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Italy – General Report

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Preface

This Report is the outcome of a collaboration among Italian researchers from different universities who have come together after a panel hosted on the occasion of the Italian Political Science Congress (SISP) of September 2019, where Prof. Josef Trappel introduced the MDM 2020 edition and invited us to participate. A team of 14 researchers self-constituted between September and October 2019, gathering different competences, disciplinary approaches and ineterests.

We held one physical meeting to analyse the framework and divide labour (Milan, October 8) and conducted all subsequent activities via regular coordination and exchange via email. A second general meeting was planned in April to revise and discuss the drafted indicators, but due to covid distancing this activity was moved online (zoom meetings: May 25, June 1, June 8).

This project has also been an interesting experience of collaboration between senior and younger researchers. Furthermore, an MDM-related ‘special project’ was carried out in the course ‘International Communication’ offered at the Unversity of Padova between April and June 2020, when a group of 25 students mastered their understanding of media systems and their relation to democratic development on 7 different countries involved in the 2020 edition (Australia, Canada, Chile, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain), engaging with some of the indicators proposed in the MDM framework. the national coordinators for kindly providing answers to students’ questions.

We thank Josef Trappel for his kind and firm coordination;

A big thanks to all the Italian colleagues who have devoted time, shared their knowledge and contributed with enthusiasm, on a voluntary bases, to conduct research, carry out interviews and to elaborate the different indicators included in this Report. We trust this is a productive contribution to the MDM 2020 edition, as well as a ground for future collaborations towards further understanding the wagers of democracy in digitally mediated contexts.

Claudia Padovani

June, 18  2020

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Introduction

Italy is a Southern European country, a peninsula extending into the central Mediterranean Sea, northeast of Tunisia, with a population of 60,359.546 (30,974.780 female, 29,384.766 male). The most inhabited municipalities are Rome (2,856.133), Milan (1,378.689), Naples (959,188) and Turin (875,698)[1].

Italian population includes small clusters of German-, French-, and Slovene-Italians in the north and Albanian-Italians and Greek-Italians in the south; next to the official language, Italy recognises 12 linguistic communities, protected since the Constitutional Charter and fully recognised by the approval of the 1999 “Norms on the Protection of Historical Linguistic Minorities”.

Italy borders Austria, France, Holy See (Vatican City), San Marino, Slovenia, Switzerland. Its geographical position in the Mediterranean has been strategic for centuries in relation to trade, political developments and intercultural exchanges; and today places the country on two of the most important migratory routes: the Mediterranean and the Balkan.

Politically, Italy is a representative democracy in the form of a parliamentary republic. Italian State is organised in a centralised manner, with significant regional decentralisation resulting from the 2001 modification of the Title V of the 1948 Constitution according to which the existing 20 regions have gained more autonomy and specific powers of intervention.

The 18th Italian Legislation was inaugurated following the 2018 general elections, from which emerged a coalition government composed initially by the Five Star Movement and League, which has been enlarged to include the Democratic Party and other minor centre-left parties. The transition from a government in which the two major Italian “populist” forces were represented to a new coalition that excludes the right-wing party was far from painless, but Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, an independent figure close to the Five Stars Movement, guarantees a certain degree of continuity.

International democracy indexes and ranking

According to the V-Dem annual Democracy Report (2019), Italy ranks amongst the top (10%) and the bottom (20-30%) countries with regard, respectively, to the Liberal Democracy Index and the Political Corruption Index, notwithstanding corruption has decreased in the past 10 years.

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Democracy Index (2019) – based on five categories (electoral process and pluralism; the functioning of government; political participation; political culture; and civil liberties) and four types of regime (full democracy, flawed democracy, hybrid regime or authoritarian regime)  – classifies Italy as a ‘flawed democracy’. Italy ranks in the 35th position, reaching the lowest score on record since 2006. This is explained by a high degree of popular discontent with the traditional mainstream parties, which has led to the fragmentation of the political scene, difficulties in government formation and governments’ struggles to remain stable and effective.

