THE MEDIA AGENDA RECONFIGURATION
OF TELEVISED POLITICAL NEWS
IN THE DIGITAL ECOSYSTEM.
THE CASE OF THE PRE-CAMPAIGN
OF THE 2024 EUROPEAN PARLIAMENTARY
AND LOCAL ELECTIONS IN ROMANIA

**Abstract.** In the context of continuous technological development, the current literature discusses the reconfiguration of televised news due to the impact of the Internet, with an emphasis on aspects such as the recursiveness of information and the fragmentation of media content. This study examines the ways in which TV networks integrate digital practices in creating electoral communication when they transpose televised political news to the digital environment. The analytical framework privileges theoretical approaches that discuss media convergence in relation to practices relevant to news reconfiguration, such as hybrid communication and news (re)mediation. The research consists of 27 televised political news items, each with a duration of approximately one hour and 24 minutes, shared on the Internet by two 24-hour news TV networks in Romania (Euronews Romania and the news channel of Romanian Public Television, TVR Info, respectively) on their Facebook pages and websites, as a recurring practice. It considers the intense political negotiations in the public sphere in February 2024 regarding the merger of the local elections and the European Parliament elections. Through a qualitative thematic

<footnote n="1">¹ http://orcid.org/0009-0009-2161-8639, University of Bucharest, Faculty of Journalism and Communication Studies, roxana-geanina.chivu@s.unibuc.ro</footnote>
analysis, the study investigates videos (and their transcripts) of televised political news shared on the Internet and highlights a reconfiguration of the media agenda and the role of journalists as "loyal facilitator" and "interventionist", through hyperlinks, information fragmentation, and repetitiveness. The research shows that televised political news is recontextualized through digital hybrid practices, highlighting a bias in televised political communication during a key campaign moment in Romania.

**Keywords:** televised political journalism, digital environment, news mediation, hybrid practices

# 1. Introduction

Under the rapid expansion of digital technologies and the accompanying challenges, journalists working for TV news bulletins continue to update the rules by which they operate, thereby revolutionizing their profession day by day. For more than a decade now, television news has been presented not only in linear formats but also in non-linear frames dictated by Internet rules, forcing professionals in the field to constantly adapt their practices on social media platforms (Chadwick, 2017; Reinardy, 2011) in order to attract new audiences and to keep up with an increasingly competitive environment.

In this context, McLuhan's (1964) famous principle that "the medium is the message" (p. 13) applies perfectly in the contemporary media landscape, as it implies how the characteristics of a certain medium fundamentally shape the very nature of the journalistic content it conveys. As such, in the new paradigm of TV channels increasingly integrating with social networks, journalistic content is constantly reconfigured by algorithms based on users' preferences, engagement histories, and behavioural data (Reid, 2024). This represents a shift from the traditional role of media channels as primary content providers, which fundamentally alters the dissemination of information, moving, for example, from a broadcast model to an algorithmically curated one.

From this perspective, in the era of traditional-digital interdependence, it results in a blending of offline/online practices, and thus the emergence of mutant elements of communication that are transforming the principles and methods behind crafting messages for a given medium (Altheide, 2004; Fenton, 2010). The specialized literature refers to this new phenomenon as hybrid journalism, highlighting a potential mismatch with traditional
journalistic values such as transparency, accountability, and responsibility (Komatsu et al., 2020). As such, a new hybrid logic of media discourse occurs through the “mediation” process within a convergent medium (Jenkins, 2004). The new communicative practices also affect the news framing process (Entman, 1993; Goffman, 1974) since the social/political reality is no longer outlined exclusively through the objective lenses of journalists, but also by subjective digital algorithms.

Globally, in the current technological context, television-cut segments from TV news bulletins are adapted and shared on the internet to capture audiences in the digital environment as well. This practice is also prevalent in Romania, where many television networks are now present on social media platforms, offering their journalistic content. The Reuters Digital News Report 2025 indicates that the primary sources of information in Romania are online (70%), TV (60%), and social media (46%) (Newman et al., 2025). The same report reveals that the press remains relevant for the digital audience despite the increasing importance of social media platforms. In key electoral moments, the activity of television networks on the Internet increases as social networks become the primary channel for disseminating political messages (Bărbieru, 2022), and thus become a key factor for voters in their decision-making process when casting ballots.

The period from May 2024 to May 2025 was an atypical political electoral moment in Romania, with all four types of elections (European parliamentary, local, parliamentary, and presidential), giving rise to many debates and political controversies related to the possible merger of elections. Politicians declared their aims to be to streamline costs and combine election days, so that voter turnout would be as high as possible.

Considering the general spectrum of news reconfiguration under a complex political context in Romania, the main objective of this article is to analyse the recontextualization of political news practices considering the transposal of the political televised news on the Internet, as a media recurrence. To investigate this, the study addresses the following research questions:

**RQ1:** How is the televised electoral agenda reframed in the online environment?

**RQ2:** How do journalists perform specific roles in the new media environment?
The approach to the media agenda does not concern the perspective of (re)framing theory, by which journalists emphasise certain aspects of a topic. Instead, the focus is on the reconfiguration/reconstruction (Ségur, 2024) of the initial media agenda (established within the news bulletins) after the TV news is shared online. The investigation shows that the media agenda is changed, e.g., through the repetition of specific news or by redirecting users to more political news, and even to topics unrelated to politics. The aim of this research is to examine whether the process of televised news transformation in the online world leads to (in)balanced political information provision during the electoral pre-campaign period for the local elections and the European Parliament elections in Romania in 2024.

To provide answers to these questions, the study is based on generic, theoretical, and empirical premises. The first part highlights the context and analytical framework. A qualitative thematic content analysis then demonstrates the structural and content transformations of two television networks on digital media. Finally, the research shows that hybridization leads to a dramatic reconfiguration of the televised electoral agenda.

The study concentrates on two media actors: two 24-hour TV news broadcasters from the mainstream media in Romania, both with different orientations. Euronews Romania is a commercial European-oriented station that claims to offer “unfiltered, impartial, fact-based journalism” and that its journalists “cultivate clarity, empathy and integrity” (Euronews Romania, n.d.). This broadcaster is also very active online, maintaining accounts on nearly all digital platforms dedicated to news coverage. The second broadcaster researched is the public service television news channel TVR Info, one of the nine channels of the Romanian public television (TVR). It aims to be the most balanced and credible provider of televised programmes (Romanian Televison, n.d.) and is also present on the Internet and social media.

## 2. Analytical approach

The theories and concepts presented in the following section support the analysis of media discourse in the context of media convergence and in identifying new hybrid journalistic practices of electoral communication
that reconstruct the television media agenda and the role of the television
journalists, and, implicitly, the political reality in Romania, in the pre-electoral
campaign period.

