On May 20, another talk show of “Press Club” cycle, dealing with journalistic ethics, went on “Yerkir Media” TV channel. The weekly TV cycle is produced by Yerevan Press Club with the support of Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

“Press Club” discussed the low quality of popular TV programs, specifically soap operas and entertaining shows. The program discussants, Khoren Beglarian, Director of AGB Nielsen Media Research-Armenia (organization, engaged with TV ratings), and Gevorg Harutyunian, member of the commission on civil society consolidation of the Public Council at the RA President, expressed views as to how media self-regulation can contribute to improving the quality of TV programs. The “Press Club” experts were Nouneh Sarkissian, Managing Director of “Internews” Media Support NGO, Gnel Nalbandian, Chief Editor of “ArmNews” TV channel, film critic Raffi Movsisian, Professor Aneta Yerznkian, Dean of Yerevan State Institute of Cinema and Theatre. YPC President Boris Navasardian hosted the talk show.   

The next “Press Club” will be aired on “Yerkir Media” on Monday, May 27 at 18.00 (rerun - on Saturday, June 1 at 12.00).

Watch “Press Club” of May 20, 2013 here

TELEVISION HAD LOST ITS MONOPOLY ON THE FORMATION OF PUBLIC OPINION

Below is the presentation, “Dominant Trends in the Mass Media in Armenia in 2011-2012”, by Boris NAVASARDIAN, Yerevan Press Club President, made at 9th South Caucasus Media Conference, “From Traditional to Online Media: Best Practices and Perspectives”, organized by the Office of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media on October 11-12, 2012 in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Changes in the media are lately occurring so rapidly and dynamically that a depiction of the static situation as it looks today provides little in terms of understanding the problems. Especially because changes in one dimension, for example, technology, inevitably leave their mark on others - the legislative, political and professional dimensions. Therefore, in my presentation I will try not so much to state the realities at the moment when we Armenian participants left Yerevan for Tbilisi, so much as to describe basic trends, and to bring correctives into the media field even in the hours that we are here meeting and which will define the development of the information space of Armenia in the near term. The determination of trends is like a forecast; it cannot be 100-percent accurate, so certain of my judgments could be debatable.

Since our country is in between election campaigns - parliamentary and presidential - and Georgia is also living with just finished elections, I will start with this topic then. After the spring parliamentary elections in Armenia, the statement “who owns television will win the elections” seems entirely dubious. During the official election campaign, the owners of Armenian television controlled by the  authorities (and the concentration of property here has reached an unprecedented level), essentially rejected the practice of unequal allocation of airtime to candidates and political forces. For the first time in the history of national elections in Armenia, both the YPC monitoring conducted with the support of the OSCE and the European Commission, as well as international observers and even the Armenian opposition testified that during the period of election campaigning, broadcasters largely provided equal opportunities for campaigns.

Of course, it would be a great exaggeration to attribute this phenomenon by the authorities’ good will, although it was their political decision that influenced the television channels’ behavior. Particular significance was given by the international community, above all the European Union, to the quality of these elections, and the importance of evaluations from outside for the political leadership of the Republic of Armenia; hence, the interest of the latter in respectable monitoring results does not fully reveal the reasons for the metamorphosis. A significant factor was the awareness that television had lost its monopoly on the formation of public opinion, and the continuation of ruthless exploitation of this resource for the achievement of desired results in elections could be a futile exercise.

To be sure, during the period between elections, control over television content remains for the authorities a fairly important component of the management of political processes and public sentiments. In the absence of the attention of international organizations, a one-sided and selective coverage of events and opinions, and a deficit of discussion of public-interest problems, are, as before, characteristic traits of Armenian television.

Yet the topic of biased mass media broadcasting nevertheless is gradually losing its urgency. It is possible that this South Caucasus conference will be the last where we will speak of the domination of television as the chief source of information for citizens. Already today, the audience for Armenian Internet news sites is comparable in size to the audience for news programs on Armenian television channels. And the situation is radically changing in favor of the former literally every six months.

In this sense, we need to look at the broadcasting legislation from a somewhat different angle. For a long time, this legislation was the number-one topic in the context of securing freedom and pluralism for Armenian mass media. From the moment the Law  on Television and Radio was passed in 2000, it needed a conceptual re-working. But despite numerous discussions, alternative draft laws proposed by journalists’ organizations, including the Yerevan Press Club and Internews Media Support NGO, PACE resolutions and expert conclusions from OSCE and the Council of Europe, the Law, if it was amended, in fact went in the opposite direction from what was recommended.   

A key problem all this time has remained the bodies intended to regulate and manage broadcasting - the National Commission on Television and Radio (NCTR) and the Council for Public Television and Radio Company (PTRC). Precisely their exceptional dependency on the government became a factor leading to the political monopolization of the airwaves. Several options were proposed to obtain at least relative independence for these bodies. In particular, the possibility was studied of forming them on the basis of independent  civic institutions (on the example of councils of public broadcasters in a number of European countries) - with labor unions, industrial associations, organizations representing various social groups, religious communities and so on. This option could have been seen as the most acceptable, but unfortunately, such institutions in Armenia are either not independent (by virtue of the control over them by the government) or not sustainable (by virtue of the lack of stable sources of existence).

