EIRP Proceedings, Vol 6 (2011)

Abstract

This study presents the 2009 Romanian presidential elections and the way in which the
candidates interacted with the new communication technologies. After the first research conducted on the
2004 online electoral campaigns, we noticed that, in Romania, the degree of alphabetization and political
participation (the number of people knowing how to read and write, or the number of those effectively
participating at the poll) is just as small as it was after the mass internet was introduced and after the
number of internet subscribers increased. We observed that the websites and blogs with the highest traffic
are the entertainment dedicated ones, the tabloids, and not the cultural ones, not the quality online press.
This research intends to clear up whether in Romania social media are rather helping the moderate
candidates or the extremist candidates – from an electoral point of view. This article will be incorporated in
the research called Electoral Communication in Romania after 1989. Old and New Technologies in
Presidential Campaigns which is part of the post-doctoral program POSDRU/89/1.5/S/62259, Sociohuman
and political applied sciences. Post-doctoral training program and post-doctoral research
scholarships in the field of the socio-human and political sciences.