Notwithstanding, Italy is rated ‘free’ in Freedom in the World, Freedom House’s annual study of political rights and civil liberties worldwide (rate: 89/100). The most critical indicator is “F. Rule of Law”, because of concerns about judicial corruption, lengthy delays in judicial procedures, reports of excessive use of force by police, discrimination and violence on LGBT people and migrants (Freedom House, 2020).

Gender equality

Gender equality should be considered as a core element in a country’s democratic development. It relates to women’s enjoyment of fundamental rights and freedoms, including the freedom to express themselves and voice concerns, and to their possibility to participate in public life and access managerial and decision making positions, so as to contribute in the governance of a country: all aspects that require specific attention when investigating the media’s democratic performance.

According to the Gender Equality Index of the European Institute for Gender Equality[2], with 63.0 out of 100 points, Italy ranks 14th in the EU on the Gender Equality Index. Between 2005 and 2017, Italy’s score increased by 13.8 points, showing meaningful progress at a faster pace than other EU Member States. Its rank has in fact improved by 12 places since 2005, nevertheless its score remains 4.4 points lower than the EU’s score (67.4).

Italy’s scores are lower than the EU’s scores in all domains, except the domain of health. Gender inequalities are most pronounced in the domains of ‘power’ (47.6 points) and ‘time’ (59.3 points). Italy has also the lowest score of all EU Member States in the domain of ‘work’ (63.1 points). Its highest score is in the domain of ‘health’ (88.7 points). Since 2005, Italy’s scores have improved the most in the domains of ‘knowledge’ (+ 7.1 points) and ‘power’ (+ 31.5 points): since this is the domain where inequalities are higher this result signals the situation was extremely critical in 2005. Challenges remain, beside the ‘power’ domain, also in the domain of ‘time’, where Italy’s progress has stalled (- 0.8 points) since 2005.

Violence against women is both a consequence and cause of persisting gender inequalities in the areas of work, health, money, power, knowledge and time[3]. Italy recorded 76 women victims of intentional homicide by an intimate partner in 2016. The country does not pro­vide data on women victims of intentional homicide by a family member. There were 747 registered women victims of trafficking in human beings in 2016. Italy signed and ratified the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention) in Septem­ber 2013.

The Italian media system

As reported by the Reuters Digital News Report (2019) after the 2018 general election, minor changes in the Italian media environment took place to reflect the new balance of power within Italian politics, while a continuing weakening of the printed newspaper sector can be observed.

As far as the press is concerned, it has always been linked to a political-cultural elite, and its mass diffusion has been somehow anticipated by that of television, which has been the basis of media consumption of Italians for many years, becoming, for the weaker social groups, a real mono-medial culture. The effects of the historical absence of “pure publishers”, and traits of more recent editorial concentration, can be seen in the current ownership structure of both the major print publications and the major radio and television companies.

The most widely read newspapers are Corriere della Sera (whose publisher, Rcs – MediaGroup S.p.a., is a 60% subsidiary of the entrepreneur Urbano Cairo), la Repubblica and La Stampa (by same publisher, GEDI, which also owns three of the major national radio stations – Radio Deejay, Radio Capital and Radio m2o – and whose majority shareholder, CIR, is a holding company active in the automotive and health sectors).

In the television sector, the historic “duopoly” between the Radio and Television Public Service (RAI, a concessionaire whose board of directors consists of seven members, four of whom are appointed by the Chamber and Senate, two by the government and one by the employees’ assembly) and the main private group (Fininvest, founded by the tycoon Silvio Berlusconi and still 44% controlled by the Fininvest holding company of the Berlusconi family), has been “threatened” over the past years by the appearance of new players. These include La7 (a television channel owned by the Cairo Communication group) and Sky Italia (a pay-TV platform published by the English company of the same name).

The ownership structure of the media system is at the basis of the question of conflict of interest which, with the political success of Silvio Berlusconi between 1994 and the first decade of the 2000s, constituted a world-known legal and political case. Since 1997, a Communications Guarantee Authority – AGCOM – has been established. Amongst its tasks are the monitoring of radio and television broadcasting, the protection of political and social pluralism and the verification of compliance with the “par condicio” to all parties and movements in accessing the media.