2.1. *Agenda media reconfiguration within the media convergence process*

The research epistemologically highlights the changes that occur within
televised political news under the media convergence process, defined as:

"(...) the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries (...) and the situation in which multiple media systems coexist and where media content flows fluidly across them" (Jenkins, 2006, p. 282).

Convergence allows the mediation of news "as the resultant of flows of production, circulation, interpretation, and recirculation" in the digital environment (Couldry, 2008, p.383). This occurs within the media hybridisation process (Chadwick, 2017) derived from the interaction of traditional media with digital media. The two spaces adopt each other's practices of communication, transforming the content created and its distribution in a multitude of styles of communication due to the multiple ways of transmitting the information. Furthermore, a "re-mediation" of the televised news transposed onto the Internet takes place, a change from the initial state of a news item to other (multiple) forms of it.

From this point, cascading changes begin, including at the first
level of public agenda, namely at the level of "agenda-setting" construction
(McCombs & Shaw, 1972; Shoemaker & Reese, 1996), when journalists
select and rank the political news considered of general interest. In close
relation, framing theory (Scheufele & Tewksbury, 2007) suggests that mass
media shape the political reality and influence public opinion/discourse by
highlighting certain significant aspects of political events/declarations.
The second level of the media agenda is "attribute agenda setting," by
which journalists also expose and accentuate some of the characteristics
of those events/statements (McCombs et al., 2000), which greatly impacts
the building of the media agenda through what they bring to attention.
At the third level is “agenda-building” theory (Badham, 2019), where other actors, such as “organizations (e.g., corporations and state bodies)” and even “media audiences” (p.164), and not only journalists, are engaged in information selection.

The current study focuses on agenda-setting and examines the integration of hybrid elements into journalism, specifically in news selection for the media agenda. In the context of digital expansion, recent studies have demonstrated that Internet-specific recommendation systems and AI subjectively reclassify journalistic content, creating an “algorithmic agenda-setting” (Einarsson et al., 2025; Sichach, 2024). Algorithmic news filtering systems select news that overexposes certain political actors based on users’ own beliefs, thereby creating “echo chambers” (Verma, 2024) that isolate users from the diversity of perspectives specific to journalism. According to media scholars, this selective exposure can lead to heightened polarisation and represents a challenge to the fundamental journalistic principle of providing a balanced and diverse range of information. It thus touches upon journalistic integrity and ethical standards, especially those regarding the inherent bias in artificial intelligence systems; as subjective news coverage occurs, the objectivity of journalism is undermined (Rahman, 2024; Verma, 2024). The discussions highlight journalists’ responsibility towards the public when they use AI and algorithms to prioritize certain news over others.

As underscored in the introduction, this study approaches the media agenda in the context of new conditions in modern communication. The media agenda may be compared with a chessboard, and political news with chess pieces. With each movement of the playing pieces, the chessboard is reconfigured, and, implicitly, the interpretation towards which the audience is oriented. Thus, this research concerns the way in which TV journalists recreate the media agenda in a convergent medium, by extracting news from traditional news bulletins, integrating it, and adapting it for digital platforms.

From this perspective, the study takes into account previous research focused on the recompositions of media products and on the convergence-television relationship. Erdal Ivar John (2009) established a typology of different forms of “repurposing” televised content in online environments, including the “rhetoric of augmentation”, “recombination”,
and the “rhetoric of reversioning” (pp. 181-185). Furthermore, García-Perdomo (2020) determined that television networks can utilize Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram to promote programs, post news, or share news headlines, and also integrate new multimedia creations, such as video animations. González-Neira *et al*. (2022) noticed that traditional broadcasters can leverage YouTube channels as a promotional tool to engage with the young public without a full migration of media content to the internet. From an exploratory approach, Ségur (2023) demonstrated that the integration of hashtags and QR codes into news bulletins has led to a fragmentation of information consumption. Consequently, television networks have lost their monopoly as distributors and gatekeepers of information. Lastly, Carillion (2024) investigated the concept of a so-called “public service algorithm” and revealed a discrepancy between the values declared by media organizations such as “diversity, transparency, and quality” (pp.424-431), and their implementation.

The contribution of this study to the literature regarding media convergence and television journalism is highlited in a table that provides a summary of the mentioned authors, year, methodology applied, data size, and main findings (see the Annex).

As we can see from the table in Annex, in the new information ecology, the convergence process determines a “new audiovisual arborescent structures” (Kredens & Rio, 2015, p. 23) determined by socio technical characteristics of the Internet. In the next section we will discuss the theoretical consequences of these disruptions on professional routines and the role of the journalists.

## 2.2. Television journalists' practices in the new media environment

Nowadays, journalists are faced with Internet search algorithms that selectively analyse the subject and model the textual object (as presented above) and create a suite of “rearrangements” of news formats, and, eventually, favour the “recursiveness” of journalistic practices in the online environment (Uricchio, 2022, p. 301). This characteristic disrupts the traditional media flow and logic of constructing a message in a specific way for a particular medium, bringing a change in “rhythm,
grammar, and format" (Altheide, 2004, p. 294). Under these circumstances,
journalists become dependent on the logic of flux (Lobato & Lotz, 2021),
taking into account "the rethinking of the production" and "new
enunciative models" (Kredens & Rio, 2015, p. 16) when they create news
and publish it on the Internet.

Media scholars also claim that, along with the news forms of
journalism, there is a lack of “editorial control”, which could negatively
impact the democratic process of elections (Fenton, 2010, pp. 6-7). As the
new digital environment disrupts traditional journalistic practices
(Broersma & Peters, 2016), concerns have arisen regarding the potential
erosion of journalistic values, as discussed in the first part of this section.

As new forms of writing, packaging, and information presentation
are implemented in accordance with Internet search algorithms, they
can influence medical discourse in favour of or against certain politicians
(McPhillips & Merlo, 2008). Consequently, the roles of television journalists
are also reconfigured (Ségur, 2023). Some researchers view journalists as
marketing guides (Chaney, 2001), while others emphasize the transition
to a "gate-watcher" role (Bruns, 2005), thus marking the end of the
"gatekeeper" era. Media professionals no longer analyse reality in an
objective way, by "(...) impartial and balanced reporting" of political
news (El Bour et al., 2017, p. 42), but they let the algorithms do their job
in an almost unpredictable way in terms of information selection. In other
words, algorithms become subjective and unpredictable gatekeepers while
journalists create a news circuit in a digital environment through an
impressive network of hyperlinks that could cause informational confusion
(Bruns, 2005). Or it could confer "credibility" to certain political messages
(Lilleker, 2014, p. 2) or to a particular political event. This departure from
the traditional functions of the press occurs in a context where journalists
create websites' hypertexts, providing vast amounts of textual, video,
and image content with numerous options for accessing information
(Bruns, 2005). By working in a more digital style, journalists transform
themselves from the "traditional news publishers" experts to "news
players" (Bruns, 2005, p. 2). They are, in fact, publishing "(...) whatever
relevant content is available anywhere on the Web (and beyond) (...)",
leading to "multiperspectival" news coverage (Bruns, 2005, pp. 14-16),
which negatively affects their job.
Journalism seems thus to move away from representing "vital resources for processes of information gathering, deliberation and action" as "the life-blood of a democracy" (Fenton, 2010, p. 3) to a more subjective journalism. The media academics point out that the "key challenge for political journalists is how to avoid becoming a megaphone for party and government propaganda machines" (Lilleker & Temple, in Allan & Fowler-Watt, 2013, p. 383), and to find a balance between the values that define the profession and technological changes. The previous observations come against the backdrop of newly identified roles of journalists, such as those outlined by Mellado (2014):

