# How foreigners perceive Italy situation nowadays



## effeundici

Hi everybody,

I'd like to know what picture you're getting about current italian situation by reading your press, watching TV and anything else.

Thank you


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## cuchuflete

Hello effeundici,

Would you be so kind as to explain precisely what you mean by the "current Italian situation"?


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## Alxmrphi

Italy doesn't really get mentioned in our press, I read probably 3 different English news websites a day, and have done for about 2/3 years now (even on holiday I have to!)
For the UK part, of course there is coverage, but not a lot at all...

For example the only time I remember seeing a link on the main page, was when Prodi/B had the new election, or when B introduced his stimulus plan, when the rape cases appeared about 2 months ago (?) and also with Amanda Knox's trial, which was a few weeks ago...

I have an advantage reading both Italian news and English news, spending my days looking up words I find in articles from _La Repubblica_ or _Corriere della Sera_...
I have a big interest in European politics and always go to the Europe section (or if there is a lot going on I'll just go to Euronews instead) and then there will be more articles, but not many compared to that of France/Germany etc...

I think the other thing that will pop up is B's gaffes, like I remember seeing a main-page link to the 'Obama - abbronzato' gaffe... besides that I wouldn't say many people have any idea whatsoever what is going on in Italy..

Obviously with my interest in the language it makes me click all these websites, sometimes to get 'up-to-speed' after only half-understanding the news report on RAI.
I do sometimes wonder if I didn't, would I read those pages? Would they interest me if I wasn't learning Italian?

Now I'm not sure what you mean by '*current Italian situation*', what does it refer to? Politics (piano casa), the ongoing Naples thing (the rubbish) the Amanda Knox trial, or the political standoff with Napolitano after he refused to sign the bill for assisted-suicide after the Eluana Inglaro case, or somethingelse? Or do you just mean _generally what does in in Italy_?


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## effeundici

Nothing precise actually; economical situation, political situation, culture, fashion, sport.

What is striking you most? What is Italy mentioned for in the press, on TV? 



cuchuflete said:


> Hello effeundici,
> 
> Would you be so kind as to explain precisely what you mean by the "current Italian situation"?


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## Alxmrphi

I think the blunt answer is, that it isn't really mentioned, nearly all our news reports are on either England or America and the occasional foreign story if something has happened like a kidnapping or something to do with the war in the middle east...

A quick glance at BBC news, nothing on the main page, not even a single link to a story in the Europe section, plenty of stuff on Russia/France/Germany...


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## tomzenith

To be honest the last time I remember a news story from Italy being big was years back when an exchange student, Meredith Kercher, was killed (in Perugia I think?). I remember it well because I had just headed out to Rome for a similar kind of exchange and I had my mum distraught on the phone to me every day, worrying about me! 

Aside from that, pretty much just what Alex said. I'm sure I've seen a couple of articles in the British press recentl about the Lega Nord, but they were comment things, not front-page stuff.


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## ernest_

There isn't exactly a lot of information over here either.
The last thing I remember was when the government threatened to expel illegal immigrants from the country, which was widely reported and commented in the mainstream media for some time.


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## effeundici

Well, I think it's normal you can't find so much information about Italy in your media; Italy is not USA, China, Russia or Iraq.

However there must be something every now and then; and even that can be interesting to understand the image we are exporting.


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## fffa4lulua

For what I understand, back in Taiwan I rarely heard anything about Italy in news unless there's a exposition of da Vinci coming up. People generally think Italia as one of the beautiful european country that they will never go. And the things that pop into most Taiwanese minds about Italia are the canals of Venice, the Coloseum and buildings of Roman time, Tower of Pisa(?) and spaghetti/pasta (as we call it "Italian noodle")


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## cuchuflete

effeundici said:


> Well, I think it's normal you can't find so much information about Italy in your media; Italy is not USA, China, Russia or Iraq.
> 
> However there must be something every now and then; and even that can be interesting to understand *the image we are exporting*.



Whatever you are exporting, it must be going to import markets other than the U.S.
I see much more about Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez, and Japan, Mexico, Cuba,  than about B and Italy.   

Take my comment as a reference to the more serious print and internet news sources.
I don't own a TV, and don't know what the "popular press" has to say about Italy, if anything.


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## Alxmrphi

Well I was on the bus this morning and there is this free newspaper, and on page 3 there is a big article called "Silvio Berlusconi's G20 photo album" and it had pictures of him and little captions, and a photo of the latest gaffe (where the Queen wanted him to shut up), it was quite funny...
 
Instantly I thought of this thread here, it’s full of sentences like “*Maybe I already left for Italia. Maybe Meesta Obama laugh at me too much. He mucha different to Meesta Bush. I don’t know why but now everybody laugha at me*.”
 