An orientation toward political pluralism in the composition of national regulators could serve as an alternative.  Balancing participation in these bodies of representatives of rival parties (50% from the ruling coalition and 50% from the opposition) would create a definitive basis for making decisions in the interests of the whole society. This model, in some respects similar to what was adopted in Georgia, is possible but has a number of flaws - international experience indicates the undesirability of politicizing bodies that regulate broadcasting and manage public TV and radio. There is no doubt, however that with such a model, Armenian broadcasting media would not be so far from the real and diverse information needs of the society as it is now. And when we acknowledge the rapidly growing role of the Internet in informing the population of Armenia, we have to admit that a significant portion of this audience is television viewers’ discontent with the quality of news and discussion on the airwaves.

However, today, it is evidently already too late to speak about the possibility of a certain independence of the regulators by reflecting among them the pluralism of the Armenian political arena. The opposition in Armenia is so weakened by the lack of resources that it has to survive by attaching themselves to two oligarchic parties. And restoration of real political pluralism now must be tied to the prospects of economic pluralism, when business circles have free resources that are so independent from the government that they can permit themselves the financial support of opposition . But that is a completely different topic and an entirely cloudy prospect.

In other words, thinking about legislative guarantees for an independent broadcasting industry in Armenia today is a big luxury. It remains only to rely on the famous “political will” about which so many speak, like the Abominable Snowman, but which no one believes has ever been seen. Nevertheless, reform of broadcasting legislation, despite the reduction of its strictly political relevance, remains a priority for the media community. For an effective development of this industry in the period of transition to digital broadcasting, civilized procedures and an informed strategy are needed. Meanwhile, since 2006, there has been talk of a conception for digitalization , but no one has ever seen a serious document that first, justifies the selection of standards; second contains a calculation of resources and technological decisions for a national digital broadcasting network;  third, forecasts the long-term expenditures of television companies to use this network; and fourth, proposes a model for subsidies. To be sure, a few years ago, the Ministry of Economics of the Republic of Armenia, which at that period for some reason was involved in broadcasting issues, happily informed the public that Italian specialists, including some from the company Mediaset, would help us in resolving all television problems. These specialists then managed to do some things, but in light of subsequent events around this company, I think no commentary is needed regarding their contribution to the development of the Armenian media industry...

Reforming legislation, when the conceptual issues remain undecided regarding the transition to digital broadcasting is a very complicated task. And nevertheless, these journalists’ associations, together with their partners and with the substantial expert support of the OSCE and Council of Europe, proposed in parliament draft amendments to the Law “On Television and Radio”. In particular, it provided for a whole number of procedures which are now absent, but which would have acquired particular important from the first days of digitalization - the licensing of private multiplex operators, the distribution of channels for these multiplexes, taking into account the public interest in the process of developing the industry, and so on. In connection with the traditional political sensitivity regarding everything that concerns television, there is no reason to expect that the draft will be reviewed in the coming months, as the preparation for the presidential elections is under way.  But we do have certain expectations regarding the spring session of the National Assembly.

A special topic is the Public Broadcaster. In the above-mentioned draft law, there is an article providing for more precise regulation of the activity and accountability of the PTRC, which remains as a unique state institution that does not answer to anyone under the law! Meanwhile, as sad as it is to admit, Public Television in Armenia, never having been established, is now leaving the scene as a significant institution. It was stated above that in the current civic and political realities, legislative guarantees for the independent management of PTRC are practically impossible. Accordingly, the chance that it can propose to its audience in the foreseeable future a diverse and high-quality coverage of current problems is approximately zero. The authorities, for which the so-called state, and then the so-called public television was one of its chief instruments for guaranteeing its self-reproduction is now successfully resolving this problem through controlled private channels. If until recently, PTRC, enjoying the blessings from above, was an aggressive player in the advertising market and implemented commercial projects with no less effectiveness than the leading private television companies, then today ruling  circles are interested in removing it in general from the ranks of business rivals.

It can be supposed that Public Television, no longer needed, will be left to go fallow with what in the Soviet era were called “the creative intelligentsia” that is loyal representatives of culture, literature and art. Under market conditions, they feel themselves deprived not only of material assistance but of attention and honors. For several years now, the representatives of the “creative intelligentsia” have publicly complained of the “coercion of bad taste”, “the undermining of the moral foundations of the nation”, and “insufficient propagation of spiritual values” on Armenian television, and have written letters to the President as well. Their claims are largely founded, but the methods which they propose to correct the situation have the scent of mothballs about them with Soviet-era concepts like “Glavlit” (the Soviet Chief Directorate for Protection of State Secrets in the Press, or censor), “Khudsoviet” (Arts Council) and so on. The Public Council under the Armenian President took  hold of this topic “seriously”. Naturally, private channels that earn money for their owners precisely due to all these “depraved phenomena”, and also extinguish the civic activism of society and its interest in real problems, can hold their own. But, evidently, the upper echelons of government are not opposed to present public television to this still influential sector of the electorate, thus pledging guaranteed support for a certain time. Without advertising, it can fill the airwaves with low-cost broadcasts on just the state budget alone - concerts and shows without commercial pretensions, endlessly long interviews about national culture, domestic films the rights for which do not require the payment of large fees. It does not matter if the broadcasts will have a small audience or that the last modern-thinking professionals will leave PTRC; meanwhile, there will be no worries about the political loyalty of the public channels and their new old heroes.