- "*the interventionist*" - when the journalist interprets the facts or stays by someone's side;

- "*the loyal-facilitator*" - when a journalist "supports institutional activities" and creates a "positive image of the political elite";

- "*the infotainment role*" - supposing "personalisation", "emotion", "sensationalism";

- "*the civic role*" - by giving the "citizen perspective" over facts and encouraging the citizens to take action by informing them on a large number of political issues (p.13).

Mellado also suggests that multiple roles are fulfilled simultaneously, such as the "watchdog role" alongside the civic or loyal-facilitator roles (ibidem), resulting from journalistic hybridization, which requires professionals to address multiple audiences simultaneously and in various forms. These types of studies emphasize that the journalist's role as a democracy guarantor is significantly impacted by the consumption era and the speed of information dissemination via the Internet.

From this perspective, in analyzing political agenda-setting and the role of journalists during the pre-election campaign in Romania, this study approached political communication from the journalists' intentionality towards politicians' messages (McNair, 2003). The premise is that digital media create an environment of "indirect communication" through "online versions of mass media news production" (Lilleker, 2014, p. 3) that negatively impacts the construction of political reality.
Above, I discussed how, at a theoretical level, in a convergent medium characterized by hybridity, traditional political news is continually remediated, and how the watchdog and gatekeeper roles of journalists are being reshaped. These findings highlight aspects related to a potential political bias among journalists and personal choices, rather than the journalistic neutrality and equidistance expected in professional ethics.

The next section presents the methodology and research on a representative set of political TV news transposed online, as well as the effects of this transposition on the media agenda and journalistic roles.

### 3. Methodology

To scrutinize the reconfiguration of the media agenda and of journalists' roles in a hybrid environment, this study draws upon Braun and Clarke's (2021) thematic analysis of developing, investigating, and interpreting patterns across a qualitative dataset. This method allows the examination of textual and visual television coverage of a political event by identifying new communicative patterns and establishing their significance in relation to televised political journalism in the digital era.

To illustrate the premises of the research, this paper analyzes 27 televised political news items about the merging of local elections with the European Parliament elections in Romania. The research period is from 1 to 22 February 2024, during the pre-campaign period. During a month, politicians debated the election calendar and whether or not to hold four separate elections (also the parliamentary and presidential elections), resulting in voters having to go to the polls four times. The media agenda focused on the leaders of the liberal and social democratic parties and their decisions and declarations regarding the establishment of an election timetable, as well as the strategy of the governing parties for the autumn presidential elections in Romania.

This research is based on a unitary dataset, consisting of video news that was initially broadcast by Euronews Romania and TVR Info, and then transposed onto their websites and Facebook pages, as a recurring practice.
Euronews Romania and TVR Info are both 24-hour TV news stations that offer live newscasts with presenters, in traditional formats, and informative shows on political, social, and educational topics. The commercial Euronews Romania TV network was launched in 2022 as an affiliated station of Euronews International TV in Brussels, from where it broadcasts to 160 countries (Euronews Romania, n.d.). Euronews Romania's stated mission is to follow the values of the international mother station and to operate under the principle of "All Views", meaning to present all points of view "at the highest journalistic standards" (ibidem). Euronews Romania is also very active in the online environment, specifically on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, X, and YouTube, where it publishes news immediately after broadcast on the traditional screen. In the same year when the Euronews franchise launched in Romania, the public service television news channel TVR Info returned to the local media market after a ten-year break (Romanian Television, n.d.). The public institution under which it operates (TVR) was the first network on the continent to broadcast live a revolution – the Romanian Revolution in 1989 (Popescu, 2022). TVR is funded and controlled by Parliament and sets as its goal to be politically impartial and independent. Over time, the national public service television has been repeatedly accused of not having a balanced editorial line, but rather serving as a speaking tube for political power, especially since it is under the control of the legislative body (Eur.Activ.ro, 2005). The public service 24-hour news channel is also present on the Internet, but on fewer platforms compared with Euronews Romania.

The study of the political news disseminated on the Internet by the two broadcasters comprised an analysis conducted over one month to identify recurring communicative hybrid practices that impact agenda setting and the role of journalists. The methodological framework consists of several steps, beginning with data collection. This process was conducted on the network's Facebook pages, consisting only of video items posted on their pages and then redirected to the networks' websites. The sample consists of 18 Euronews Romania items, with a total duration of 47.63 minutes, and 19 items from TVR Info, with a total duration of 36.56 minutes. Next, each news item was downloaded from the websites with By Click and 4K Video Downloader programmes, and, via
Vatis technology, transcriptions of the videos were obtained. Subsequently, the same news items were analysed by considering their circulation and reframing through the networks' websites and Facebook pages. More precisely, the analyses involved the hybrid elements introduced to traditional video news on digital media, as well as video transcripts, to compare themes with the published online content. In the final step, through thematic analysis, a set of codes was established for outlining new patterns of televised political communication on the Internet. For a better understanding, the table below (Table 1) summarises data information, the analytical steps, and processes of data collection.

<table><caption>Table 1
Research methodology: data collection and analyses of news videos</caption><thead><tr><th colspan="2">Data information and the analytical steps and processes</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Step 1</td><td>Data collection of 18 video political televised news items transposed by Euronews Romania initially on Facebook, then redirected to the website<br/>Data collection of 19 video political televised news transposed by TVR Info initially on Facebook, then redirected to the website</td></tr><tr><td>Step 2</td><td>Download of 27 video news items from network websites with ByClik and 4K Video Downloader (47.63 minutes Euronews and 36.56 minutes TVR Info of downloads)</td></tr><tr><td>Step 3</td><td>Loading the 27 videos into the Vatis program to obtain transcripts of each of them</td></tr><tr><td>Step 4</td><td>Subsequently, the same news was analysed by considering its circulation and reframing through the website and social media pages</td></tr><tr><td>Step 5</td><td>A set of codes established through thematic analysis for outlining new patterns</td></tr></tbody></table>

The coding was conducted inductively, based on recurrences, and also deductively, using an analytical framework. The identified codes are as follows:
(1) *dissonance* – the differences (disharmony) between the offline TV political news content and the online content around it after the news was transposed into a digital environment;

(2) *hybrid elements* – the changed news elements resulted from the combination of the initial offline TV political news with the online specific features; there could be videos, texts, or graphics' changes derived from the impact of the offline with online features when a televised news item is published on a website or on Facebook;

(3) *online fragmentation* – a televised news item is posted on the network’s Facebook pages just to direct the user to the website where the same news is presented in an augmented form;

(4) *redundancy* – the information presented in the augmented TV news transposed from offline to the network’s website is identical to online content attached below it/that accompanies it.

