Dimensiunea mediatică a populismului în România contemporană
The Media Dimension of Populism in Contemporary Romania

Summary/Abstract: The article explores the hypothesis that democratic deficit has decisively influenced both the evolution of the media and democracy in post communist Romania. I underline the positioning of citizens “outside” the media and political games whose stake is the establishment of the public agenda. I show the difficulties of establishing a public space as a container of relevant issues and debates. The participation of the citizens and the democratic values kept the pace – when not directly influenced – with the institutional dysfunctions of Romania’s fragile democracy. Another source for politicization is a new type of journalistic discourse that mirrors the political area, namely the populist discourse. I am also interested in the manner in which populism is disseminated across the public space through the media. A distinction is made between “populism expressed by the media” and “populism through the media”. It follows the analysis of what I call “multimedia populism” or “E populism”. The latter combines “citizen journalism” encouraged by the classical media and the attempts of these outlets to gain visibility on social networks.

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