How Do Women Politicians Display Their Online Faith in Social Media? Case study: The Mayor of Bucharest, Gabriela Firea

Abstract

Considering the role of religion in post-communist Romanian society, the relation between politics and religion and the fast expansion of social media, this paper aims to investigate how a woman politician, namely the mayor of Bucharest, the capital city of Romania, uses social media to address religious messages. This paper also studied the online public's reactions and interactions to these messages. The research covers messages from Gabriela Firea's Facebook page, the mayor of Bucharest, and was conducted between the 1st of July and the 31st of December 2018 on quantitative criteria. Two main results emerged from this analysis. The first one is that the mayor of Bucharest uses religious messages to promote herself politically and to gain the sympathy of the electorate. The fact that her religious posts generated the greatest number of interactions contribute to attracting new fans and reward the existing ones. The second main finding of this study was that religious messages generate a large number of reactions and interactions. This paper is part of a wider research work that approaches the triad of feminism, social media (Facebook) and political communication from a multidisciplinary perspective, in order to achieve political performance.