Based on the coding established through thematic analysis, the analyses identified new hybrid elements and practices resulting from the transposition of televised political news into new media within the mentioned political context, as presented in the next section.

# 4. Findings

## 4.1. *The Internet's impact on Euronews Romania and TVR Info political news*

In line with Erdal's (2009) observations that "one of the characteristics of convergence journalism" is that the media content is "repurposed", "in part or as a whole", "with a characteristic rhetoric" (pp. 178-181), our analysis shows that both Euronews Romania and TVR Info have certain templates of posting the news videos on their websites.

In the case of the Euronews network, video news items are found on the Internet in various forms, e.g., intro by TV presenter + Live reporter + synchronous (politicians' statements), or beta without intro, or intro + synchronous, or only synchronous. Additionally, as Erdal (2009, 2011) noted, the added online content (below the transposed
video news) sometimes includes transcripts of the video and repeats the
information from the initial news, while also reproducing longer
political statements than those in the video news. In other situations,
older video news/info is inserted into online content as background political
information, enrolling in the “rhetoric of recombination,” where online
content incorporates parts of news reports and raw material reused in a
different context (Erdal, 2009, p. 184). However, unlike Erdal’s findings,
there is no longer informational coherence, but rather a political puzzle that
users must figure out. The online content can contradict the video news’s
lower third or the headlines attached to it on the Euronews Romania
website. Additionally, the online content is updated (sometimes several
times a day), which contradicts the information presented in the video
news item, as seen in the next item from Euronews Romania (Vulpe, 2024).
The accompanying text was updated two times: once for publication,
and once for updating (“Published on: 21/02/2024, 19:05 – Updated on:
28/02/2024, 16:00” – Figure 1). More than a rhetoric of recombination,
this analysis reveals a *dissonance* (as a code applied in the study) between
offline and online information, resulting in two different agenda-setting
topics. The video dates from February 21st and announces that the government
is holding a new round of negotiations on the merger of elections, while
the text published underneath (and probably updated on February 28th)
talks about an agreement (still unofficial) on the merger of elections to
be held on 9 June 2024. The online content also announces that PNL (the
Liberal Party) and PSD (the Social-Democratic Party) have agreed to
have joint lists for the European Parliament elections, which indicates a
political communication in contradiction with the information presented
in the traditional video news item transposed on the website.
<figure><img src="image_1.png" /><figcaption>Figure 1. Screenshot from 15 of March 2024</figcaption></figure>

(Source: Euronews Romania website)

The investigation also reveals informational dissonance at the visual level, which further complicates the understanding of political information. In the online content (attached to the original video news dated February 21st), two other offline videos broadcast by Euronews Romania have been inserted, on different days (February 20th and February 19th). As presented above, Euronews Romania sometimes uses video content as a background for a news update, making it difficult for viewers to understand the entire political information being offered. In this case, embedding video in online content increases viewing time, from two minutes and 22 seconds, as in the news presented above, to more than 12 minutes since two other long-term background news stories were inserted. In this reuse of content, *hybrid elements* such as hyperlinks are integrated into all traditional videos, altering the direction of political communication through their interactive nature. In this first example (Figure 2), the technical tool's functions are as it follows:

1. one of them is formatted as a headline: "Election merger, round 4. Little chance for PSD-PNL to reach a deal". Once accessed, it sends users to the same Euronews news item, but posted on the Euronews YouTube channel;
2. another one is a Copy Link icon. Once activated, it also sends viewers to the same news item posted on the network's YouTube channel;

3. if the original video news item is paused, four more videos appear, and a simple click on the recorded material redirects the users to other video information about elections or on different topics, originally broadcast by Euronews or even by competing stations. This occurs due to specific YouTube algorithms (Bryant, 2020) that automatically suggest to users other video materials posted on the platform, from various dates and fields.

This finding aligns with Sørensen's (2019) observation that algorithmic recommendations function like collaborative filtering, guiding users to optimize content exposure. The author wondered if the growth of algorithmic recommender systems would lead to a loss of exposure diversity, and this is specifically what this paper demonstrates: that users are redirected to a smaller but repetitive amount of information. Uricchio (2022) noticed that the rearrangements in the digital environment represent "algorithmic ruptures with familiar subject" (p. 301), and this study shows that the use of hyperlinks takes users away from their daily media agenda.

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>Figure 2. Screenshot from 15 of March 2024
(Source: Euronews Romania website)</figcaption></figure>
These results also confirm Ségur's conclusion (2023), namely that the merging of two different communication media (TV news' bulletins and websites) occurs through the "insertion" of discourses and practices specific to each of them. In the present analysis, hyperlinks specific to the online environment associated with television political news represent a mutated communication practice that leads to an informational recursiveness, an effect of digital communication on television (ibidem). Furthermore, the information is presented "à la carte" (users have only a certain number of news items to watch on many platforms) and undermines the pluralism of opinion (ibidem). In the present study, repetitive political information fosters a repetitive media agenda rather than a diverse political agenda that adheres to objective journalism. Other transformations identified within the hybrid elements code included the insertion of hyperlinks in the digital content attached to the video, as shown in another example (Euronews Romania, 2024a). By clicking on the title "Share this news," users are invited to promote the video news item on their own social media accounts (see Figure 3). This underlines what Henry Jenkins postulated, namely that "convergence makes it possible to cement consumer loyalty" (Jenkins, 2013, p. 290) and to broaden the spectrum of users. The continuous desire to attract and retain audiences also explains Erdal's research results (2009) that the "news production relies on certain standardised practices for easy repurposing of content from one medium to another" (p. 193), represented here by the insertion of hyperlinks that modify the initial video news structure, and news visibility.
<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>Figure 3. Screenshot from 15 of March 2024
(Source: Euronews Romania website)</figcaption></figure>

As with all Euronews products analyzed in this study, in this example, within the online text, the intertitle "See also" invites the users to other news, and below it, there are other hyperlinks that redirect the users to more items about the elections created by the same television. Furthermore, the message of Liberal Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă – that the party will have its own candidate in the presidential elections – is repeated in various forms. The same political message is found in the news title above the video: in the title of the hyperlink attached to the video, in the video's lower third, in the beginning of the text accompanying the video news, and in the interview of the politician at the end of the video (Figure 4). Moreover, the same information shared by the prime minister can be found on many other social media platforms if the users redistribute it (as mentioned above), and this is typical for other items.
<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 4.** Screenshot from 15 of March 2024
(Source: Euronews Romania website)</figcaption></figure>

The prime minister's message can also be found on the Euronews Facebook account (Euronews Romania, 2024b), where the offline video news was also published (Figure 5).