I will deliberately not dwell in detail on the most traditional of traditional mass media, the paper press in Armenia. Unlike television, it was always if not independent at least pluralistic and reflected the basic contrasts of domestic political life. But numerous economic problems dictated by poor local market and world trends hardly favorable to print media were aggravated in our country by the awful state policy regarding them in the course of 20 years of independence. As originally a  journalist, with most of my experience in newspapers, it pains me to have to admit that there are no prospects even in the near future for the Armenian print press. The only salvation for them is to go on to the Internet and create convergent editorial offices.

Thus, the dominating role of alternative, convergent media in the Armenian information market is inevitable and it will move from the category of forecasts to the category of reality faster than many of us could have imagined at last year’s meeting here in Tbilisi. But that is the topic for another speech, by Manana Aslamazyan, director of the “Alternative Resources in Media" project. I will just briefly touch upon one aspect of social networks (or social media). Their growing role in the life of Armenian society astounds the imagination. It is a question above all of the development by means of social media of “web” civic activism. Environmental protection, urban planning, elections, corruption - this is an incomplete list of the areas where “web” activism has managed to demonstrate itself fully. If you count the most vivid examples of recent months, when the activism of society has brought a specific result, then it is the achievements of “web” activism that prevail, and not the traditional institutionalized segment of civil society which has developed and been nurtured in Armenia for almost two decades.

Meanwhile, the development of social networks as a resource for information for civic activism contains serious risks. There is too little time between signal and action in order to fully evaluate a situation, its background, and its accompanying factors in order to make an accurate decision. Roughly speaking, all the networks activists have “at their disposal” can be drawn upon effectively to save a tree that is going to be cut down, but meanwhile somewhere else an entire forest can be destroyed. I will deliberately cite an example from an area where “web” activism has been the most organized, concentrated around a few competent informal leaders who cannot be so easily disoriented. But even here, and all the more in other spheres where the planting of disinformation, a provocative signal, an initiative of a manipulative nature are all quite possible. Contemporary PR and political technologies are penetrating further into social media, making “web” activism vulnerable, and in recent months in Armenia the attempts to exploit “honest, sincere enthusiasm” for unseemly ends have grown more frequent.

These challenges require a more active participation of professional, responsible players in the information field (journalists, experts, independent representatives of institutionalized civil society) in social media. Their knowledge and ability to analyze and verify signals in combination with the motivations aimed at operational reaction of “web” activists reduce the likelihood of the prevalence of “bad” content and the manipulation of social media. The advancement of such cooperation is a new and promising direction for the activity of media organizations.

The rapidity of the receipt and reaction to information is becoming a new factor in social segmentation. If “web” activists - mainly young people of student age and also a new type of professionals not strictly stuck to their workplace - manage to achieve in this sense incredible speeds and advantages then the representatives of many traditional professions are disadvantaged. I recently had repairs done in my apartment and involuntarily entered into the situation of fairly highly-qualified specialists in their field, for example, plumbers who, although they wish to stay abreast of events and in the thick of public life are falling far behind its pace. The majority of participants of our conferences not only listen to speeches but without stopping, continue in parallel to follow what is happening far from this room thanks to laptops, iPhones and so on. Thus, we and other categories of society for whom “web” activism is accessible conduct ourselves at work, in the student lecture hall even on public transportation. But unlike you, the hands of the plumber are constantly busy during work hours; his gaze is constantly directed at concrete objects; he does not have time for an iPhone... Even a few years ago, a person could calmly, without thinking about anything else, work for eight hours, come home,  have dinner and only later, when he had laid down on the couch, take the remote control of the television in hand or the newspaper. Such a regimen would not mean a significant information delay for him. Today, it would undoubtedly mean this.

And no matter how primitive this sounds, the solution for media, which I recently characterized as almost lost for the Armenian news industry, is radio. At that time, it seemed that radio had finally receded to the musical and entertainment niche. Today, more and more Armenian radio stations broadcast news and talk about serious topics. “ArmRadio FM 107” is the main talking media, although only a year ago, only jazz could be heard on this frequency 24 hours a day. I and many others who love to listen to good music in the car regret this “re-branding”, but the plumber and representatives of dozens of other professions, without distracting from their jobs, obtain the opportunity to listen to news and opinion in a wide spectrum of civic and political topics. Public radio of Armenian has been speaking a great deal. “Yerevan FM” (102.0) successfully combines quality music with quality news, for which it received the Yerevan Press Club prize this year. Moreover, in rebroadcasting the Radio "Liberty", “Yerevan FM” is focused on the high bar of the latter and in its own news shows.

