The impact of social media on online political engagement using sentiment analysis in the 2014 Romanian presidential elections

The purpose of the present paper is to conduct sentiment analysis on discussions that took place via social media during the 2014 Romanian presidential elections to understand the context and role of online engagement. The... [ view full abstract ]

The purpose of the present paper is to conduct sentiment analysis on discussions that took place via social media during the 2014 Romanian presidential elections to understand the context and role of online engagement. The period of conducting sentiment analysis on social media via Brandwatch rages from 15th October 2014 to 30th of November 2014.
It was found that the general tone about the Romanian presidential elections online is positive to start with, followed by the rise of a more negative tone in the second round. It is believed that the negative tone is linked to the dissatisfaction of the diaspora with the polling provisions in large European cities as London, Rome which gave rise to videos, posts and comments of social media showing huge queues at the few polling stations. It is also thought that these posts triggered a mobilisation of the traditionally a-political electorate in Romania to vote, in solidarity with the huge amount of people queuing to vote abroad and many not given the chance to vote at all.
It is hoped that the study contributes to increasing knowledge about the usage of social media in democratic countries.
Keywords: social media, presidential elections, political participation, engagement, Romania