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 5.** Screenshot from 15 of March 2024
(Source: Euronews Romania Facebook page)</figcaption></figure>
As can be seen in Figure 5, the politician's message is propagated by Euronews Romania firstly in the text that accompanies a link to its website, and then in the title of the video hyperlink attached to it, which creates redundancy both at the visual and textual level, and represents a pattern for Euronews. In this video news item (as in other analyzed transposed videos), under the online fragmentation coding, the analysis reveals that the same televised news was posted on the Euronews Facebook page, primarily to direct users to the television website and thus to the augmented news. This reference appears with a click on the text "Nicolae Ciucă announces that PNL will have its own presidential candidate: 'It's the healthiest thing'" (ibidem). This sending to the augmented news corresponds to "the rhetoric of augmentation" as described by Erdal (2009), "where content is republished in a relatively unedited form" (p. 193). Yet, unlike his observations, it's not just a cloning of information, but a recontextualization of it since the television news item published on a website "in a window with text and graphics" not only gives information "about what this particular news item is about" (Erdal, 2009, pp.184-193), but determine a reconfiguration through multiple versions and repetitions of it. Another interesting element observed in Euronews materials is a pictogram featuring the letter "I" added to photos published on Facebook. In this case, this pictogram is attached to the picture of the liberal prime minister Nicolae Ciucă and redirects users to four other Euronews Romania video news items. The media agenda is therefore constantly enriched and thus changed while the Facebook platform is more used to promote the same news on the website. The recursiveness of information on Facebook results from the fact that, most of the time, the content attached to the link that is sending viewers to the website is identical with the one in the title of the news on the website.

Facebook serves as a promoter of video news on its network websites, as well as on the TVR Info account (TVR News, n.d.), but with some differences from Euronews. For example, the public service 24-hour news network also posted the initial news videos on Facebook, which means the same information was propagated in full on two platforms from the very beginning, serving as a sign of redundancy, another code applied in this research. As in the case of Euronews, redundancy is also achieved by the fact that news posted on Facebook and redirected to
websites is repeated identically several times within the same day. A Euronews video item from February 14th, for example, was repeated four times on Facebook, on the same day or on different days. The content attached to the video news on Facebook was updated each time, but the one added on the website remained the same. In the case of TVR Info, a news item was repeated five times, and the online content updates were also made only on Facebook. Another interesting approach observed, but only in a single TVR Info news, is the representation of an ongoing event: a protest organized in the context of debates regarding the merger of elections. The video news item on Facebook (TVR News, 2024) is different from the one in the hyperlink (TVR Info, 2024a), depending on the time lapse in the item (at the beginning or at the end, as can be observed in Figures 6-7), which represents a dissonance in the dissemination of political information.

All these redirections and recombinations of TVR Info electoral news thus represent a deviation from what Sørensen (2019) traced as the public service media should propagate. Instead of facilitating diverse information and a media agenda to inform democratic discussions, TVR INFO creates ambiguity through dissonance.

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /><figcaption>Figure 6. Screenshot from 31 of August 2025
(Source: TVR News Facebook page)</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_7.png" /><figcaption>Figure 7. Screenshot from 31 of August 2025</figcaption></figure>

(Source: TVR Info website)

Erdal (2009) noticed that in the “rhetoric of augmentation” and the “rhetoric of recombination” the content has a relatively unedited form, but this research demonstrates that news is hard to follow, having a convoluted structure also due to the ongoing updates on the website that creates a contradiction with the political information presented in the video, as in Figure 7. The next TV news item was published online on 19th of February with the headline “Coalition negotiations continue. Marcel Ciolacu and Nicolae Ciucă have agreed [on the merger of elections], but are having discussions in their own parties” (TVR Info, 2024b). Immediately next to the original offline news item and the text below it are other hyperlinks referring to "Last minute news" items (a constant column on the website). If accessed months later, the "Last minute news" section contains links to current news (such as "US Treasury, the target of Chinese hackers" – Figure 8), which represents another way of reconfiguring the media agenda. TVR Info also redirects users from the electoral theme of the televised news items to topics most followed by the audience. The discursive rupture occurs thus at the level of changing the environment on which the information is disseminated, with hyperlinks
reestablishing “a new epistemological order, inherently recursive” as Uricchio (2022, p.304) observed. Through recursion dictated by hyperlinks in the digital environment, “a discursive framework that could allow for critical analysis is missing” (Uricchio, 2022, p. 312), eliminating thus the critical elements in the reporting.

<figure><img src="image_8.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 8.** Screenshot from 31 December 2024
(Source: TVR INFO website)</figcaption></figure>

This analysis also identified elements of information redundancy on the TVR Info website, as in this example (Figure 8), where the information that the political negotiations regarding elections continue is found in the headline attached to the offline televised news, in the lower third of it, and in the text immediately below the video. By broadcasting in cascade the same message during the pre-campaign period within the logic of the flux and the content fragmentation features of the online environment, the role of TVR Info journalists is that of interventionists that are “taking a side” of a certain politician or create a “positive image of the political elite” as Mellado has traced (2014, p. 7). Their role is also that of loyal facilitators, in the detriment of their watchdog mission, by
which they are supposed to be “critical” and “investigative” (ibidem) with
politicians, especially during campaigns, and in particular as a public
service television. Another relevant aspect is that, in the case of the public
service network, the video news items transposed on the website do not
have a byline, the news is impersonal, and the network presumably assumes
responsibility for the content in its entirety. At Euronews, out of a total
of 18 news items analyzed, 13 have a byline of Euronews journalists,
which means that the political information is most often attributed to
individual journalists. For the most part, the conclusions of this research
indicate deviations from the classic journalistic rules of presenting
television electoral information in the online environment, both for a
commercial television station and a public one in Romania.

**5. Conclusions**

While the process of transforming online news has been investigated,
the area of televised news reconfiguration under the impact of the digital
environment remains less explored (Ségur, 2024). This paper aims to fill
this gap by examining the transformations taking place in television
news as a journalistic genre (news bulletins) under the influence of the
Internet, and demonstrating that traditional news content is re-contextualized
in a convergent environment through technical practices when it is
shared on social media.

For Jenkins (2004), convergence is “a consumer-driven, upward
process” during which “media companies are learning how to accelerate
the flow of media content across delivery channels to expand revenue
opportunities” and to “broaden markets’ (p. 37). In other words, the
flow of media content across multiple platforms is based on commercial
considerations, and this paper operationalised the concept of media
convergence precisely from this angle. This paper fills this gap and
shows what transformations are taking place in television news as a
journalistic genre (news bulletins) under the influence of the Internet,
demonstrating that traditional news content is re-contextualized through
technical practices when it is shared on social media. I used the notion of
reframing in the sense of reshaping a news story, starting from the fact
that television journalists transpose political television news stories by appealing to practices specific to the digital environment that, however, manipulate the scope of the respective news on the media agenda. The general structure, therefore, considers formal and structural conditions related to the genre, which can also affect the informational content, an aspect that can be further analyzed in studies.