By the way, the return of Armenian radio channels to formats offering civic and political information is largely stipulated precisely by “Radio Liberty” broadcasting. For many years, the Armenian authorities thought up various methods to artificially frustrate the access of this radio station to an Armenian audience. Thank God, this did not work. They had to resort to more civilized forms of attracting radio listeners and stimulate competition to Radio Liberty. Whatever notions were behind this, the audience only gains.

In closing, I would like to cite one more even more convincing “success story” from the life of Armenian media. It is connected to the decriminalization of libel and insult in 2010, which at first was conceived by some of our circles close to the government as a “clever joke”. On the one hand, liability for defamation was moved from criminal to civil law, enabling the praise of international organizations, but on the other hand, it became a “club” for opposition and critical media which saw criminal prosecution as the lesser evil than paying compensation for moral damages. The second half of the concept seemed at first to work - judges began to churn out the maximum amounts of compensation for moral harm to litigators, a selection representing the political and business elite, and several publications were threatened with bankruptcy. But the first part of the plot against disobedient media did not work out - Armenian journalists’ organizations, the press itself, and then after them, the international community began quickly to call things as they in fact were. Cases in the European Court for Human Rights loomed ahead, and all calculations indicated that the “clever joke” had not justified itself. The authorities had to extricate themselves from the unpleasant situation they themselves had created.

In May 2011, at the initiative of the Human Rights Defender of the Republic of Armenia, the Information Disputes Council (IDC) was formed, and both of those from Armenia giving a talk today became members. The expert conclusions of the  IDC on defamation cases in the courts began to really influence law-enforcement practice, and the assistance of the OSCE enabled the establishment of the  IDC on a regular basis. Already by 2012, it could be confidently stated that citizens pursuing the goal not of rehabilitating their name, but only punishing journalists through the pocket ceased to obtain what they wished from the courts. The statute in the Civil Code of the Republic of Armenia on libel and insult did not become a “club” against the media. The number of cases began to drop sharply and the chances of regulation information disputes through extrajudicial means rose, in particular, through appeals to the self-regulation body, Media Ethics Observatory (MEO).

The main problem of this structure, created in 2007 by the media outlets themselves on a voluntary basis at the suggestion of the  YPC was and remains the lack of awareness and understanding of the principles of  operation of the MEO  on the part of citizens. But the most effective form of solving that problem is the televised versions of the review of specific disputes and conflicts of ethics. The production of this show, named “Press Club”, has attracted the attention of a fairly wide audience and raised the interest in the activity of the Media Ethics Observatory and increased the number of complains  to it as alternatives to appeals to the court. Today, the Armenian media community is contemplating how to extend to maximum effect the action of the mechanisms of self-regulation to the Internet, especially since there already is a precedent for review by a court of a lawsuit for insult and dignity on Facebook.

The trends analyzed in this report bear witness to the fact that objective processes in the information sphere of Armenia force the authorities to lose their appetites for restricting freedom of speech. Meanwhile, the effort of the political elite to control the mass media is capable of causing serious damage to the development of certain branches of the media industry as occurred in its day with the print media and is now happening with television. Therefore, consistent and coordinated efforts from the journalist community and international organizations are required to advance progressive approaches in this sphere.

On May 7, at “Henaran” Club, Yerevan Press Club presented the Report (April 7 - May 3, 2013) on monitoring of Armenian broadcast media coverage of the official campaign of Yerevan Council of Elders elections, held on May 5, 2013.

THE MONITORING of Armenian broadcast media coverage of the 2013 elections of the Yerevan Council of Elders is carried out by Yerevan Press Club within the framework of a project on strengthening electoral processes in Armenia in line with international standards, implemented by the OSCE Office in Yerevan and financed by the European Union. The monitoring is conducted in three stages: the first stage covers the period from April 7 to May 3, 2013 (pre-election promotion); the second stage covers the period  from May 4 to May 5, 2013 till 20.00 (the days, when pre-election promotion is prohibited by the electoral legislation); the third stage covers the period of May 5 from 20.00 to May 19, 2013 (coverage of the post-election situation).

THE RESEARCH included 4 national TV channels - First Channel of the Public Television of Armenia (h1), “Yerkir Media”, “Kentron”, Second Armenian TV Channel (h2); one Yerevan TV channel - “ArmNews”, as well as the Public Radio of Armenia and “ArmRadio FM 107” radio channel.

THIS REPORT covers the whole period of pre-election promotion. As it was mentioned in the Interim Report of the monitoring (April 7-24, 2013), the first two and a half weeks of this period “reflected both positive and negative tendencies of Armenian broadcast media coverage of elections, which had appeared through the recent years. In particular, as a positive sign we can mention the absence of discrimination with respect to any of the 7 political forces, taking part in the struggle for places in Yerevan Council of Elders.

