After having acknowledged the results of the Italian Constitutional referendum during the night of December 4th, many European pundits described the vote as a vote against Europe.
Just for fun (yes, we are weird… for more weirdness visit our website http://www.eliflab.com) we checked if something related to Europe could be traceable analyzing the most viewed pages on Wikipedia Italia from the 21st of November to December 7th, focusing in particular on the pages viewed on the 4th of December.
Spoiler: NO, nothing related to European Union appears among the most viewed pages, but results are quite funny anyway and could well describe the debates Italians were having at the end of the referendum campaign.
From the 21st of November to December 7th the page with the highest number of views (576027) is the one regarding Fidel Castro, who died on November 25th.
Then the reform takes over, with a second place (473364 views) for Consiglio nazionale dell’economia e del lavoro(CNEL), the National Council for Economics and Labour which was supposed to be abolished by the reform.
After that, in 3rd place (401762 views), a moment of glory for Heather Parisi, an American television presenter and a very popular face on the Italian television from the late ’70s to the ’90s, who was back on tv on the 2nd and the 3rd of December, hosting a show together with the Italian showgirl Lorella Cuccarini(whom we can find in 9th place with 284012 views).
4th place for Lapo Elkann the Italian entrepreneur and grandson of Gianni Agnelli, arrested and released on November 27th (375941 views), 5th place for the movie Animali fantastici e dove trovarli (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) (343135 views).
In 6th place we are back to the referendum, with 339190 views there is the page that tells you all about the Matita copiativa (copying pencil), a topic emerged with the controversy initiated by Piero Pelù, a famous italian singer, who asserted that the pencil he was using to vote was erasable and started accusations of vote rigging (the copying pencil is still mandated by law in Italy for elections and referenda).
Going on, we find the Black Friday (337323 views) and the unlucky team Associação Chapecoense de Futebol (286337 views) while the 10th place is for the former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi (252425 views).
Focusing on the 4th of December, results are not very different.
Matita copiativa (again, the copying pencil) is the uncontested first page in the ranking (259156 views in one day!), followed by Heather Parisi (45644 views) and Consiglio nazionale dell’economia e del lavoro (CNEL), the vituperated National Council for Economics and Labour (42858).
In 4th place, there’s the main page about the referendum: Referendum costituzionale del 2016 in Italia (35893 views).
We then find the Italian showgirl Lorella Cuccarini (30990 views), soccer player Gianluca Lapadula (26756), Santa Barbara (whose feast day is on the 4th) with 23610 views, Sully the movie (18961 views), the Italian singer Nada who was on tv on the 4th of December (18053 views) and again Fidel Castro (17122).
To find more pages somehow regarding the referendum, we have to look at the 11th place in the ranking (Exit poll, 17109 views), at the 13th position where we find Costituzione della Repubblica Italiana with 15414 views (the page regarding the Italian Constitution), at the 14th with Referendum costituzionale del 2006 in Italia (a previous constitutional referendum held in Italy in 2006) with 15066 views.
In 16th position there’s the main page describing the Constitutional reform: Riforma costituzionale Renzi-Boschi(14420 views) while in 19th there are the results of the 2013 Elections,Elezioni politiche italiane del 2013 (13100 views).
Matteo Renzi was the 21st most viewed on the 4th of December (12665 views).
47th place for the current Italian Electoral Law: Legge elettorale italiana del 2015(7550 views), on the 48th place we find a general description of the Senate: Senato della Repubblica (7336 views), while a general page on referenda, Referendum (7148 views) is in 50th position.
What were the Italians thinking about when voting on the referendum?
In appearance, many of them were checking if their pencil was erasable, remembering Heather Parisi and studying what the CNEL actually does.
So much for Italexit 🙂
Who
We are Elif Lab, a data company that provides analyses on politics and institutions.
We are also working on a project called ThinkingAbout.EU that analyzes various data coming from the European institutions.
Contact us on our website www.eliflab.com or send a mail to info@eliflab.com