Elections and Voter Behaviour in Romania. Campaign Personalization, Media Influence, and the Rise of the Digital Voter

Elections and Voter Behaviour in Romania examines how electoral choice has been reshaped by campaign personalization, media influence, and the rise of the digital voter in a post-communist democracy marked by volatility. Building on classic debates on social cleavages, dealignment, and short-term campaign effects, the book shows how weak partisan attachments and shifting media environments make Romanian voters especially sensitive to contingent influences. It traces the continued agenda-setting role of television while documenting how social media platforms, from Facebook in diaspora mobilization to TikTok in the annulled 2024 presidential first round, have transformed how citizens encounter information, form opinions, and participate politically. Special attention is paid to AI-driven and algorithmic management of political visibility (who gets seen by whom, how often, and through which channels), recommender systems (feed ranking), coordinated online manipulation, platform governance, alongside the spread of disinformation and challenges of information integrity. By combining perspectives from electoral studies, political communication, and governance research, the volume links vote change and media consumption to broader challenges of democratic accountability, populism, clientelism, and information disorder. Romania becomes a lens for understanding democratic elections under digital disruption and geopolitical pressure.