(note the ‘Italian’ speak)
Apparently he was shouting so loud the Queen turned around and scowled at him anyway, another gaffe and therefore a mention in our press! J


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## effeundici

About italian pronounciation of English, check this 
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1320329



Alex_Murphy said:


> Well I was on the bus this morning and there is this free newspaper, and on page 3 there is a big article called "Silvio Berlusconi's G20 photo album" and it had pictures of him and little captions, and a photo of the latest gaffe (where the Queen wanted him to shut up), it was quite funny...
> 
> Instantly I thought of this thread here, it’s full of sentences like “*Maybe I already left for Italia. Maybe Meesta Obama laugh at me too much. He mucha different to Meesta Bush. I don’t know why but now everybody laugha at me*.”
> 
> (note the ‘Italian’ speak)
> Apparently he was shouting so loud the Queen turned around and scowled at him anyway, another gaffe and therefore a mention in our press! J


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## sokol

Well, Berlusconi of course *is *news in Austria, but I guess most Austrians only have a rather blurred concept of Italian politics (most think it is rather chaotic, that's of course an old prejudice).

Apart from politics, what frequently makes the news are African boat people - boats packed with illegal immigrants from Africa which get picked up by Italian coast guards, or which sink as was the case recently when many people died.

And then there's sport - for Austrians of course Italian skiers make the news (and as quite some of them are from Alto Adige/Südtirol - and as Austrian has a bilateral contract concerning the Southern Tyrolean minority in Italy - well, you know what I mean ).
And then of course football, some Italian clubs are quite popular (and a few Austrian kickers play in Italy) and one Italian club regularly has a training camp in Styria during the summer break (I think) which each year makes the news.

Well - that's about it basically; I guess the USA and Barrack Obama are much more in the news in Austria, although Italy is our neighbour.


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## ivanovic77

The last news coming from Italy I heard here in Spain was that of Eluana Englaro and the controversy over euthanasia. The case has been followed closely in Spain.


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## Wilma_Sweden

Most news from Italy are usually connected with football, or rather, Inter/Zlatan Ibrahimovic... 

Apart from that I only remember the odd mention of Berlusconi and chaotic politics in general.

The air crash at Linate airport had a lot of news coverage, presumably because one of the planes involved was Scandinavian, and there were some Swedish casualties.

/Wilma


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## Outsider

This week there was an article in a Portuguese newspaper (I think it was _Expresso_) that mentioned Italy. It talked about how Berlusconi's government has allowed citizen militias to be formed in order to fight crime. The article should be framed in the context of the increase in violent crime in Portugal in recent times.

Having said this, I can't tell you that Italy is much in the spotlight in Portuguese news in general, although Mr. B is certainly a character that stands out.

Oh, how do we perceive Italy?... I think that the Portuguese tend to see it as a country with very similar institutional and economic problems to our own. But you have more fashion and better monuments.


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## Tagarela

Ciao!

Well, Italy here is not mentioned very often on the news. Recently it was mentioned a lot because of a problem between Brazilian and Italian governments regarding Cesare Battisti. I've also seen some news about the growth of right-wing tendencies on Italy, for example, a law that would allow doctors to denounce patients who are ilegal immigrants. Ah, football, of course, is always on the news - also for the fact that half of Brazilian national team today play in Italian teams. 

It's also been said that talking on the mobile phone in wrong places is becoming a problem for Italians


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## TimLA

Being an Italophile, it's perhaps not fair for me to answer this question fully,
but if I take off my "Italophile hat" I can attempt an objective opinion.

There isn't a HUGE amount of press on Italy that Americans would see on daily TV, or in the newspapers.

The big "recent" things are the murders and trials in Perugia.

Over the last year there was the issue about the price of pasta.

The mafia is an overarching story, and the big stories recently (~1-2 years) were the capture of the boss in Corleone, and of course, the book and movie Gomorrah.
Saviano did a big tour throughout the US.

The large numbers of government transitions since WWII are a story that can be heard of, rarely.

Other than those, most of the "stories" are about tourism, very specific products (Ferrari, Gucci, Zegna, etc), and the history of art/architecture.

Perhaps the largest number of stories about "Italy" are actually about The Vatican,
so it depends on your perspective as to the relationship of The Vatican to Italy.


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## phosphore

Honestly, the last news I remember were about problems with mafia in South Italy and rascist laws against Romanian immigrants; however, people in Serbia generally have a very positive attitude towards Italy.


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## Grop

Disclaimer: I don't read the news that much, so what I know about Italy's situation is mostly hearsay.

I live a one-hour drive from Ventimiglia. People here often go to Italia, and generally like Italians, their country and their culture (incidently, low taxes on alcohol and tobacco are also viewed as good ).

When it comes to politics, Italy is generally viewed as corrupted and crazy. Most people I talk politics with (who are mostly left-wing and hostile to the current French government) view Italy's politics as wrong just like France, only worse.