The first conclusion is that, as a consequence of the Internet's impact and technical pressures, the media agenda is reconfigured through information dissonance, the insertion of hybrid elements (such as hyperlinks), online fragmentation, redundancy, and algorithmic recommendations. All these aspects demonstrate that media hybridisation processes favour a reframed, and hence biased, media agenda by amplifying a certain televised political message posted on the Internet.

The second conclusion is that the digital environment also reconfigures traditional TV news practices, and consequently, the role of television journalists shifts from interventionists to loyal facilitators of certain political messages, at the expense of their roles as watchdogs and gatekeepers. Through redirection hyperlinks, journalists cascade the same political messages, indirectly promoting certain politicians during the pre-campaign period in Romania, depending on the logic of the flow and the characteristics of content fragmentation in the online environment. Additionally, under the socio-technical conditions imposed by the digital environment, the media agenda is transformed into an algorithmic agenda, in which algorithmic recommendation systems subjectively select and prioritize news according to users' preferences. In the new media logic, hybridisation therefore allows hyperlinks to take over the role of journalists as gatekeepers in terms of prioritizing political information, eliminating information with no news value, or even fake news, in contrast to the editorial profiles of Euronews Romania and TVR Info.

The third conclusion is that the changes in online televised political news, including the use of hyperlinks, repetition, and fragmentation, could distance media professionals from the standards of journalistic integrity. Instead of remaining faithful to the fundamental principles of their profession, television journalists let the hyperlinks do their jobs and decide which political information can be prioritised (Sørensen, 2019; Verma, 2024), disrupting the traditional media flow and media logic of political message distribution.
The three conclusions of the present study are also summarized in the form of a table, as it can be seen below.

<caption>Tabel 2</caption>

Key findings of the reconfiguration of electoral media agenda and journalistic integrity

<table><thead><tr><th colspan="2">The effects of the transposition of political television news on the digital environment</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1.</td><td>The electoral media agenda is reconfigured through the dissonance of political information, the insertion of hybrid elements (hyperlinks), online fragmentation, redundancy, and algorithmic recommendations.</td></tr><tr><td>2.</td><td>The digital environment reconfigures traditional TV news practices, and consequently, the role of political television journalists shifts from interventionists to loyal facilitators.</td></tr><tr><td>3.</td><td>The changes experienced by televised political news in the online environment could distance media professionals from the standards of journalistic integrity due to the socio-technical conditions of news item distribution.</td></tr></tbody></table>

To sum up, the process of remediating television news, characterized by the fluidity of information distribution from one digital platform to another as outlined by Henry Jenkins (2006) in the context of media convergence, becomes a biased fluidity dictated by the social-technical conditions specific to the Internet. According to Couldry (2008), news remediation “has implications for the sustaining or expansion of democracy, but only under complex conditions” and goes beyond “texts or processes of production or distribution” (p. 374). As demonstrated here, even through a single hyperlink, political information is limited to certain messages, leaving the door open for increased polarisation. This phenomenon is exacerbated by the fact that users are often redirected to “echo chambers” (Verma, 2024), where they encounter the same type of biased political information, without being able to form an opinion based on a balanced selection of information. In this respect, Euronews Romania and TVR Info serve as megaphones for politicians when they adapt their televised content to digital communication conditions. These findings are even more relevant as Euronews Romania and TVR Info are not recognised as networks that explicitly assume a form of biased communication or a biased editorial policy.
Finally, this assumption of biased communication does not belong to an explicit but to a collective voice, as a large number of the 27 news stories analysed are impersonal, without bylines of specific journalists. Moreover, there are no statements from the two networks in this regard, and it is thus hard to identify whether these consequences result from a biased online political communication strategy, a market positioning and audience capture strategy, or even editorial negligence.

Considering these effects, a possible hypothesis for future research might be that the online reconfiguration contributes to an online marketing strategy aimed at capturing audiences and to position Euronews Romania and TVR Info as competitive actors under the pressure of rapid technological development. By highlighting these new communication trends, further comparative studies on a larger corpus could shed light on the perspectives regarding the digital impact on televised journalism.

## REFERENCES

Altheide, D.L. (2004). Media logic and political communication. *Political Communication, 21*(3), 293-296. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584600490481307.

Badham, M. (2019). Four news media roles shaping agenda-building processes. In F. Frandsen, W. Johansen, R. Tench, & S. Romenti (Eds.), *Big ideas in public relations research and practice (advances in public relations and communication management, vol. 4* (pp. 163-176). Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2398-391420190000004012.

Bărbieru, M. (2022). Adapting political communication to technology: Case study: evolutionary aspects on social networks in Romania. *Swedish Journal of Romanian Studies, 5* (2), 117-136. https://doi.org/10.35824/sjrs.v5i2.23777.

Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2021). *Thematic analysis: A practical guide*. Sage.

Broersma, M., & Peters, C. (2016). Rethinking journalism again. Introduction: Towards a functional perspective on journalism's role and relevance. In C. Peters & M. Broersma (Eds.), *Rethinking journalism again: Societal role and public relevance in a digital age* (pp. 1-17). Routledge.
Bruns, A. (2005). *Gatewatching: Collaborative online news production*. Peter Lang.

Bryant, L.V. (2020). The YouTube algorithm and the alt-right filter bubble. Open Information Science, 4(1), 85-90. https://doi.org/10.1515/opis-2020-0007.

Carillion, K. (2024). An algorithm for public service media? Embedding public service values in the news recommender system on RTBF's platform, Belgium. *Emergin Media*. 2(3), 422-448. https://doi.org/10.1177/27523543241290976.

Chadwick, A. (2017). *The hybrid media system: Politics and power* (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.

Chaney, D.C. (2001). From ways of life to lifestyle: Rethinking culture as ideology and sensibility. In J. Lull (Ed.), *Culture in the communication age* (pp. 75-88). Routledge.

Couldry, N. (2008). Mediatization or mediation? Alternative understandings of the emergent space of digital storytelling. *New Media & Society*, 10(3), 373-389. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444808089414.

Einarsson, Á.M., Helles, R., & Lomborg, S. (2025). Algorithmic agendasetting: The subtle effects of news recommender systems on political agendas in the Danish 2022 general election. *Information, Communication & Society* 28(2), 218-238. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2024.2334411.

El Bour, H., Frey, E., & Rhaman, M. (2017). *Negotiating journalism: Core values and cultural diversities*. Nordicom.

Entman, R.,M. (1993). Framing: toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. *Journal of Communication*, 43(4), 51–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1993.tb01304.x

Erdal, I.J. (2009). Repurposing of content in multi-platform news production. *Journalism Practice*, 3(2), 178-195. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512780802681223.

