Political communication in the online media of the Romanian election candidates to the European Parliament (2014)

Election campaigns are key moments of the public life when parties, politicians, and constituents interact: the parties and the politicians use their political communication and marketing ammunition to convince the constituents; the later, by way of their votes, decide the winners at the end of some intense communication and persuasion campaigns. After the integration in the European Union, Romania already experienced two waves of elections for the European Parliament in 2007 and 2009, while the third wave, in 2014, has imposed 32 European deputies proposed by our country. The political stage was dominated in this period by an European agenda that is more and more present in the mass media or in political debates, but also by a modest participation in the popular vote (under the EU average). The most frequent themes encountered in public debates were centred on the control of the European institutions regarding Romania and the eternal problem of the integration in the Schengen area. Our research is aimed at an exploratory descriptive analysis to highlight the new media channels that were the most used and their mode of use during the third wave of European elections. The used methodology is firstly an analysis of the content in the election materials of the Romanian candidates. We attempt to emphasize the new media channel that was the most used and the way the pro-European discourse in the Romanian political space is taking shape.