The almost total absence of political actors is perhaps the most relevant finding of our analysis. As a matter of fact, only five out of nine of the considered issues report the presence of political actors: work, migration, environment, tax, and LGBTQIA+. Moreover, the category “political actors” always takes the last position of the players, ranked for the frequency of occurrences: In fact, political actors appear three times in work-related results, three times in the migration dataset, and one time each for the remaining searches—environment, tax, and LGBTQIA+.
Nonetheless, we can observe that political actors have a prominent role with respect to their position in the page result ranking. In work, for instance, the first result output by the query aiutiamo i lavoratori (let us help the workers) is the official website of the Democratic Party (Partito Democratico), while the website of Pietro Ichino, senator for the Democratic Party, appears as the first result for the query “lotta al precariato” and third when searching for “riduzione dell'orario di lavoro a parità di salario.”
In addition to websites, social media pages were found in the datasets: The official Facebook page of Nicola Zingaretti, former Democratic Party secretary, appears as the first result when querying for Italia più umana e sicura. The Twitter account of Matteo Salvini and the Twitter account of his party, Lega Salvini Premier, feature in the second and third position on the page result for stop agli sbarchi. The three remaining occurrences of political actors are as follows: The official Facebook page of current Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who appears as a third result for the query no al matrimonio tra persone dello stesso sesso (topic LGBTQIA+); the Five Star Movement official website, second result of the Google search ridurre l'impatto del trasporto merci (environment); and Massimo Ungaro's website (Italia Viva party), in third position for the query abbassare tasse sul lavoro (Taxes).
Looking at the optimization probability level, we can observe that—with the sole exception of the website of the Democratic Party—the rest of the political actors have been classified as being probably optimized. In particular, Matteo Salvini Twitter account, Lega Salvini Premier Twitter account, and Zingaretti's Facebook page have a high probability of having implemented SEO techniques (i.e., are classified as “most probably optimized”).
Nonetheless, we can observe that political actors have a prominent role with respect to their position in the page result ranking. In work, for instance, the first result output by the query aiutiamo i lavoratori (let us help the workers) is the official website of the Democratic Party (Partito Democratico), while the website of Pietro Ichino, senator for the Democratic Party, appears as the first result for the query “lotta al precariato” and third when searching for “riduzione dell'orario di lavoro a parità di salario.”
In addition to websites, social media pages were found in the datasets: The official Facebook page of Nicola Zingaretti, former Democratic Party secretary, appears as the first result when querying for Italia più umana e sicura. The Twitter account of Matteo Salvini and the Twitter account of his party, Lega Salvini Premier, feature in the second and third position on the page result for stop agli sbarchi. The three remaining occurrences of political actors are as follows: The official Facebook page of current Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who appears as a third result for the query no al matrimonio tra persone dello stesso sesso (topic LGBTQIA+); the Five Star Movement official website, second result of the Google search ridurre l'impatto del trasporto merci (environment); and Massimo Ungaro's website (Italia Viva party), in third position for the query abbassare tasse sul lavoro (Taxes).
Looking at the optimization probability level, we can observe that—with the sole exception of the website of the Democratic Party—the rest of the political actors have been classified as being probably optimized. In particular, Matteo Salvini Twitter account, Lega Salvini Premier Twitter account, and Zingaretti's Facebook page have a high probability of having implemented SEO techniques (i.e., are classified as “most probably optimized”).
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