At the same time, a major problem is the lack of willingness of Armenian politicians to participate in debates, open discussions on air. Also, some broadcasters are continuing the undesirable practice of using in their editorial coverage the footage prepared by electoral headquarters of political parties, which contains elements of pre-election promotion. As another negative tendency, we can mention the reducing of the role of public service broadcasters in the coverage of elections and political life in general. This factor is particularly relevant in the context of growing politicization of several private TV channels, which, being associated with particular parties, are to some extent implementing a certain information agenda. The latter fact can be assessed in two ways. On the one hand, reflection of different political interests in the broadcast media is a guarantee of pluralism in covering election campaigns. On the other hand, a public resource (the frequency) is, as a matter of fact, used for narrow political purposes, which contradicts the essence of the Armenian legislation. In addition, such situation in Armenian broadcast media field limits the information capacity of the political forces that do not have leverage over broadcasters, while guarantees of a more or less balanced coverage (legislation and monitoring) are present only in the short periods of official pre-election promotion. The same restriction applies to a certain extent to the civil society and independent experts.”

These trends are mostly characteristic for the last 9 days of pre-election promotion, as well. At the same time, it is possible to state that there was no discrimination with regard to 6 out of 7 political forces, taking part in the elections. “Arakelutyun” (“Mission”) party received significantly less attention from the media studied. Of course, this party is less well-known and has less political influence than the other six competitors. However, this cannot be a satisfactory explanation for such a striking disparity in the attention to this and other parties in the airtime of certain broadcasters. This, first of all, refers to the First Channel of the Public Television of Armenia (PTA), where representatives of “Arakelutyun” did not participate in any discussion programmes, particularly “Hartsazruyts” (“Interview”). Meanwhile, the representatives of competing political forces were invited to this programme 2-3 times, each. And, in general, in terms of volume of coverage it is on the PTA First Channel that the largest gap between “Arakelutyun” and other participants of the campaign was recorded.

THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF ACTIVITY in the coverage of the election campaign has been shown by “Kentron” TV channel, followed by "Yerkir Media". In terms of this indicator, volume of airtime, allocated to parties/bloc, “ArmNews” was the third (hereafter for the quantitative data of the monitoring see the tables in YPC Report). In this regard, "Kentron" and "Yerkir Media" regained their leading positions, which belonged to them during the parliamentary elections in 2012, but which they lost during the presidential campaign of 2013. Thus, the assumption of the YPC monitoring group was confirmed, that the interest of these two channels towards the elections to a certain extent is conditioned by the participation of, respectively, the parties "Bargavach Hayastan" ("Prosperous Armenia") and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutyun. The least attention to the elections of the Yerevan Council of Elders was shown by the PTA First Channel and the Public Radio of Armenia. As noted above, the relatively low interest of the Public Television and Radio Company of Armenia towards political processes in the country, in general, can already be considered traditional, and most of all, it refers to TV broadcast of the PTRC.

Of political forces, participating in the elections of the Council of Elders, the most volume of coverage, in terms of aggregate data of all the media studied, was received by "Prosperous Armenia". However, if the indicators of the party bloc "Barev, Yerevan" ("Hello, Yerevan") are added to the coverage of the party "Zharangutyun" ("Heritage"), irrespective of its membership in the bloc and participation in the elections, their cumulative indicators in terms of airtime volume would be even higher, albeit not significantly, than those of "Prosperous Armenia". (Given that "Barev, Yerevan" and "Heritage" are inseparable in the perception of the public, the summation of their indicators within this research was quite justified.) In terms of frequency of references, however, the leader was the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA), which according to the amount of airtime received lagged behind both "Barev, Yerevan"/"Heritage" and "Prosperous Armenia".

On the air of “Kentron” TV channel, “Prosperous Armenia” had an overwhelming advantage before all other participants of the elections. This party is also ahead of its competitors in terms of volume of coverage on the Second Armenian TV Channel (though with a much smaller gap than on “Kentron”). ARF-Dashnaktsutyun received certain, though not very significant, advantage over competitors on “Yerkir Media” TV channel, and RPA received similar advantage on the PTA First Channel. As for the other three media studied, “ArmNews”, “ArmRadio” and Public Radio of Armenia, the highest cumulative indicator was received by “Barev, Yerevan”/”Heritage.

COVERAGE OF THE OFFICIAL, PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES OF THE LEADERS (i.e., the first three persons on the electoral lists, whose names appeared in the ballots) of the political forces, running for seats in the Yerevan Council of Elders, outside of the context of the campaign and their party belonging, was, as a rule, minimal and could not significantly influence the perceptions of the audience. In this capacity, for the period studied, appeared Taron Margarian, the current Mayor of Yerevan and first number of the RPA electoral list, Vardan Oskanian, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia and the first number of the “Prosperous Armenia” electoral list, Armen Yeritsian, RA Minister of Emergency Situations and the first number of “Orinats Yerkir” electoral list, as well as Smbat Lputian, chess grandmaster and the second number of the electoral list of RPA. The most extensive was the coverage of Taron Margarian’s official activities outside of the context of elections in the weekly programme “Mayrakaghak” (“Capital City”), aired on “ArmNews”, which is a product of cooperation of the press service of the City Hall and the TV company. However, this was typical only for the beginning of pre-election promotion.