The Reuters 2019 Report provides a general overview of recent developments and the current situation: while broadcasters’ revenues have been relatively stable from 2013 to 2017, newspapers’ and magazines’ revenues experienced a 21% reduction during the same period. In terms of overall revenue share within the Italian communication system, the main players are the international broadcaster Comcast Corporation/Sky (15%), Berlusconi’s broadcasting group Fininvest/Mediaset (15%), and the public service broadcaster RAI (14%). Other relevant players are the international platforms Google (4%) and Facebook (3%), Cairo Communication (the publisher of the TV channel La7, which also controls Il Corriere della Sera, 4%), and GEDI (the publisher of La Repubblica, La Stampa, and several other local newspapers and radio stations, 3%).4

The online news market is still dominated by legacy players. The websites with the widest online reach are those of established commercial TV broadcasters (the Mediaset’s TgCom24 and SkyTg24), the main newspapers (La Repubblica, Il Corriere della Sera, and Il Fatto Quotidiano), and the main Italian news agency (ANSA). However, 2018 has also been marked by the impressive results of the digital-born outlet Fanpage (an online newspaper based in Naples belonging to the Ciaopeople publishing group and known for its vocation to investigative journalism). Thanks to its effective use of social media, its focus on online videos, and the establishment of large teams of multimedia experts and social media managers, Fanpage is now among the top five online news players in our survey list. Worth mentioning is also CityNews (a local information publishing group based on the logic of participatory journalism and present in regional areas with 50 local editions). Finally, at the end of December 2018, Enrico Mentana, the editor of La7 television newscast, launched Open, a digital-born news outlet that has been widely publicised from the Facebook page of its founder.

International indexes on media freedom and consumption

The World Press Freedom Index (2020) published by Reporters Without Borders (RWB) ranks Italy 41 out of 180 countries (+2 since 2019). The Report underlines some obstacles to full freedom of the press in Italy. Amongst these: the mafia and its acts of intimidations against journalists (20 professionals under full protection by the police because of threats), and verbal and physical attacks journalists undergo from fascists and members of the extremist groups. RWB also warns about some political decisions that could harm the profession, such as the diminution of state subsidies for the media decided during the current legislature.

The Article 19’s Expression Agenda has evaluated Italy on five criteria: civic space (place, physical and legal, where individuals realise their rights), transparency (right of individuals to obtain information from both public and private bodies), digital (freedom of expression and information must be respected and put into legal documents), media (media pluralism and media freedom) and protection (of those defending freedom of information and expression, such as journalists). The overall picture is positive especially in civic space and transparency; the more critical situation being  the digital dimension.  (Freedom of Expression 2019)

In fact, as highlighted by the Freedom House’s comprehensive study of internet freedom around the globe –Freedom on the Net– Italy, with a score of 75 out of 100, lags behind other European countries in terms of overall connectivity, despite several attempts have been made to close the digital divide.

Finally, according to the Digital News Report 2019 commissioned by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism to understand how news is consumed, Italian citizens appear to informed themselves mainly through traditional media. Newspaper readership continues to fall steadily while television news viewership has been more stable than in many other countries. Furthermore, trust in news is particularly low amongst the Italian public (news overall 40%). This longstanding trend is explained as mainly due to the partisan nature of Italian journalism and to the strong influence of political and business interest on news organisation. The only trend that is growing strongly is the use of social media to get information.

Similarly, the most recent CENSIS data[4]confirm the crisis of the print media (50.4% of the total population, mainly in the age group 65 years and over), a substantial stability of television use (94.2% of the total population, with a rather homogeneous distribution by age), and a significant increase in internet use (79.3% of the population, mainly in the age groups between 14-29 and 30-44 years). A data of great interest, reported by the Economic-Statistical Service of AGCOM, concerns the access to information through algorithmic sources (social network sites, search engines, news aggregators and information portals: 54.5% of the population) and editorial sources (websites/apps of newspapers, periodicals, national and local radio and TV, digital native newspapers: 39.4% of the national population)[5].


[1] ISTAT, Resident population January 1st, 2020,  http://dati.istat.it/Index.aspx?QueryId=18462, data retrieved June 15, 2020.

