Italians have firmly rejected Silvio Berlusconi’s plans to revive nuclear power and his right to skip his trial hearings, in a popular referendum which the prime minister had urged voters to boycott.

Two weeks after the people of Milan, Naples and other towns and cities gave him a bloody nose in elections for mayors and local councils, Mr Berlusconi could be forgiven for thinking he has just been hit by a runaway train.

Italian voters seem to have learned the lessons of the local elections. In particular, they may just have rediscovered some faith in their political system – if not in their ageing political leaders.

It has become de rigueur to say it – but the new media have played a key part in this.

The lesson was there for all to see in Milan during the local elections. Across town, images of Mr Berlusconi’s candidate, Letizia Moratti, were splashed across billboards with photoshop-perfected portraits of a woman at the top of her game.

Her party leader himself used his domination of Italian TV to get himself a blitz of relatively tame prime-time interviews.

It did not work. The still fledgling new left used Facebook, Twitter, emails and blogs. Their victory was not just a protest vote – it was a victory of new media over old, in a country where, as everyone knows, the old media are dominated by one man and his family.

[Source]