Electoral Confrontation on Social Media Platforms: Political Communication and Institutional Contestation in Romania (2025)

Social media platforms have become central arenas for political communication, electoral mobilization, and institutional contestation. This study examines how TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram were used during and after the 2025 Romanian presidential elections to circulate populist, sovereignist, and anti-institutional narratives. Drawing on a mixed-method content analysis of 764 public posts and over 2000 associated comments collected between 1 April and 30 June 2025, the study identifies dominant themes, discursive frames, and forms of user participation across platforms. The findings reveal marked platform-specific differences. TikTok emerges as the primary space for emotionally charged, visually oriented political communication and post-electoral contestation, while Facebook facilitates more argumentative and institution-focused discourse. Instagram plays a marginal role in political communication within the analyzed context. The results further indicate that content challenging the legitimacy of electoral institutions persists beyond the electoral moment and is amplified through coordinated dissemination patterns and interactive forms of participation, including AI-modified visual materials. By integrating thematic, discursive, and participatory analysis in a comparative platform framework, this study contributes to the literature on digital political communication and online populism. It highlights the role of social media platforms as amplifiers of symbolic conflict in democracies undergoing processes of institutional consolidation.