THE SHARE OF CONNOTATIONAL REFERENCES to political forces, taking part in the elections of the Council of Elders, was almost two times higher than during the parliamentary (2012) and presidential (2013) campaigns: it comprised 5.3% of the aggregate number of references on all the channels studied. This indicates an uncompromising struggle and confirms the claims by the opposition that it viewed Yerevan elections as decisive within the current electoral cycle. If after the parliamentary and even the presidential elections there still was an opportunity to challenge the ruling RPA, after the campaign for the seats to the Council of the Elders the opposition will have to wait four years for the next “big elections”. The intensity of the political competition was bound to influence the information component of the elections and it broke the tendency of mainly neutral coverage of the political life of the country, which had been observed in the course of latest elections. Moreover, the increase in the level of coverage of political forces outside of a neutral context took place mostly during the last 9 days of the pre-election campaign. Throughout these 9 days connotational references comprised 8%, significantly higher than in the 27-day election campaign as a whole.

Characteristically, the highest share of connotational references was recorded on those three TV channels, where advantage in terms of volume of coverage was held by those parties (particularly, “Prosperous Armenia” and ARF-Dashnaktsutyun), which more than the others advocated “a united front” against RPA: on Second Armenian TV Channel -9.9%, “Yerkir Media” - 9%, “Kentron” - 8.8%. In the airtime of other media studied, this indicator was significantly lower than the average indicator of 5.3%. “Yerkir Media” and “Kentron” were united by the fact that it was at their expense that during the last 9 days of the pre-election promotion the degree of confrontation in the information field went up (respectively, 17.3% and 14.6% of connotational references), and in their airtime the coverage of the RPA was especially critical (respectively, 0 positive against 43 negative and 0 positive against 52 negative references - within the whole pre-election promotion). It was the increase in the number of negative references to RPA at the end of the electoral campaign that destroyed the general dynamic of connotationality of references. In this respect, on the Second Armenian TV Channel a different trend was observed: here, through the last 9 days of the pre-election promotion the share of connotational references was reduced to 7.9%.

The most neutral throughout the pre-election promotion was the coverage on the PTA First Channel (2.2% of connotational references) and “ArmNews” (2.4%). The Second Armenian TV Channel was the only one, where number of positive references to political forces was higher than the number of negative ones. And the highest prevalence of negative references over positive ones was recorded on the air of “Kentron” and “Yerkir Media”.

In terms of balance of positive and negative references, the most favourable coverage was received by ARF-Dashnaktsutyun (10 positive and 0 negative references by all the broadcasters studied) and “Prosperous Armenia” (24 and 17). The former received its favourable balance mainly due to “Yerkir Media” (9 and 0), and the latter - due to “Kentron” (12 and 0). Three parties, RPA, “Armenian National Congress” (ANC) and “Orinats Yerkir”, had a negative balance. The most unfavourable was the coverage of the ruling party (28 positive and 153 negative references), which was an unprecedented phenomenon in the history of elections in Armenia. Moreover, the balance of RPA was negative in all media studied. It was formed mostly due to the fact that opposition political forces to a large extent used the airtime they received to criticize the RPA and sometimes paid less attention to their own electoral programmes.

Negative references to the Republicans mostly were related to the deficiencies in the management of the city and the country in general. Also the ruling party was accused of having an intention to falsify the elections. In case of “Prosperous Armenia”, the negative tone of coverage was due to accusations about vote-buying, while positive references were mostly statements, made in its support at election campaign events. Especially often, such statements were heard in the airtime of “Kentron” and the Second Armenian TV Channel. To a certain extent, this was a consequence of using in the editorial coverage of these two channels (as well as on “Yerkir Media”) of the same video materials, which, most probably, had been provided by the electoral headquarters of “Prosperous Armenia” itself. Positive references to “Orinats Yerkir” were mostly heard in the reports about pre-election events, and criticism referred to cooperation with RPA and participation in electoral violations. Favourable balance of references to ARF-Dashnaktsutyun was formed as a result of statements by the voters who said they were going to vote for this party. Negative references to ANC were mostly related not to the pre-election context per se, but to the transformation of the party “Armenian National Movement”, its renaming into “Armenian National Congress” and its April 13, 2013 assembly, which completed that process. Moreover, critical statements towards ANC and its leader, First RA President Levon Ter-Petrosian, were heard from representatives of various political forces.

ANALYSIS OF THE PROGRAMMES OF THE FORMAT “GUEST-IN-STUDIO” confirms that the highest degree of interest towards the election campaign was shown by “Kentron”: almost all of its discussion programmes were devoted to the elections and political processes in general. At the same time, there were no representatives of RPA among the guests of “Kentron”, which should rather be interpreted not as a selective approach of the TV channel to the parties, but as a selective approach of the Republicans to the TV channels. “Yerkir Media”, “ArmNews” and Second Armenian TV Channel also actively used the format “guest-in-studio” for coverage of the campaign. If it were to the programmes of the Public Radio, except the news programmes, it would be impossible to assume that there was an important political campaign taking place in Armenia. The PTA First Channel was significantly more passive than the private TV channels monitored, however, throughout the period studied, representatives of all political forces, running in the elections, except “Arakelutyun”, were invited to its programme “Hartsazruyts”. “ArmRadio” was significantly less interested in the political processes, as compared to the recent presidential election campaign. Like during the presidential campaign, discussion programmes of all broadcasters were rarely turning to independent experts for analysis of the electoral situation.

