User mobilization and participation in online political campaigns, a case study from Roamnia

The rapid development of the internet and online social networks, together with the increasing number of users
have led to a growing use of online social networks in the political field both by citizens and political actors. In this context,
more and more studies have started to argue the use of social media as stimulators of dialogue, interactivity and feedback.
Even if the literature on this subject is extensive for the Western democracies, the case is different for the emerging
democracies, like Romania. Therefore, this paper aims at gaining insight into the use of online social networks by
Romanian political actors as triggers of online participation and mobilization, namely engagement manifested through
Facebook buttons like, comment and share. In order to do so, we selected the Romanian political campaigns from 2014
(presidential elections) and 2016 (parliamentary elections) and conducted a content and statistical analysis on the posts
published on politicians’ official Facebook pages over the four weeks leading up to Election Day. Our findings indicate that
the political actors put their efforts into spreading information but mostly missed the opportunity offered by this network to
trigger mobilization and participation.