Romanian Public Intellectuals and Their Use of New Media
Romanian Public Intellectuals and Their Use of New Media

Summary/Abstract: This article attempts to determine if there is a category that we can call “new media intellectuals” among the Romanian “public intellectuals” (Jacoby 1987, Posner 2009). I will analyze how Romanian public intellectuals who used to be very present in the traditional media (written press, television) in the last decade of the 20th century and in the first decade of the 21st century managed to adapt their practices to the new media: do they publish online? Do they have their own sites/blogs? Are they present on social media and if yes in which one? What is the frequency of their online posting? And what is their audience? Is there a generational distinction in using these new media? Is it possible to identify different types of public intellectuals according to their use of new media? I will analyze the presence in the new media for ten public Romanian intellectuals during October 2014 (an electoral month), intellectuals who can be categorized as “public” and who have been previously very present in the traditional media, the aim being to understand if they made the transition to new media and how. Our hypothesis is that this adaptation to new media is made according to different variables as their age, their political ambition or their implication in public debates.

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