On April 30, at “Henaran” Club, Yerevan Press Club presented the Interim Report (April 7-24, 2013) on monitoring of Armenian broadcast media coverage of the May 5, 2013 Yerevan Council of Elders elections.

THE MONITORING of Armenian broadcast media coverage of the 2013 elections of the Yerevan Council of Elders is carried out by Yerevan Press Club within the framework of a project on strengthening electoral processes in Armenia in line with international standards, implemented by the OSCE Office in Yerevan and financed by the European Union. The monitoring is conducted in three stages: the first stage covers the period from April 7 to May 3, 2013 (pre-election promotion); the second stage covers the period  from May 4 to May 5, 2013 till 20.00 (the days, when pre-election promotion is prohibited by the electoral legislation); the third stage covers the period of May 5 from 20.00 to May 19, 2013 (coverage of the post-election situation).

THE RESEARCH included 4 national TV channels - First Channel of the Public Television of Armenia (h1), “Yerkir Media”, “Kentron”, Second Armenian TV Channel (h2); one Yerevan TV channel - “ArmNews”, as well as the Public Radio of Armenia and “ArmRadio FM 107” radio channel.

THIS INTERIM REPORT covers the period from April 7 to April 24. The first two and a half weeks of the pre-election promotion have reflected both positive and negative tendencies of Armenian broadcast media coverage of elections, which had appeared through the recent years. In particular, as a positive sign we can mention the absence of discrimination with respect to any of the 7 political forces, taking part in the struggle for places in Yerevan Council of Elders. Throughout the reporting period only “Arakelutyun” (“Mission”) party received significantly less attention from the media studied, but this, most probably, can be explained by the fact that it is less active, less well-known and has less political influence than the other six competitors.

At the same time, a major problem is the lack of willingness of Armenian politicians to participate in debates, open discussions on air. Also, some broadcasters are continuing the undesirable practice of using in their editorial coverage the footage prepared by electoral headquarters of political parties, which contains elements of pre-election promotion. As another negative tendency, we can mention the reducing of the role of public service broadcasters in the coverage of elections and political life in general. This factor is particularly relevant in the context of growing politicization of several private TV channels, which, being associated with particular parties, are to some extent implementing a certain information agenda. The latter fact can be assessed in two ways. On the one hand, reflection of different political interests in the broadcast media is a guarantee of pluralism in covering election campaigns. On the other hand, a public resource (the frequency) is, as a matter of fact, used for narrow political purposes, which contradicts the essence of the Armenian legislation. In addition, such situation in Armenian broadcast media field limits the information capacity of the political forces that do not have leverage over broadcasters, while guarantees of a more or less balanced coverage (legislation and monitoring) are present only in the short periods of official pre-election promotion . The same restriction applies to a certain extent to the civil society and independent experts.

THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF ACTIVITY in the coverage of the election campaign up to this moment has been shown by “Kentron” TV channel, followed by "Yerkir Media" and "ArmNews" (hereafter for the quantitative data of the monitoring see the tables in YPC Interim Report). In this regard, "Kentron" and "Yerkir Media" regained their leading positions, which belonged to them during the parliamentary elections in 2012, but which they lost during the presidential campaign of 2013. Thus, the assumption of the YPC monitoring group was confirmed, that the interest of these two channels towards the elections to a certain extent is conditioned by the participation of, respectively, the parties "Bargavach Hayastan" ("Prosperous Armenia") and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutyun. The least attention to the elections of the Yerevan Council of Elders was shown by the First Channel of the Public Television of Armenia (PTA) and the Public Radio of Armenia. As noted above, the relatively low interest of the Public Television and Radio Company of Armenia towards political processes in the country, in general, can already be considered traditional, and most of all, it refers to TV broadcast of the PTRC.

Of political forces participating in the elections of the Council of Elders, the most volume of coverage, in terms of aggregate data of all the media studied, was received by "Prosperous Armenia". However, if the indicators of the party bloc "Barev, Yerevan" ("Hello, Yerevan") are added to the coverage of the party "Zharangutyun" ("Heritage"), irrespective of its membership in the bloc and participation in the elections, their cumulative indicators would be higher than those of "Prosperous Armenia", both in terms of volume and frequency of coverage. (Given that "Barev, Yerevan" and "Heritage" are inseparable in the perception of the public, the summation of their indicators within this research is quite justified.) In terms of frequency of references, however, the leader is the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA), which according to the amount of airtime received (volume of coverage) lags behind both "Barev, Yerevan"/"Heritage" and "Prosperous Armenia". Indicators of ARF-Dashnaktsutyun, "Orinats Yerkir" party and “Armenian National Congress” party, which are a little behind the first three parties, are quite close to each other. "Arakelutyun", as noted above, both in terms of volume and frequency of coverage, is significantly behind the competitors, which are more familiar to the voters.

