Browsing by Author "Radu, Loredana"

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Fake News or Disinformation 2.0? Some Insights into Romanians’ Digital Behaviour
(European Institute of Romania, 2018-06) Bârgăoanu, Alina; Radu, Loredana
This paper focuses on digital behaviour, self-assessment of vulnerabilities to digital disinformation, and patterns of trust as exposed by Romanian citizens. By corroborating the data of the first national public opinion survey on fake news and disinformation (implemented between February and March 2018) with the Special Eurobarometer no. 464 – Fake News and Disinformation Online – implemented in the same time frame (February 2018), we capture the perceptions and attitudes of Romanian citizens over the use of new media and news trustworthiness, and we also compare the Romanians’ online behaviour with the average European’s. As similar research reveals, digital disinformation affects resilience of citizens in Member States and in the European Union overall, it “threatens the democratic political processes and values” (European Commission, 2018: 12), the integrity of elections and political processes, and should therefore, be approached as a legitimate public concern. Our paper opens the floor for more dedicated research and applied policies - at both the Member States and EU levels - aimed at mitigating the rising and ever worrying fake news phenomenon.
THE 2014 EUROPEAN ELECTIONS IN ROMANIA. TRANSLATING LOW MEDIA SALIENCE INTO ELECTORAL ”SILENCE”?
("Ștefan cel Mare" Univeristy of Suceava Publishing House, Romania, 2016) Radu, Loredana; Lupescu, Liliana; Durach, Flavia; Pîrvan, Mirela
European Elections are often perceived as ”second-order” elections, thus enjoying lower visibility and turnout than national/presidential elections. According to the specialized literature, this might be due to the fact the EU is usually seen by the electorate (i.e. citizens of the member states) as a far away issue, out of its core area of concern, a phenomenon rooted, for example, into a low degree of europeanization of the national public spheres (Delanty, 2007) or poor European leadership (Habermas, 2012). This paper aims at exploring how European Elections have been approached by the five most popular TV channels in Romania: TVR1, PRIMA TV, Antena 1, Kanal D, and PRO TV. Our paper builds on an extensive content analysis of all of the 3257 prime time news broadcasted by these TV channels between April 25 and May 25 (i.e. during the electoral campaign). Our research focuses on media salience of European Elections, as well as on the key actors present in these news.
The Rise of Euroscepticism in Times of Crisis. Evidence from the 2008–2013 Eurobarometers
(College of Communication and Public Relations, NUPSPA, 2014) Bârgăoanu, Alina; Radu, Loredana; Negrea-Busuioc, Elena
The financial and economic turmoil within the European Union has significantly impacted upon the way in which the European citizens assess the advantages of EU membership and the future of the integration process. Intensely preoccupied with the economic problems, the EU leadership has lost sight of the constant decrease of public support and the increasing lack of citizens’ confidence in the Union. This paper seeks to show the dynamics of public opinion between 2008 and 2013 with a special focus on the rise of Euroscepticism, using secondary data analysis of standard Eurobarometers. Our longitudinal analysis reveals the dynamics of EU-related attitudes and perceptions before, during, and after most of events that are usually labeled under the rather generic term “crisis”.
‘They can’t fool me, but they can fool the others!’ Third person effect and fake news detection
(SAGE Publications, 2020) Corbu, Nicoleta; Oprea, Denisa Adriana; Negrea-Busuioc, Elena; Radu, Loredana
The aftermath of the 2016 US Presidential Elections and the Brexit campaign in Europe have opened the floor to heated debates about fake news and the dangers that these phenomena pose to elections and to democracy, in general. Despite a growing body of scholarly literature on fake news and its close relatives misinformation, disinformation or, more encompassing, communication and information disorders, few studies have so far attempted to empirically account for the effects that fake news might have, especially with respect to what communication scholars call the third person effect. This study aims to provide empirical evidence for the third person effect in the case of people’s self-perceived ability to detect fake news and of their perception of others’ ability to detect it. Based on a survey run in August 2018 and comprising a national, diverse sample of Romanian adults (N = 813), this research reveals that there is a significant third person effect regarding people’s self-reported ability to spot fake news and that this effect is stronger when people compare their fake news detection literacy to that of distant others than to that close others. Furthermore, this study shows that the most important predictors of third person effect related to fake news detection are education, income, interest in politics, Facebook dependency and confirmation bias, with age being a non-significant predictor.