As I said, this is only my impression; other French members may differ.


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## effeundici

TimLA said:


> so it depends on your perspective as to the relationship of The Vatican to Italy.


 
Actually we use to say that "The Pope lives in Rome" and not "The Pope lives in the Vatican State".

I think this can answer your question.


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## Adolfo Afogutu

La televisione sportiva offre abbondanti notizie sul calcio italiano, e anche le trasmissioni in diretta di tre o quattro partite della Serie A ogni fine settimana, di solito quelle della Juve, dell’ Inter e del Milan.
  Gli abbonati alla TV via cavo abbiamo anche il canale internazionale della RAI, dedicato agli italiani all’estero, ma secondo me, è veramente pessimo, per non dire di più.
  Ogni domenica mattina, nella televisione pubblica uruguayana, è possibile guardare un programma che presenta notizie italiane di cultura, attualità e politica, che mi sembra abbastanza buono( specialmente se consideriamo i pochi soldi a disposizione dei produttori di questo programma televisivo).
  Negli altri media, la situazione è, più o meno, la stessa che gli altri compagni hanno segnalato: le perle di saggezza del Cavaliere, informazioni sugli scioperi, il caso di Eluana, tra tante altre. In questi giorni hanno dato ampio spazio alle notizie sul terremoto in Abruzzo, purtroppo molto tristi.


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## sokol

With the recent earthquake there is plenty of coverage now.

And it shows again what prejudices exist here: Austrians in principle have a very positive attitude towards Italy (they like to spend their holidays there, they like to learn the language: Italian is about equally popular as Spanish as a foreign language in Austria, or probably even more popular than Spanish); but when it comes to anything to do with politics, or organisation skills, old prejudices surface.

Like that supposedly houses weren't built earthquake-safe in that region despite the fact that laws exist (but, supposedly, were circumvented), and that supposedly the rescue operation weren't running as smoothly as possible.

I am in no position to evaluate if all this were true, all I say here that this is what you can read in Austrian mass media right now: that the houses that collapsed haven't been safe, and that the rescue operation wasn't organised too well. How do Italians see that, effeundici? Do they perceive this differently?


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## Outsider

I also heard in the news that the houses might not be safe, but because many are very old buildings, preserved for historic reasons.


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## Aserolf

The situation perceived by Mexico is that of a prosper and first world country. 
The Italian artists that venture to hit the public scene in Mexico are usually lucky, such is the case of Laura Paussini and Tiziano Ferro. Although, Tiziano caused controversy some years ago upon declaring that Mexican women were ugly and "bigotonas". I believe this is the only time in which I have seen Mexicans were angry at an Italian. 
As for everything else, it seems to me that Mexicans like Italians and that its people is perceived as very happy and pleasant. 
Personally, I would love to visit Italy and now, with the recent events (about the earthquake), I take this opportunity to send my solidarity to the Italian people and to publicly declare my admiration for their BIG artists.


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## effeundici

Of course we are, to say the least, very puzzled when seeing that a hospital built only 10 years ago collapsed. That was incredible and there will be investigations for sure.

As for rescue operations, I must say that it seems to me that they were carried out very professionally.

Only 48 hours after the earthquake, nobody was anymore under the rubble (alive or, unfortunately, dead).
10.000 people are sleeping in hotels on the coast and many tent camps were set up very quickly.

Thousands of firemen arrived in Abruzzo immediately or the day after with plenty of equipment.

I would not forget the thousands of volunteers enrolled in the "Protezione Civile" who are periodically trained and, when such things occur, leave immediately their houses and their jobs to reach the area of the disaster.

2 guys in my company (I know that every 2-3 months they attend courses and practice subjects like first aid, disaster management, etc) left for Abruzzo the day after the earthquake. 




sokol said:


> With the recent earthquake there is plenty of coverage now.
> 
> And it shows again what prejudices exist here: Austrians in principle have a very positive attitude towards Italy (they like to spend their holidays there, they like to learn the language: Italian is about equally popular as Spanish as a foreign language in Austria, or probably even more popular than Spanish); but when it comes to anything to do with politics, or organisation skills, old prejudices surface.
> 
> Like that supposedly houses weren't built earthquake-safe in that region despite the fact that laws exist (but, supposedly, were circumvented), and that supposedly the rescue operation weren't running as smoothly as possible.
> 
> I am in no position to evaluate if all this were true, all I say here that this is what you can read in Austrian mass media right now: that the houses that collapsed haven't been safe, and that the rescue operation wasn't organised too well. How do Italians see that, effeundici? Do they perceive this differently?


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## Chaska Ñawi

This thread is travelling in a variety of directions, not always related to the first post.  In lieu of heavy-duty pruning, I am leaving the posts in place but closing the thread.

Thank you for your understanding.


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