[2] The Gender Equality Index is a tool to measure the progress of gender equality in the EU, developed by EIGE. It gives more visibility to areas that need improvement and ultimately supports policy makers to design more effective gender equality measures. It reveals both progress and setbacks by focusing on 6 core areas or ‘domains’ (work, money, knowledge, time, power and health) and 2 additional domains (violence against women, intersecting inequalities); and includes 31 indicators from 28 European countries). See: https://eige.europa.eu/gender-equality-index/2019/IT.

[3] The domain of violence is not captured in the calculations of the Gender Equality Index. Instead, it is calculated as a separate composite measure of three aspects: prevalence, severity and disclosure of violence against women.

[4] XVI Report on Communication, 2019: https://www.censis.it/comunicazione/16%C2%B0-rapporto-censis-sulla-comunicazione-0.

[5] Report on news consumption, 2018: https://www.agcom.it/documents/10179/9629936/Studio-Ricerca+19-02-2018/72cf58fc-77fc-44ae-b0a6-1d174ac2054f?version=1.0

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COVID-19 Pandemic

Italy has been the first European country in Europe to impose several restrictions on the free circulation of people, schools and universities opening and on economic and commercial activities. 

During the so-called “lockdown” (which in some areas of the country started at the end of February and was partially lifted only at the beginning of June), the TV total audience has considerably increased, both during the day (about +2 million users) and in prime time (about +4 million users). According to the Italian Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), in March and April 2020, 53% of people aged 18-34 years and 50% of people aged 35-54 years have watched TV to a greater extent than in the previous period.

For what concerns newspapers, even if the newsstand sales have decreased (the Italian Government let newsstands open even during the worst phase of the pandemic), according to Comscore, Italian Internet users have considerably increased their visits to newspapers apps and websites; possibly more than other European users (during the first lockdown week +140% compared to a normal week before COVID-19; during the Easter week in April +90% compared to a normal week before COVID-19).

Only radio listeners have decreased, because of the considerable amount of Italians who have a habit of listening to the radio while driving their cars, during the daily commuting to work, completely cleared during the “lockdown” period.

The average daily time spent online by every Internet user has remarkably increased (+3% from February to March 2020, by computer, tablet and smartphone, +16% by computer), even because of the online shift of any classroom (schools and universities) or working activity (smart work and ‘lavoro agile’). In any case, according to the March 2020 Audiweb report, about 25% of the Italian population (two years or older) has still been offline in the average month.

Following the Law Decree n. 18/2020 provisions, the Italian Regulatory Communications Authority (AGCOM) has established four permanent Working Groups (WP) involving the main stakeholders, aimed at sharing proposals and initiatives for managing priorities arising from the current emergency. These WPs are specifically dedicated to: a) Electronic Communication Services and Consumers; b) Postal Services; c) Media Services; d) Online Platforms and Big Data.

At the same time, AGCOM has approved:

(i) a first package of measures addressed to electronic communications networks and services providers aimed at coping with the increase in the consumption of electronic communications services/ traffic on the network, as well as at meeting the needs of the different sectors, in particular the health sector.

(ii) a resolution containing provisions regarding the correctness of information about the coronavirus/COVID-19 topic – with this provision, AGCOM has invited all audiovisual and radio media services to ensure correct and adequate information on the medical emergency, and to provide verified information coming from authoritative sources. At the same time, video sharing platforms were asked to provide measures to counter the spreading of incorrect or not fact-checked news about the COVID-19 issues.

Following this resolution, within the Media Services WP, AGCOM is periodically sharing on its website data about the time dedicated by radio and tv to the topic of COVID-19 in the news and in the current affairs programs and specific tv audience data.

At the same time, within the Online Platforms and Big Data WP, AGCOM is focusing on the implementation of initiatives aimed at contrasting online disinformation on medical and health issues related to COVID-19, even through the collaboration with online platforms themselves. In this context, Facebook has launched a project aimed at tackling disinformation on Whatsapp, in partnership with Facta, the new branch of the Italian fact-checker Pagella Politica.

Furthermore, AGCOM is publishing monthly special issues of its Online Disinformation Observatory specifically dedicated to COVID-19, and has set up a Data Science Task Force on online disinformation, in partnership with research as well as academic institutions.