Fenton, N. (2010). *New media, old news, journalism & democracy in the digital age*. Sage.

García-Perdomo, V. (2020). Re-digitizing television news: The relationship between TV, online, media and audiences. *Digital Journalism*, 9(2), 136-154. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2020.1777179.

Goffman, E. (1974). *Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience*. Harper & Raw.
González-Neira, A., Quintas-Froufe, N., & Vázquez-Herrero, J. (2022). Convergence of linear television and digital platforms: An analysis of YouTube offer and consumption. *European Journal of Communication*, 37(4), 426-442. https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231211054720.

Jenkins, H. (2004). The cultural logic of media convergence. *International Journal of Cultural Studies*, 7(1), 33-43. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877904040603

Jenkins, H. (2006). *Convergence culture where old and new media collide*. University Press.

Jenkins, H. (2013). *La culture de la convergence: des médias au transmédia*. Armand Colin.

Kredens, E., & Rio, F. (2015). La télévision à l'ère numérique: entre pratiques émergentes et reconfiguration de l'objet médiatique. *Études de Communication*, 44(1), 15-28. https://doi.org/10.4000/edc.6332.

Komatsu, T., Gutierrez Lopez, M. E., Makri, S., Porlezza, C., Cooper, G., MacFarlane, A., & Missaoui, S. (2020). AI should embody our values: Investigating journalistic values to inform AI technology design. In *Proceedings of the 11<sup>th</sup> Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Shaping Experiences, Shaping Society (NordiCHI '20)* (pp. 1-12). ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3419249.3420105.

Lilleker, D.G. (2014). *Political communication and cognition* (1st ed.). Palgrave MacMillan.

Lilleker, D.G., & Temple, M. (2013). Political Reporting: Enlightening citizens or undermining democracy? In S. Allan & K. Fowler-Watt (Eds.), *Journalism: New challenges* (1st ed., pp. 282-303). Centre for Journalism & Communication Research, Bournemouth University.

Lobato, R., & Lotz, A.D. (2021). Beyond streaming wars: Rethinking competition in video services. *Media Industries*, 8(1), 89-108. https://doi.org/10.3998/mij.1338.

McCombs, M.E., & Shaw, D.L. (1972). The agenda-setting function of mass media. *Public Opinion Quarterly*, 36(2), 176-187. https://doi.org/10.1086/267990.

McCombs, M. E., López-Escobar, E., & Llamas, J. P. (2000). Setting the agenda of attributes in the 1996 Spanish general election. *Journal of Communication*, 50(2), 77-92. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2000.tb02842.x.
McLuhan, M. (1964). *Understanding media: The extensions of man*. Gingko Press.

McNair, B. (2003). *An introduction to political communication*. Routledge.

McPhillips, S., & Merlo, O. (2008). Media convergence and the evolving media business model: an overview and strategic opportunities. *The Marketing Review*, 8(3), 237-253. https://doi.org/10.1362/146934708x337663.

Mellado, C. (2014). Professional roles in news content. *Journalism Studies*, 16(4), 596–614. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2014.922276.

Rahman, M.A. (2024). Artificial intelligence in journalism: A comprehensive review. *Journal of Scientific Reports*, 6(1) 56-65. Retrieved from https://ijs ab.com/wp-content/uploads/1035.pdf.

Reinardy, S. (2011). Newspaper journalism in crisis: Burnout on the rise, eroding young journalists' career commitment. *Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism*, 12(1), 33–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884910385188.

Scheufele, D.A., & Tewksbury, D. (2007). Framing, agenda setting, and priming: The evolution of three media effects models. *Journal of Communication*, 57(1), 9–20. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0021-9916.2007.00326.x.

Ségur, C. (2023). Faites votre JT. La personnalisation de l'information télévisée au service des publics? *Les cahiers du journalisme et de l'information*, 10(2), 71-85. https://cahiersdujournalisme.org/V2N10/CaJ-2.10-R071.html.

Ségur, C. (2024). Introduction du dossier 2024B : Les reconfigurations de l'information télévisée. *Les Enjeux de l'Information et de la Communication*, 24(3), 5-12. https://lesenjeux.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/2024/dossier/00-introduction-du-dossier-2024b-les-reconfigurations-de-l-information-televisee/.

Shoemaker, P., & Reese, S. (1996). *Mediating the message. Theories of influence on mass media content* (2nd ed.). Longman.

Sichach, M. (2024, October 5). *From mainstream media to algorithms: Agenda setting in the age of artificial intelligence*. [Preprint]. SSRN. https://ssrn.com/abstract=5040125.

Sørensen, J. (2019). Public service media, diversity, and algorithmic recommendation: Tensions between editorial principles and algorithms in European PSM Organizations. *In RecSys 2019: 13th ACM Conference on recommender systems – 7th International workshop on news recommendation and analytics*. Association for Computing Machinery.
Uricchio, W. (2022). Médias récursifs. *Questions de Communication, 41*(1), 301-314. http://journals.openedition.org/questionsdecommunicação/29145.

Verma, D. (2024). Impact of artificial intelligence on journalism: A comprehensive review of AI in journalism. *Journal of Communication and Management, 3*(2), 150-156. https://doi.org/10.58966/JCM20243212.

## Webography

EurActiv.ro. (2005). *TVR recunoaște cenzura* [*TVR recognizes censorship*]. Euroactiv. Retrieved October 29, 2025, from https://www.euractiv.ro/news/tvr-recunoaste-cenzura-59116.

Euronews Romania. (n.d.). *Despre Euronews România*. [*About Euronews Romania*]. Euronews Romania. Retrieved October 29, 2025, from https://www.euronews.ro/despre-noi.

Euronews Romania. (2024a, February 12). *Nicolae Ciucă anunță că PNL va avea candidat propriu la prezidențiale*. "E tot ce poate fi mai sănătos" [*Nicolae Ciucă announces that the PNL will have its own candidate for the presidential election*. "It's the healthiest thing that can happen*]. https://www.euronews.ro/articole/nicolae-ciuca-anunta-ca-pnl-va-avea-candidat-propriu-la-prezidentiale-e-tot-ce-po.

Euronews Romania. (2024b, February 12). *Partidul Național Liberal va avea un candidat propriu la prezidențiale, a anunțat președintele Nicolae Ciucă, cel vehiculat, de altfel, drept [*The National Liberal Party will have its own candidate for the presidential elections, announced the president Nicolae Ciucă, the one*.]*]. [Text, image and hyperlink – https://shorturl.at/PJOnO]. [Post]. This image:
<figure><img src="image_9.png" /></figure>

Euronews Romania

February 12, 2024

<figure><img src="image_10.png" /></figure>

...

