The impact of new media on the public. The Protests in Romania, January 2012

The fourth state power, media, has always had a major influence on the public. Sometimes this impact was decisively in shaping public opinion. This influences went from the broadcasting of shocking news through sending information that led to major state decisions - media always marked individual´s opinions. In fact, an accurate and well documented information arouses all the time reactions although the effects on the public can be strong, limited or weak. Using as example the main three theories of mass communication (the theory of weak effects, the theory of limited effects and the theory of strong effects), this paper is going to present how mass media influenced the current street protest in Romania´s major cities. It all started from a simple information in the press, but was later maintained and handled by the national mass communication channels. This situation is typical for the exercise of media influence on subtle ways with the main goal of getting the desired effect: to continue and enhance the protests which can influence the countries change of leadership. This research wants to demonstrate the major role of mass-media in our society, the fact that press is still a power in modelating people’s mind and actions, using the theories about effects of mass communication and also monitoring and analyzing national media channels during January 2012.