2) Form/style (sensationalism, length); and 3) Relationship to power: (non)“interventionism”as a journalistic approach; (non)adversarial positioning towards authorities or business elites; amount, types and plurality of sources cited. It exploits the passage of time and between-outlet differences to look for evidence of macro- and meso-level influences on journalistic output, according to the hierarchy of influences (Shoemaker and Reese, 1996, 2014). At the macro level, it focuses on the messaging from the EU and key national institutions (e.g. the National Defense Council); and the meso-level, on organizational resources allocation; routine practices in political coverage; ideological leaning and market positioning (especially business model and audience profile).

Reference list at this link: https://eui1-my.sharepoint.com/:w:/g/personal/raluca_toma_eui_eu/IQAV1UKudU7fRY0Srz1B2IbTAZyRsK9mfkIgoo6i-zWHKLU?e=Q0dfd6

Author

• Raluca Toma, European University Institute