On the air of “Kentron” TV channel, “Prosperous Armenia” has an overwhelming advantage before all other participants of the elections. This party is also ahead of its competitors in terms of volume of coverage on the Second Armenian TV Channel (though with a much smaller gap than on “Kentron”). ARF-Dashnaktsutyun received certain, though not very significant, advantage over competitors on “Yerkir Media” TV channel, and RPA received similar advantage on the PTA First Channel. As for the other three media studied, the highest cumulative indicator was received by “Barev, Yerevan”/”Heritage”. Moreover, unlike the Public Radio of Armenia, on “ArmNews” and “ArmRadio” “Barev, Yerevan” would have remained the leader even without adding to its coverage that of “Heritage”. It is interesting that on the Public Radio the coverage of “Heritage” unrelated to the elections was in the period studied even more intensive than the coverage of the bloc “Barev, Yerevan”.

COVERAGE OF THE OFFICIAL, PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES OF THE LEADERS (i.e., the first three persons on the electoral lists, whose names appear in the ballots) of the political forces, running for seats in the Yerevan Council of Elders, outside of the context of the campaign and their party belonging, was, as a rule, minimal and could not significantly influence the perceptions of the audience. In this capacity, for the period studied, sporadically appeared only Vardan Oskanian, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia and the first number of the “Prosperous Armenia” electoral list, Armen Yeritsian, RA Minister of Emergency Situations and the first number of “Orinats Yerkir” electoral list, as well as Smbat Lputian, chess grandmaster, the second number of the electoral list of RPA. The only exception was the coverage of the official activities, unrelated to the elections, of the current Mayor of Yerevan, the first number of the RPA list, Taron Margarian, which influenced the intensity of attention of the broadcasters to the party. In particular, coverage of the Mayor in the weekly programme “Mayrakaghak” (“Capital City”), aired on “ArmNews”, which is a result of cooperation of the press service of the City Hall and the TV company, accounted for almost 20% of the overall airtime of RPA on that TV channel.

THE SHARE OF CONNOTATIONAL REFERENCES to political forces, taking part in the elections of the Council of Elders, has remained more or less on the same level, as during the parliamentary campaign of 2012 (3-4% of the aggregate number of references on all the channels studied). This indicates a tendency of mostly neutral and unbiased coverage of the political life of the country, which has taken a foothold in the course of latest elections. The most neutral coverage was recorded on the PTA First Channel: only 4 connotational references. It could have been possible to speak about a similar unbiased coverage on “ArmNews”, however, there was a relatively high number of connotational references to the RPA: the ruling party received 13 (6 positive and 7 negative) references out of 14 connotational references on the channel. And in general, on the 7 channels studied, the share of connotational references to RPA is significantly above the average indicator (8.6%). For comparison, “Prosperous Armenia” (4.3%) and ANC (3.9%) are behind the Republicans according to this indicator. At the same time, RPA and ANC have a negative balance of connotational references (respectively, 20 positive against 42 negative, and 2 against 12), while “Prosperous Armenia” has a positive balance (20 against 5). This situation can be called unprecedented in the history of elections in Armenia: never before the political force in power has received coverage in such an obvious negative context.

Positive references to RPA are mostly statements praising the current Mayor Taron Margarian (including the above mentioned “Mayrakaghak” programme), and negative references are mostly statements accusing the party of desire to falsify the elections. “Kentron” has been particularly critical towards the Republicans: not a single positive, and 15 negative references. In case of “Prosperous Armenia”, the positive references are mostly statements, made in its support at election campaign events. Especially often, such statements were heard in the airtime of “Kentron” and Second Armenian TV Channel: 8 positive references on each, and no negative references. To a certain extent, this was a consequence of using in the editorial coverage of these two channels (as well as on “Yerkir Media”) of the same video materials, which, most probably, had been provided by the electoral headquarters of “Prosperous Armenia” itself. Negative references to ANC are mostly related not to the pre-election context per se, but to the transformation of the party “Armenian National Movement”, its renaming into “Armenian National Congress” and its April 13, 2013 assembly, which completed that process. Moreover, critical statements towards ANC and its leader, First RA President Levon Ter-Petrosian, were heard from representatives of various political forces. However, at this stage, it is difficult to single out a certain broadcaster that would have been distinguished with being especially critical towards ANC.

ANALYSIS OF THE PROGRAMMES OF THE FORMAT “GUEST-IN-STUDIO” confirms that the highest degree of interest towards the election campaign is shown by “Kentron”: almost all of its discussion programmes were devoted to the elections and political processes in general. At the same time, there were no representatives of RPA among the guests of “Kentron”, which should rather be interpreted not as a selective approach of the TV channel to the parties, but as a selective approach of the Republicans to the TV channels. “Yerkir Media”, “ArmNews” and Second Armenian TV Channel also actively used the format “guest-in-studio” for coverage of the campaign. If it were to the programmes of the Public Radio, except the news programmes, it would be impossible to assume that there is an important political campaign taking place in Armenia. The PTA First Channel was significantly more passive than the private TV channels monitored, however, throughout the period studied, representatives of all political forces, running in the elections, except “Arakelutyun”, were invited to its programme “Hartsazruyts” (“Interview”). “ArmRadio” was significantly less interested in the political processes, as compared to the recent presidential election campaign. Like during the presidential campaign, discussion programmes of all broadcasters are rarely turning to independent experts for analysis of the electoral situation.