Partidul Național Liberal va avea un candidat propriu la prezidențiale, a anunțat preşedintele Nicolae Ciucă, cel vehiculat, de altfel, drept candidatul PNL pentru Cotroceni. Ce a declarat Nicolae Ciucă despre posibilitatea susținerii unui candidat al PSD la prezidențiale:

<figure><img src="image_11.png" /></figure>

i

EURONEWS.RO

Nicolae Ciucă anunță că PNL va avea candidat propriu la prezidențiale. "E tot ce poate fi mai sănătos"

Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/ro.euronews/posts/pfbid02hahjHaYXSnV4sXQ2gzqouCzgUCvqUY4MmPijMDfHKX6dtasy3oPRTbvmiqVHcnb7l.

Newman, N., Fletcher, R., Robertson, C.T., Eddy, K., Kleis Nielsen, R., & Ross Arguedas, A. (2025). *Digital News Report 2025*. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2025

Popescu, G. (2022, December 20). TVR – mator și actant în decembrie 1989 [TVR – witness and actor in December 1989]. România Actualități. Retrieved October 29, 2025, from https://www.romania-actualitat.ro/emisiuni/istorica/tvr-martor-si-actant-in-decembrie-1989-id171735.html.

Reid, L. (2024, May 14). *Generative AI in search: Let Google do the searching for you*. Google Blog. https://blog.google/products/search/generative-ai-google-search-may-2024/.

Romanian Telelvision. (n.d.). *Despre TVR [About TVR]*. Romanian Television. Retrieved October 29, 2025, from http://www.tvr.ro/despre-tvr.html#view.
TVR Info. (2024a, February 7). Protest AUR în București față de comas area alegerilor locale cu alegerile eurparlamentare [AUR protest in Bucharest against the merging of local elections with European Parliament elections]. TVR Info. https://tvrinfo.ro/protest-aur-in-bucuresti-fata-de-comas area-alegerilor-locale-cu-alegerile-europarlamentare/.

TVR Info. (2024b, February 19). Negocierile în coaliție continuă. Marcel Ciolacu și Nicolae Ciucă s-ar fi înțeles, dar au discuții în propriile partide [Coalition negotiations continue. Marcel Ciolacu and Nicolae Ciucă are said to have reached an agreement, but they are having discussions within their own parties]. TVR Info. https://tvrinfo.ro/negocierile-in-coalit ie-continua-marcel-ciolacu-si-nicolae-ciuca-s-ar-fi-inteles-dar-au-di scutii-in-propriile-partide/.

TVR News. (n.d.). TVR Info. Știri de încredere [TVR Info. Trustful news]. [Posts] [Facebook page]. Retrieved October 29, 2025, from https://www.facebook.com/stiri.tvr.ro.

TVR News. (2024, February 7). Protest AUR față de comasarea alegerilor locale cu alegerile europarlamentare, în București. Oamenii au format un cortegiu funerar pentru ceea [AUR protest against the merging of local elections with the European Parliament elections, in Bucharest. People formed a funeral procession for what]. [Text with hyperlink – http://tinyurl.com/ 3cnddeae, and video]. [Post]. Facebook. https://www.facebook.co m/watch/?v=1522335925164626

Vulpe, M. (2024, February 21). Alegeri comasate în iunie pentru europarlamentare și locale. Nicolae Ciucă: E necesar să facem un mic sacrificiu de orgolii [Merged elections in June for the European Parliament and local elections. Nicolae Ciucă: We need to make a small sacrifice of pride]. Euronews Romania. https://www.euronews.ro/articole/comasarea-alegerilor-runda-a-patra-sanse-mici-ca-psd-pnl-sa-ajunga-la-vreo-intele.
Annex

Study's contribution to media convergence and TV journalism research

<table><thead><tr><td>Author</td><td>Method</td><td>Data size</td><td>Main findings</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="3">Erdal, 2009</td><td>Case study</td><td>Data gathering for four weeks in radio and television newsrooms of the Norwegian public service broadcaster – NRK (two weeks in each newsroom, in 2006)</td><td>News content is often partially or entirely adapted for publication on various media platforms.</td></tr><tr><td>Qualitative interviews</td><td>30 semi-structured interviews (with managers, editors reporters)</td><td>Forms of repurposing media content: rhetoric of augmentation/reversioning/recombination</td></tr><tr><td>Content analysis</td><td>Radio and television prime-time news produced by NRK, news stories produced by individuals, JPEGs and videos of top stories on the Web</td><td></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">García-Perdomo, 2020</td><td>Ethnography</td><td>Data gathering in two Colombian televisions – Caracol TV and Citytv (one month in 2016, per case)</td><td>A TV station's web pages and social media accounts could mirror the editorial structure of its traditional newscast.</td></tr><tr><td>Qualitative interviews</td><td>45 in-depth interviews with newsroom managers, directors, editors, and reporters</td><td>Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram serve as platforms for promoting TV programs and sharing news packages that have been clipped from the main bulletins.</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>Facebook Live can be utilized by TV organizations for promotional purposes.</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table><tr><td>González-Neira et al., 2022</td><td>Structural content analysis<br/>Audience behaviour</td><td>The content offered by three TV media groups in Spain (RTVE, Mediaset, Atresmedia) on their 45 YouTube channels, in December 2019<br/>Viewer data gathered between February and May 2020 – the most viewed videos</td><td>There are no parallels between the offer of televisions and what they publish on YouTube<br/>YouTube is a promotional instrument used primarily to reach young users.</td></tr><tr><td>Ségur, 2023</td><td>Dispositional analysis</td><td>An exploratory study of the integration of hashtags and QR codes into TV news by two major television stations in France – TF1 and France 2</td><td>The Internet transforms the news, making it “personalised, delinearised, à la carte”<br/>The use of hashtags and QR codes in TV products such as news reporting allows viewers to share the communicate role with journalists</td></tr><tr><td>Carillion, 2024</td><td>Thematic analysis</td><td>13-month ethnographic study at RTBF (the Belgian Radio Television of the French Community)<br/>- researcher's notes<br/>- 900 pages of internal documents<br/>- 400 pages of external documents<br/>Six semi-structured interviews with stakeholders of the media group</td><td>Algorithms do not reflect the public service values they are meant to embody<br/>Journalists are insufficiently involved in translating their professional values<br/>A de-prioritization of journalistic principles</td></tr><tr><td>Ongoing research</td><td></td><td>27 televised political news shared on the Facebook pages and websites by two 24-news televisions in Romania – one month period in 2024</td><td>The electoral media agenda is reconfigured through dissonance, insertion of hybrid elements (hyperlinks), online fragmentation, redundancy and algorithmic recommendations</td></tr></table>
<table><tr><td></td><td>The digital environment reconfigures traditional TV news practices and, consequently, the role of political television journalists</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Technological developments distance journalists from integrity norms</td></tr></table>

All links were verified by the editors and found to be functioning before the publication of this text in 2025.

## DECLARATION OF CONFLICTING INTERESTS

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

## FUNDING

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this paper.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0