With regard to Government initiatives, the Under-Secretary of State for Press and Publishing has launched a special COVID-19 Fake News Task Force, involving journalists, fact-checkers, scholars and scientists. Furthermore, following the journalists and (online) publishers’ requests, the most recent Law Decree n. 34/2020 has extended the chance to get a tax credit for advertisers spending in press, radio and tv advertising spaces; it also introduced a specific tax credit for online publishers IT (information technology) expenses, and other measures affecting press distribution and newsstands.

In order to verify the impact of the emergency situation on the role of journalism and editorial routines, we conducted some follow-up interviews with selected leading media representatives. Particularly significant was the testimony of the editor-in-chief of TG1, which highlights four dimensions of impact.

The first, related to the “agenda capacity” of institutional communication and the response in terms of adaptation to media logic: “In terms of awareness, the media moved in sync with the overall perception of the phenomenon, which in turn was determined by the way institutional communication was handled by the government. It was they who dictated the timing to generate the perception of greater or lesser awareness of the risks associated with the pandemic. Two antithetical tendencies emerged: on the one hand, there was a very evident, very strong demand for the restoration of journalistic mediation, all the more so in the face of what has been defined as ‘infodemic’ … on the other hand, however, especially with regard to the specific nature of the television medium, distortions emerged as they were before the arrival of the virus: the logic of infotainment, cannibalization of programming … In ‘Phase 1’ it was rather difficult to distinguish journalistic containers from infotainment ones. Even the pandemic broke into the ‘light entertainment’ programs – we will remember the Sunday (February 23rd, ed.) when the Prime Minister from the Civil Protection Press Office connected with all the television broadcasts on air … all of them, even those that were not necessarily information or infotainment”.

At the crossroads between the need to refer to expert knowledge in times of emergency and the pervasiveness of media logic there is also the second dimension of interest, relating to the role of experts: “Journalism, at least in the first phase, had to rely heavily on what was the mediation by experts – epidemiologists, virologists, infectivologists … The dynamic that accompanied the narration of the pandemic in ‘Phase 1’ was to identify a sort of consultant: each media outlet, each transmission chose one or two experts, trusted their approach … This situation produced loyalty to specific experts, to specific ways of creating attention to the solution of the problem, but it has also brought a very strong distortion … The scientists who have been found to be the most credible are also those who have gone on television … but we know that there are other types of parameters through which to assess the credibility of scientific approaches [other than those] of the logic of dichotomous opposition, of opposition of a hypothesis “b” to a hypothesis “a”, which meets the requirement of controversial journalistic narrative”.

The third dimension highlighted by the editor-in-chief of the TG1 concerns the strengthening of formal measures to combat disinformation, which unfortunately seem to confirm a dimension of “formality” rather than of actual impact on journalistic narrative: “RAI has set up an Observatory on fake news in conjunction with the management of the emergency phase, equipped with a task force that, for the journalistic part, has been and is coordinated by Antonio Di Bella, and that has been a useful opportunity to accelerate on what is an obligation of the service contract, which provides not only for the monitoring of fake news but also campaigns to raise awareness of the television and radio audience on the risk of fake news. Honestly, I do not know what the Observatory has produced so far because nothing has been communicated to us … on the other hand, coordination between networks and newspapers is difficult even under normal conditions”.

The short experiment of integration of citizens’ participation is also on the side of the exceptional enlargement of innovation spaces: “As TG1 we have strengthened the social media management area … this has allowed us to receive more feedback than normal. Then we also used a quite interesting solution, always in Phase 1: we invited viewers to send videos that portrayed them in the dimension of domestic life … in this way contributing to make that little piece of ‘mediated’ public sphere domestically an element of the overall narration of the pandemic”.

The overall picture certainly represents a challenge of great interest: Italian journalism has had to come to terms with a main issue that, by theme and by protagonists, has openly challenged the logic of infotainment and, at the same time, with a renewed centrality of institutional communication with respect to political communication. It has had to accelerate inevitable processes in the “platform society” such as those of contrasting fake news and involving citizens, for the moment without organic consequences. But strategies and tactics adopted in an emergency remain an important innovation for an “innovation of normality”.

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Conclusions

To be completed

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