Repubblica.it, the online version of the daily, La Repubblica
newspaper, is the preferred Internet reading of Italians (21.4%), according
to a survey by Infocity.
The recent
announcement came as no surprise, considering that newsstand sales of the
Rome-based newspaper reach 500,000 copies a day. What did come as a
surprise, however, was the second place, Affari Italiani.
An online “marketplace” for the sale of new and used items, Affari Italiani
is read, according to the Infocity’s study, by 12.8 percent of those who get their
news and information through Italian Internet sources on a daily basis. Il
Sole 24 Ore Online, another daily newspaper, ranked third with 11.4 percent, while
the popular sports paper, Gazzetta dello Sport Online captured 7.2 percent of
readers, taking the number four spot.
More than 80 percent of those surveyed said that they had full confidence in the
information published in online newspapers, compared to only 4.2 percent that were
extremely cautious about believing what they read over the net.
Also of interest were Italy’s online reading habits, revealed by the survey.
At least 43.4 percent of all Web readers said they look at their preferred online
newspaper at least once a day. Thirty-seven percent confessed to several
connections within any given 24-hour period. And, surprisingly, only 2.2 percent
say that they read an online newspaper only once a week.
And what are Italians reading? Politics (42.5%) took the top ranking,
followed by sports (20%), culture (10%), and technology (7.5%).
