Romanian Rezist Protest. How Facebook Helps Fight Political Corruption

Abstract

Immediately after the parliamentary elections in December 2016, the Social Democratic Party wants to amend the criminal legislation and pardon through an revolting ordinance, which caused a third wave of protests in post-December Romania. The core of the protests was made of social activists who held the position of network nodes, had previous experience and acted as rallying coagulant factors in the January-February 2017 events. In the present study, we focused our attention only on the online community: Corruption kills (in Romanian: Coruptia ucide), this being the oldest and most active in the Romanian social media. We wanted to show to what extent the representatives of this community managed to: a) increase the number of fans (involved) who supported the cause of the anti-corruption protests; and b) how Facebook was used as an interactive communication tool for users between January and February 2017. The Corruption Kills Community was perceived as a powerful tool of organization and rallying in the 2017 protest.

Modeling Social Media Effects on Non-Electoral Participation in Morocco

“…Lerner (2010) takes a very skeptical stance, arguing that the Internet offers no solution to the threats that social movements face and emphasizes that blogs and websites are in no way involved in the democratization of the country because Anti-democratic forces and the government also have access to information and communication technologies. In contrast, many studies such as Shirky (2011) and Patrut and Stoica (2019) show that social media has had a great effect on protest political activity. Jurgenson (2012) states that social media organizes actions and distributes news; however, the goals of the protest come from the outside world (such as education, health care, economic inefficiency, and corruption).…”

“…In a despotic regime, rather than the social media being a direct cause of distrust and protest, social media is the conduit for the flow of information that can stimulate these attitudes by reducing trust in the government. Patrut and Stoica (2019) points to the link between political corruption and distrust of the government and subsequently the role of social media in launching protest movements. It shows that social networks have played an important role in organizing Romanian political protests.…”