Annals of the „Constantin Brâncuşi” University of Târgu Jiu, Economy Series, Issue 4/2018 „ACADEMICA BRÂNCUŞI” PUBLISHER, ISSN 2344 – 3685/ISSN-L 1844 - 7007 USER MOBILIZATION AND PARTICIPATION IN ONLINE POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS. A CASE STUDY FROM ROMANIA ANDRA ANDRONICIUC PHD CANDIDATE, ALEXANDRU IOAN CUZA UNIVERSITY OF IASI, ROMANIA andra.androniciuc@gmail.com ANA MARGARIDA BARRETO ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, UNIVERSIDADE NOVA DE LISBOA, PORTUGAL ambarreto@fcsh.unl.pt Abstract 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. Key words: social media, Romania, political campaigns, elections JEL Classification: M31 1. Introduction The surprising evolution of the internet caught the attention of political actors, who started to incorporate this new medium into their campaigns (Williams & Gulati, 2007; Wattal, Schuff, Mandviwalla, & Williams, 2010; Towner & Dulio, 2011). From the perspective of political institutions, using social media in political communication is essential, especially in the context of electoral campaigns. Zeng et al. (2010) argue that social media are very useful to evaluate public opinion on public policy and to create community support for candidates. During the recent years, the evolution of political communication has shown that modern politicians are open to using social networks to communicate directly with their electorate. Often, the main purpose of using social networks is to inform citizens about policy initiatives and to engage in direct conversation with them. The use of the Internet for political communication has begun in the United States of America, Aparaschivei (2011) identifying 1992 as the year of a new communication approach in electoral campaigns. Since that year, candidates have begun to publish their online discourses and discover the benefits of this new medium of communication. The year 2000 is an important milestone in the evolution of online communication, candidates starting to use campaign websites as well as email marketing. In 2004, the political blogs emerged and in 2006 social networks started to be integrated in political communication. In Romania, social networks started to be used in 2008, but it was not until 2012 elections that political actors actively integrated them in their communication strategy. The current study is the only one of this kind as it takes a look at both the 2014 and 2016 elections, in an attempt to see if the Romanian politicians enabled participation and mobilization in their online campaigns. 155