Digital Battleground: Decoding the Media Pulse of Albania’s 2025 Elections

The 2025 Albanian parliamentary elections showed a vibrant, polarized, and digitally driven media landscape, analyzed comprehensively using Pikasa Analytics’ innovative product, Election Scanner. This advanced monitoring tool systematically captured and analyzed daily data from over 4,000 news articles published across 90 Albanian media outlets, along with digital tracking from thousands of profiles and channels on platforms including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

Media Activity and Social Trends

From April to May 2025, Pikasa Analytics identified over 6.5 thousand election-related articles and over 2.7 thousand social media posts, revealing significant trends and thematic developments. Initially, media activity was moderate, averaging 20 to 40 articles per day with limited engagement (~2,000 daily interactions). However, by mid-April, a noticeable spike occurred, particularly on April 13, when articles rose to around 60 per day, accompanied by heightened social media interactions (~4,000 engagements), likely triggered by significant campaign announcements. This period saw intensified coverage of EU integration, economic incentives (notably Prime Minister Rama’s promise of a €650 minimum wage upon EU accession), electoral transparency, and significant attention to international lobbying efforts linked to former U.S. President Donald Trump’s affiliates.

Top Media Outlets and Engagement

The media outlets most prolific in article publication included Vizion Plus (122 articles), Sot News (400 articles), and Ora News (83 articles). However, Syri.net dominates both with over 480 articles and achieved the highest engagement (40к interactions), underscoring its role as a leading platform.

Role of Social Media

Crucially, social media demonstrated powerful influence despite lower overall content volume compared to traditional media. Platforms like TikTok, despite its ban, emerged remarkably potent, averaging 948 interactions per post, far exceeding Facebook and Instagram.

Key Issues and Narratives

This period had significant media attention (over 51k articles) on allegations of election manipulation, polling irregularities, and institutional critiques targeting the Central Election Commission (CEC) and Special Anti-Corruption Structure (SPAK). Issues around digital misinformation and anonymous online manipulations were also prominent. Despite decreased activity post-election, critical scrutiny continued to shape public discourse, questioning the integrity of the electoral process and government legitimacy.

Table: Topic and numbers of articles and total engagements (April-May 2025)

This comprehensive monitoring includes other insights as well:

• Media and public engagement closely mirrored campaign intensity, with media outlets and digital platforms jointly shaping political narratives.
• EU integration and economic promises, corruption, institutional integrity, and international influences were central themes across media platforms.
• Digital engagement, particularly through banned platforms like TikTok, underscored the resilience and subversive capability of online political communication.

Election Scanner by Pikasa Analytics thus provided indispensable insights into the dynamic interplay between media narratives, political strategies, and public engagement, affirming its crucial role in understanding contemporary electoral dynamics.